Is Owning A Gold Claim Worth The Headache And Do You Have One?

[Gerry in Idaho]

It seems ever few yrs we get a post on here about folks who own gold claims having issues with Claim Jumpers. 

I'm not saying it's right or wrong to own a gold claim but I sure see issues that I don't want to mess with.  I have friends and customers who own good gold claims and every one of them have caught folks in pursuit of precious metals.  Yes it's ok to drive across, park and even camp on someones claim and I have no issues with that.  I have also ran into a few rough neck who won't allow you to camp or even park on their claim.  I know I'm in the right, but I'm not going to argue and or do I like worrying.  Besides, I am usually the one driving the nicer fancy truck and I know how much it cost to get 4 new tires replaced (not from experience).  I simply turn around and go somewhere else where I feel it's more safe.

There's a guy in NV (won't mention names but he has been on here before) who is so anal about people getting on his claims.  He's called me in times past and swore I was on his claims and in fact I had not been to NV in months.  This guy has blamed my Field Staff being on his claims and even says he flies over and takes pictures.  But yet he has never proven it.  Yes he owns gold claims and a couple of them are really good producers and I have even found gold on his claims (with him being there). 

I feel the stress some folks go through is not worth it and wonder why even own one?  I've come to the conclusion that owning a good or productive gold claim is like marrying a really good looking lady.  There's always someone trying to get in on the poke.

No I don't own any claims and I really don't think I need the stress of always worrying about it either.

If you own one, do you stress over it or are you low key and just roll with it? 

No right or wrong answers.

 

 

[Swegin]

I have a few with others.  I personally don't worry about it but a few of the other guys do but that's them.   I have enough stuff to worry about that is a lot more important then a few grams of gold. 

 

[Gerry in Idaho]

I like your way of thinking.

Now that's out of the way, where's your claim?  I'll only be sure to take a few grams a day.  Just joking 🙃 

[Swifty]

I filed a gold claim in Gold Basin a few years back now. First went to the county and filed (they missed that someone had filed 2 weeks prior) then drove the 90 miles to the blm office and filed with them, then drove back and put up claim posts in the 4 corners and a location post none of which were existing.. It cost $1360 or so for the BLM claim.  One day later I received a call from the person who had filed 2 weeks prior with the County demanding why I had filed over them (checked again with the county and they said oops sorry). I had to apologize, pull up my claim posts, they had not put any, then eat the cost with BLM. It was supposed to end up as a club claim with the club reimbursing me. That never happened. The person who had filed originally offered to sell me one of his claims in the area since he had 17 claims in the area selling on e-bay, he was in that business. I have a good feeling who you're talking about Gerry.

So the answer to your question for me is a big NO!

 

[flakmagnet]

This is probably neither here nor there, but in the mid and late 1800s when mining claims first became the proper way of having a legal and exclusive use of a piece of land to recover minerals, the claimant either lived on, or adjacent to, the land or had live-on caretakers. |
The other aspect of the early days was there was a very swift and specific way that claim jumpers were dealt with that probably helped some.
But that whole way of owning and protecting claims has gone bye the boards.

I don't condone claim jumping - at all…I don't think any of us do,
but there have been times when I've gone onto claimed land by mistake - there was absolutely no indication that the land was claimed - and Federal law specifies claims must be clearly and legibly marked.

Nowadays especially, with people being even more wound up than usual, it becomes a potentially weird situation to confront anyone about almost anything - much less gold in the ground,
but it seems that people who blatantly and clandestinely claim-jump on clearly marked areas are in a special category of selfish criminality and should be dealt with as such.  

[GhostMiner]

I'd like to respond to this question as someone who actualy owns mining claims. I know this was posted as a response to my claim jumper post. First of all, this is the first time in all the years of owning claims i've had an issue like this and rest assured we will resolve it. Our claims have 2 creeks on them & we allow panning. We also don't care about the people who come in with detectors digging holes all over the place and never asking permission. They may be digging up pickers or artifacts, I have no way of  knowing and couldn't care less because that isn't mining. High grading ounces of gold is and that's why I posted my concern.

Anyway, asking whether it's worth owning a mining claim depends on what you are planning on doing with it. If you are just doing recreasional prospecting it may not be worth it. If you are serous about getting gold it may be worth it. When you file a legal claim with the county & BLM you are getting the mineral rights transferred to you by the Federal government who owns them. They are now legally yours as long as you do the yearly filings with the county & BLM. The filings with the county are free but you will need to pay their recording fees each year, The BLM filings can get expensive or they can be cheap depending on the acreage of the claim & what you are doing with the claim or claims. The BLM charges an annual maintenance fee of $165 per 20 acres. So if you own a 40 acre claim that will cost you $330. However, if you are active on your claims working them & improving them then you can file a Small Miners Waiver form. All it requires is that you perform $100 worth of work on your claim each yr. You can price that by the value of anything you put in there as well as the value of your labor. That reduces the annual fee to $15. This is the way the government discourages people who just want to own mining claims and have them sit dormant for yrs. You will also need to pay taxes to the county the claims are in. Our taxes run about $1.15 per acre so it's not a big deal. If you don't do your annual filings the mineral rights will go back to the Federal government. However, since you filed at the county they will still hold you responsible for the taxes until you file a simple one page claim abandonment form with them. Then you are done with the claim.

