Posted on 05/02/2010 3:30:48 AM PDT by One_Upmanship
Gold fever can hit anyone, but when you find a 9-pound nugget like Jim Sanders did on his Nevada County land, the thermometer climbs quickly.
“What's exciting is the potential,” Sanders said recently while standing on the mountain property his family has owned for years. “If I get a mining operation going, we'd have an industry here.”
For security reasons, Sanders and The Union agreed to not divulge the exact location of his land. In addition, he asked that photos for this story did not show his face.
Sanders always thought there might be gold on his property because of the site and its geology. He knew the rocks were from the hydraulic era, and it seemed logical that placer gold might be beneath them.
But Sanders wanted to know for sure, so he had the land assayed for gold by experts using ground radar and metal detectors.
“We did some test pits, and they estimated there was about 3,800 ounces in the first few feet,” Sanders said. “That should increase as we go deeper.”
The San Francisco Bay Area businessman said he was reluctant at first to inform The Union about his find, though the land is remote. But when he thought about the tough economy here and the possible economic impact of a new gold mine, he decided to share the news.
He will offer more information when he starts the permit process for gold mining, he said. The land is filled with stones washed downstream from the hydraulic mining days of the 19th century, and he figures he has a fortune just in decorative rock.
Family ‘patiently excited'
On the day they discovered the 9-pound chunk, “the metal detector went off the charts,” Sanders said.
(Excerpt) Read more at theunion.com ...
After the intensive hydraulic mining in the 19th century you’d be very fortunate indeed to find nuggets at all. Mostly flakes and dust. Still, gold is where you find it! Gold was found there in the past, I’m sure they didn’t get it all.
I have one of those in my basement....not the guy, the jackhammer. My husband is a miner and brought one home to “make a lamp out of it” one day many years ago. I couldn’t break it like Ralphies mom could the leg lamp, but I laughed so hard he never brought it up again.
Jack leg.....sorry.
Hmmmm. I've been hearing ads on the radio lately offering stock in some gold mining operation.
When i said i have no clue i may have been giving myself too much credit. I truly would not know.
OMG! There is no way on God’s green earth that I will ever show him that! He will never let me live it down after laughing at that thing all these years!
Now that i looked at the other photo(the link didn’t appear in the ping) that you so kindly provided that rock was clearly part of another rock at some point in time. there are no smooth looking areas such as we see in the nugget.What we see on that side of the nugget looks nothing like the hygraded gold in your link.
LOL. Better have it insured. It’s worth at least $1600. LOL
(Not your husband. The lamp!)
No, a different one, definitely a speculative venture. I'll have to write down the URL next time I hear it.
We have always said, “There’s gold in them thar hills.”
That is placer gold, the rounded edges show it has traveled a goodly distance from it's source. There is likely more, but it is unlikely to be a mineable lode on the property.
I'm going to call BS on the found 10 foot deep with a detector too. I could believe 4-5, but 10 is a real stretch.
He better research it's value too, a 9lb nugget like that could easily fetch $200,000 or more at auction, possibly more if it has character, or some other signifigance.
Apologies for the size of the image! Yipes!
I know a guy who likes going to the AZ hills to prospect for gold. He spends most of his time at the courthouse ripping off people’s mineral rights. Word spreads through those communities, and he had the crap beaten out of him the last time he went “prospecting.”
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