Gold

[south fork]

A specimen piece I cleaned yesterday.

[Garguy]

Those are so fine. Can you imagine what that vein looked like when the old timers found it.

[south fork]

This part of the vein was so oxidized and covered with mineral I'm not sure they realized they hit the load. All my son's find's are coming off the mine tailings but they make the metal detector scream .

[Garguy]

I would have a loader in there spreading thuse tailings around.

Almost makes you wonder if that vein hit worked completely. Crazy that kind of material could get missed.

[south fork]

When working with candles for light and pick and shovel they missed a lot. And didn't mess with low grade ore or what they thought was low grade they had to haul this rock to be milled no roads just trails. This might be one pocket they dumped over the side time will tell my son is out there today prospecting.

[Garguy]

Is the mine still passable?

[south fork]

There still open but dangerous and deep shafts going straight down unknown depth. Not for us lol working the tailing piles only he found a bear in one of them recently face to face.

[Garguy]

Gold fever made folks fo some crazy stuff. No telling what, or who may still be down there.

[POINT MAN]

How do they get the gold extracted from the material?? I have been debating whether to take my minelab Safari to the creek where I point hunt. It's a full band spectrum
machine and can detect Gold.

[south fork]

It's milled / crushed then separated by concentrating tables and chemicals sometimes. Metal detectors won't pick up the tiny particles, but they love nuggets good luck.

[south fork]

Latest cleanup 114 grams my son is finding less and less but no skunks yet.

[south fork]

A few of the larger pieces my son is leaving as specimens with the host rock. Several of these weigh an ounce or more I'm gently cleaning with a toothbrush after a soak in muriatic acid .

[Sage hen jack]

Wow South!!! Those Quartz/Gold laced finds are amazing. That’s my favorite. During the Gold Rush jewelers in San Fran would make Lapel stick pins ,Watch fobs and other Quartz Gold luxury items. Michael Price’ and Will & Finck’ used it on some of their Fancy California Bowie Knife handles.

[south fork]

Crazy right my son metal detects all over California and Nevada and finds this right here .

[Garguy]

Has he pretty much cleaned it out? This thread makes me smile and my imagination ramble.

[south fork]

The pieces are smaller but no skunks yet. I'll post a photo of what my son is finding now.

[south fork]

Gold and more gold this sample has been crushed and ground in a mortar/ pestle then Panned. No acids or chemicals just a little dish soap then pan again slowing pouring off the suspended oxidized red mud. I'm going to smelt this sample to try free up more gold. Look at the microscopic gold in the scratches in the pan. This just a small pancake sized gold pan used for testing super rich ore, we have a small smelter to fire this to see what else we can recover from this oxidized ore. I forgot to take a photo of the rusty/ black piece before I crushed it

[Garguy]

Super fine powder gold in that.

[Josie]

I’m enjoying this thread, a lot!

[tomf]

When you see the dust cloud rising and headed your way you'll realize you've started the second California gold rush. Great thread and exciting find. So pretty. ..

[south fork]

I was out working on the trail today making it easier for my old self and my quad to get a little closer. Rocks are heavy lol.

[south fork]

My son is still finding bits and pieces when he can get out the old mine is flooded. So, we will never know what's down inside but there's still a lot of waste rock on the piles containing gold. I bought an electric crusher and have been running test pieces and have smelted some gold. Here's some buttons I melted 10 grams worth of gold out of 113 grams of ore .

[Garguy]

Sweet!