It all started Friday last week when Carlos and I were in Helena doing some metal detecting at the fairgrounds. I guess I can no longer be just called 2centgoldless. I got my minelab back Thursday from the repair center and within a short time of detecting I found several pull tabs and 23 cents!!!! Whoop Whoop! 23 cents, I broke to mold folks. But it don't end there my friends!
Saturday was the Lincoln prospecting club tromel at the claim day. So Dave (the guy going to AK with me) and I went up Saturday. I had seen tromels in pictures even stood next to a few at the gold shows but never stood next to a working tromel. Well I was not only able see it working but I was able to help work on it when it went down. At the end of the day we split the fines for everyone who helped. So tonight I was able to run my fines through the goldcube and guess what???? I have several flakes of GOLD!!!!!! There's GOLD in them there hillls!! Hopefully in the next couple days I can get a picture or 2 up but I am also getting ready for my vacation.
OK folks, I believe my AKA2centgoldless needs to be changed??? LOL
Now for the very valuable lessons learned. Make sure when you put your pan of fines down on the ground that you are NOT setting them on top of a rock and spilling them losing most of the pan. Lesson #2, when people tell you NOT to use glass vials as they break. Take it to heart. Tonight when I was in a rush and grabbed my rain coat out of my prospecting tote the glass vial full of my flake fell onto the ceramic tile walkway in front of the house. Pretty sure I lost most of the smaller flakes. But I was able to recover 4 or 5 of the larger ones. Beating my head against the sidewalk!!!!!
Good news is I FOUND GOLD!!!!!!!!!!! Bad news is, apparently I am convinced I need to give it back. LOL
Replies
Nice to hear that someone else has gone through similar "learning" experiences.
When you get that first gold from equipment, it only stokes the gold fever fires, so watch out as more fun is on the way.
All the best,
Lanny
Now you can "prospect on the veranda. You know there's gold in that thar veranda.
And another thing is don't let amatuers handle your gold vial. I heard once that someone poured the gold out in their hand and then put the gold back in the vial, but had some fines left on his hand so he wiped his hand on his pant leg.
heres another no-no to add to the list... for you prospectors with young uns runnin around the house, never let your kids see you "playing" with your gold. came in the kitchen one day to find my daughter (3) pouring what was left of a vial right on the floor. Needless to say i HOPE i got all of it swept back up lol They aint lyin when they say they are watchin everything you do ... dont mind spreadin some gold fever but stay outta Daddy's Gold!
Well it's about freakin time! Yea, you're not a gold virgin anymore!!! You should know that little amount you lost should be considered an offering to the gold gods and that they will reward you with more in the future. OK, we can drop the "goldless" from your name but unfortunately, I'm going to have to replace it with "fumblefingers". Sorry dude, that's the breaks (excuss the pun!)
I am glad you finally got some of the yeller. Lessons are hard learned, but now you will be much wiser for the future hoards of gold you will get from here on.
Mike: "Be one with the snuffer"... What are you some kind of snuffer bottle zen master now? HA, HA! Good advise. I've been hearing praises on the "CUBE" out in the field, you should be a proud papa!
Great story Maurice AKA "23 cents & a little Au". Sorry to hear about the dropping of the vial, when i decided on usin glass vials I worried about maybe droppin one and breakin it. So I keep a 1 oz. vial in a film bottle, and the film bottle goes in my nylon w/drawstring, poke. And my poke holds 5 film bottles.(and I don't need to be hearin about how my vial is empty, I'm workin on that!)
I wont say a word about the empty vial. Not that it was the first thing I noticed or anything LOL. Dont worry mine was empty until last weekend also. I honestly think for the time being I am going to just keep everything in the sucker bottle.
A little snuffer etiquette:
Gold can float in the snuffer bottle. When you squeeze the bottle and the tube and the water level in the bottle are the same, anything floating will be discharged.
In transport:
Squeeze as much water out of the bottle as possible. This will keep you shirt pocket dry and keep the gold in the bottle.
In use:
1. Never discharge the extra water in the bottle away from you, always squirt it in a pan.
2. Get into a habit of the ketchup shake, point the bottle into the pan and give it a couple quick shakes to knock any floating gold down to the neck of the bottle where it is safe.
Be one with the snuffer
Mike
Thank you Mike, I had several pieces of floating gold. I had Dave come and look at it also when I was panning because it just seemed like to much to me. But when it was touched it sank. A couple of pieces had to be touched 2x. Aw come on you dont like the wet pocket look? LOL
I just heard there are a couple of Gold Cubes up cripple river. I will be using them next week!
Congratulations, Maurice!! Glad that you found some color and hate to hear that you lost some of your hard work! I, too, am a novice member of that group but not so unfortunate. I was panning some dirt one evening during my down-time at work and knocked over my OPEN vial. I panicked!! I thought that I had lost everything that I had found to date...which isn't that much as of yet...just a few small flakes and some even smaller flour. Luckily, nothing actually spilled out...just the water that was in the vial to keep it wet for now. Valuable lesson learned none the less!! Good luck on your future expeditions and may you find much more!!
-
1
-
2
-
3
of 3 Next