Gold

[south fork]

My son brought me some ore samples he found metal detecting no visible gold weak signal. But after a little mortar and pestle work some dirty gold, it will go in the smelt jar for refining.

[Overshot]

I’ll buy one of those cool specimens! This is a fantastic thread! Congrats on the finds!

[Tam]

I have some quartz with yellow in them I need to hit with the detector .

[south fork]

I'm always looking at the quartz points I find no luck yet.

[Narrow Way Knapper]

I keep thinking I might find gold in some of the quartz I've been knapping. No luck so far, LOL!

[Josie]

I got to get in the creek for more than one reason. Golds been found in the creek. There’s a mine not too far from here.

[south fork]

It's been way too hot for any mining, but I have a shady spot under the oaks for cleaning ore samples. These started at about 41 grams over an ounce cleaned will be saved as specimen's .

[Tenoch]

Thanks Sr, I'm saving up for a better detector, here are some old mines, but I only have a humble vanquish which has given me some joy. A nox is better than an orx for this

[south fork]

We have a number of detectors, but a Minelab Nox 800 and a Minelab 2300 are the primary go to machines.

[south fork]

Not yet but there's a good collector's market locally if we ever decide to sell. Maybe this winter when the paychecks slow down lol.

[Tenoch]

Sir what detector do you use to search on the tailings? That looks fun

[2ndoldman]

Have you ever looked into selling your specimen pieces? The ones with visible gold amoung the quartz.

[south fork]

A metal detector would have made you a fortune in a short time or at least helped in 1849.

[gregszybala]

If the folks from 1849 could see you and your sons method/s you guys would have been robbed of all your equipment and claim jumped!
Pretty amazing.

[south fork]

It's been way too hot to do any actual mining and my son's workload is overwhelming. So, I'm back to cleaning dirty ore samples in the shade of the Oaks these were metal detector finds off mine dumps. I had these samples soaking in whink and a lot of the finely disseminated particles of gold drop off along with the host rock in the bottom of the plastic jar. I drain off and save the solution then pan the samples in a gold pan pick then out the specimens that need to go back in. All the smalls are collected to be smelted when we have enough to make a button these sample were also soaked in acid first. Then neutralized with a baking soda wash then into whink to try and remove some of the quartz.