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Sell vs Lease a claim ? Any thoughts?

Posted by Robin Galyan on September 25, 2011 at 7:29pm in Questions and other things

I have a claim in Oregon,  20 Ac with a small creek.    It is about 15 miles out from Grants Pass in a good gold are.  It has never been hydrauliced and is nearly all old ancient river bed.     I love the place,  but to get to good pay it will take some big equipment,  file a plan of operation,   and so on.   I have dredged down a few feet but not gotten to bedrock,  and I have no clue how far down it is.  I get some color each time I work it but not a lot and no big stuff yet.    Getting down to bedrock is the key.

 

At my age this seems to large of a task,   so I am considering my options.   Lease it out or sell it.

 

I have no clue what values are on an unproven site like this.   If I sell it should I put it on eBayor pay someone a split to sell it.    ??  

 

Any input would be greatly appreciated !

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Replies

  • Joshua Allen October 21, 2011 at 8:27pm
    If you don't sell or lease the claim, I'd be willing to go out there and help you work the claim next spring if I'm not busy.
  • Jason Adams October 16, 2011 at 12:52pm
    It would be best to stick a few dredges in and get to bedrock, take some buddies out and go to town. Then decide what you want to do. a few feet is not going to tell the story as you mentioned bedrock is the key. And not just getting to bedrock but blasting the bedrock. I found gold in Oregon a little while back now in spots where people had worked but noticed they didnt crack or blast the bedrock and found a pennyweight or two sometimes just being a scavenger in several spots.
  • Jimmy C October 10, 2011 at 9:01pm

    get ahold of gpaa manager  they lease or will buy it

     

  • 2kx4043zo89t4 October 1, 2011 at 2:16pm
    Robert , you are exactly right. For example, here in the state of Washington, state government has already imposed stringent restrictions on recreational prospecting. (Reference the "Gold and Fish" handbook detailing rules and regulations for mineral prospecting and placer mining).  It would not take a lot for the environmental lobby to pressure the state into more regulation or even to go the way of California and ban dredging or prospecting altogether. I cringe when I go out to some of these club claims and see some of the damage caused by careless prospecting . Things like holes dug and not backfilled; streambanks dug out exposing live tree roots; trash left and campfies not extinguished properly.  The environmentalists would go nuts. Unreported income from claim owners would only add fuel to the fire. We need to be careful and protect our rights and not do anything stupid that could be used against us.  OK..time to get off the proverbial soapbox..sorry!
    • Justin Peterson > 2kx4043zo89t4 October 1, 2011 at 9:14pm

      Ok, Not all leases are paying straight money to do it.  Paying a percentage of gold recovered is another means.  I have done it many times to work on a claim.   You don't lose anything besides a percentage of what you recovered.  You have nothing into it.  Many places were known for good color and you can sample to figure out if the deal would be good.    Income is only derived when you sell.  If I have specimens it isn't income.     And Bill like what you say, I don't like the BS that is happening from careless prospecting.   Reason I would want references from mining community about people.   I have done some of my best days this way since I am better at locating pay streaks then most people.

  • 2kx4043zo89t4 October 1, 2011 at 12:01pm
    I don't get this issue either. If you want a place to go mining, join GPAA or the 49'rs or a club like that. It is cheaper by far and some of those claims have some pretty good gold. However, if you have a burning desire to spend your hard earned cash on a lease (if the claim was really productive, why would they tell the world about it by leasing to someone), check out the classifieds in the ICMJ Mining Journal. They have plenty of cliams you can buy or lease. www.icmj.com
    • Robert Murray > 2kx4043zo89t4 October 1, 2011 at 1:38pm

      My concern (the product of watching government FU everything) is that the state government's thirst for revenue will have them looking at small scale mining. Especially if claim holders start generating unreported income from their claims. Let's face the truth here: many, many, many mining claims are really bogus land grabs. The owners of so many of these claims don't actively prospect, although some may have occasionally visited the claim in the years they have "controlled" the property.

       

      I actively worked one of my claims in California for several years. There was no way I could work 3 claims, come on, 6o acres, by one man with a 3” dredge. Anyway dredging was open from May 15 to Sept 15, four months. Five years of working the entire summer I never saw the owner of the adjacent claims. Maybe the answer is to limit the number of claims an individual can own at any one time to ONE. Personally I could live with that. Hell even if I had claim to all of California how much of it could I actually work. All the rest is bull.

       

  • Robert Murray October 1, 2011 at 11:17am

    I'm really trying to get my head around this leasing of a mining claim by private parties.  In the Grants Pass area there are may months of the year when the weather makes working a claim impossible.  I've seen it snowed -in from Cave Junction to Wolf Creek for months. Would someone, anyone, pay a fee for months when the claim is not accessible let alone workable?

    Then there is the tax liability and reporting of income from the lease.  Certainly this lease fee is not "free" money. What are the laws in Oregon covering the leasing of Real Estate? Do you need a business license to legally lease property? If you lease to a business their accountant will almost certainly enter the transaction as a Mining Claim Lease Expense and file without a form 1099-MISC (an almost certain red flag for the IRS) if not supplied by the Lessor. 

    How many more restrictions will be imposed on small scale miners if suddenly there is an interest in unreported income from mining leases?

     

    It's such a complex issue.

     

  • mtau September 30, 2011 at 10:33pm
    Robin: you do have another option; you could take on a partner. There are a lot of young, physically fit, guys that are looking for a claim like yours to work for a percentage.
  • mtau September 30, 2011 at 8:42pm
    Some reading on mine royalityhttp://www.minval.com/royalty_mineral.html  To have an idea of how much gold you have on a claim, you have to test it, as in exploration.                                       
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