   Now what would be good reasons to own mining claims? If you were out prospecting and made a significant discovery that could be worth lots of money you may want to lock in those mineral rights. Another reason is if you want to do a commercial operation to make money from the claims. In my case I am the president of a small gold mining exploration & leasing company. I have partners and investors. We go into old placer mine operations and explore them to see what the potential for mining them again might be. We file formal Plans of Operation with the Forest Service & post a reclamation bond. Then we go in with heavy equipment and explore them by running hundreds of cubic yards of gravels & doing valuations. Sometimes we do it by grab samples or bucket samples in more remote locations. It all depends & every situation is unique. I absolutely love what I do. Exploration to me is more fun than mining which gets monotonous. 

   Once we prove the ground we may do some small scale mining ourselves or lease out the claim to someone who wants to mine it with his own Plan of Operation. We always assist the lessee with that. Those can be done at no cost if you are capable of doing them yourself. If you hire someone to do them it gets expensive. We also lease areas of claims for smaller projects to people who want to work ground without heavy equipment. We never ever lease unproven ground. Period. Before you file a claim, lease a claim, or buy a claim, always test it either yourself or find a prospector who knows what he is doing. I could start another thread on green horns who have gold fever and been taken advantage of. It's sad. 

   So there is no simple answer to this question, it depends on your plan for the claim. In our case we have to own the claims and mineral rights. Hopefully this clears up some of the myth about mining claims and why or why not owning one is a good fit for you. Cheers.

[Gerry in Idaho]

GhostMiner,  I appreciate your knowledge, writing skills and answering the question of owning a claim.  You and your team sound like pretty fair, hard working and honest folks.  Just to be clean, I had and or have no intention of trying to smear your issue at all.  I have very good friends who own claims and we have stopped counting how many times we've ran into Claim Jumpers.  Even one guy with an AR-15 strapped to his back (I have pics to prove it), but no need to show the world.

It seems so frustrating for those who try to do the right thing and then find out someone else already filed (as mentioned above).  It also is a business operation to some folks as you mentioned and I know from guys who are in the business.  Then there is the family owned claims for weekend recreation and each has their +/-.

Thanks for adding your input and I am especially glad to see your group allows panning/detecting as the majority of folks doing that couldn't remove enough gold from the site to pay their gas to get there.  That certainly shows true character and realizing most folks are just out on weekends trying to have fun.

Well said.

[GhostMiner]

   Here is one story on what can happen when you buy a claim without doing your homework. A few yrs ago our company made a deal with a guy who had purchased a mining claim from a geologist. The person who purchased the claim was as green as green gets and had a bad case of gold fever. He paid top dollar for the claim and then paid top dolar for a person to put in a Plan of Operation for him. He could have done this himself for nothing with just a little help. Anyway, he had bought $300K worth of equipment to mine with. Problem was he had no crew & owned a business and had little time to mine himself except occasional weekends. So we made a deal to use his equipment for a test on one of our claims after we did a test of his claim.

   We got there and took a look around. It was the remnants of an old hydraulic operation. We did some research. This claim had been mined on multiple occasions. We couldn't find any virgin gravels, just tailings. We asked him if he tested the claim or did any research? He hadn't - just took the person's word who sold him the claim. I asked if he had even walked up the mountain to take a look at all the old workings & what had been done. He said no. The claim was completely mined out. We ran tailings for him which did have a little gold in them but nothing worth mining and paying your costs with. That's one of many horor stories we run into all the time. Be careful out there.

[GhostMiner]

7 minutes ago, Gerry in Idaho said:

GhostMiner,  I appreciate your knowledge, writing skills and answering the question of owning a claim.  You and your team sound like pretty fair, hard working and honest folks.  Just to be clean, I had and or have no intention of trying to smear your issue at all.  I have very good friends who own claims and we have stopped counting how many times we've ran into Claim Jumpers.  Even one guy with an AR-15 strapped to his back (I have pics to prove it), but no need to show the world.

It seems so frustrating for those who try to do the right thing and then find out someone else already filed (as mentioned above).  It also is a business operation to some folks as you mentioned and I know from guys who are in the business.  Then there is the family owned claims for weekend recreation and each has their +/-.

Thanks for adding your input and I am especially glad to see your group allows panning/detecting as the majority of folks doing that couldn't remove enough gold from the site to pay their gas to get there.  That certainly shows true character and realizing most folks are just out on weekends trying to have fun.

Well said.

Thank you Gerry. I never took any offense & welcome the opportunity to post on this issue. I just posted one of the bad stories we ran into. I suppose the mining business is no different than any other, there are good & bad people. I try to treat everyone as I would want to be treated. I remember being green and learning lessons the hard way at times. Cheers.

[Steve Herschbach]

 

3 hours ago, GhostMiner said:

I'd like to respond to this question as someone who actualy owns mining claims.

There are more people here who own claims and know about them than you seem to think. But I appreciate your thoughtful and in-depth answer.

Still sitting on nine in Alaska. Just got the annual lease payment in fact. Claims are a pain in the posterior sometimes, but I made a lot of money, and great memories, with mining claims, so can't complain.