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


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Question: Is it Claim Jumpers or High Graders, and what’s the difference? Seems like the terms have been reversed from what they historically used to be.

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5 minutes ago, GotAU? said:

Question: Is it Claim Jumpers or High Graders, and what’s the difference? Seems like the terms have been reversed from what they historically used to be.

It's claim jumpers that are high grading gravels. 

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33 minutes ago, GotAU? said:

Question: Is it Claim Jumpers or High Graders, and what’s the difference? Seems like the terms have been reversed from what they historically used to be.

I've always associated the 2 as the same, but I would assume (that's scary at times...assuming) they technically have different meanings.

I too have been informed I was Claim Jumping and it was when I had a detector in hand.  I was able to help the guy with my knowledge of previous discovered gold from many years ago when it was not claimed.  In hind site, I guess I could have claimed it up?

Being a dealer who offers Field Training, I used to have all kinds of areas to detect and train on.  I even had a couple permissions on claims for a few years.  Then when gold prices started breaking over $1000 many of my permissions were taken away.  Some, because of others who actually Claim Jumped and were caught.  A few because the new claim owners felt their claim had serious nugget potential and I could be a threat.  It's really hard to get permission for a group anymore so that's why I stick with Rye Patch for most of the Training.  

Some folks say I should claim an area just to do my Field Training.  I guess I could, but since so many people know me, anything with my name on it would certainly draw attention.  I could be sneaky... my thought is to claim a really good gold area I know of that has more trash than I prefer or care to deal with or hunt.  After some time I'm hoping the majority of folks will get all the surface trash clean up and removed for me.  I can then go in and get all the deep gold most folks seem to miss.

As Steve had mentioned earlier, the majority of folks swinging a gold detector are not much of a threat.  I think it's kind of funny, but true.

 

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5 minutes ago, Gerry in Idaho said:

I've always associated the 2 as the same, but I would assume (that's scary at times...assuming) they technically have different meanings.

I too have been informed I was Claim Jumping and it was when I had a detector in hand.  I was able to help the guy with my knowledge of previous discovered gold from many years ago when it was not claimed.  In hind site, I guess I could have claimed it up?

Being a dealer who offers Field Training, I used to have all kinds of areas to detect and train on.  I even had a couple permissions on claims for a few years.  Then when gold prices started breaking over $1000 many of my permissions were taken away.  Some, because of others who actually Claim Jumped and were caught.  A few because the new claim owners felt their claim had serious nugget potential and I could be a threat.  It's really hard to get permission for a group anymore so that's why I stick with Rye Patch for most of the Training.  

Some folks say I should claim an area just to do my Field Training.  I guess I could, but since so many people know me, anything with my name on it would certainly draw attention.  I could be sneaky... my thought is to claim a really good gold area I know of that has more trash than I prefer or care to deal with or hunt.  After some time I'm hoping the majority of folks will get all the surface trash clean up and removed for me.  I can then go in and get all the deep gold most folks seem to miss.

As Steve had mentioned earlier, the majority of folks swinging a gold detector are not much of a threat.  I think it's kind of funny, but true.

 

Come to our claims. I have 520 acres of them. It's mostly leased but I retain prospector rights on the leases. Bring your crew & just give me 25% of what you find.

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1 minute ago, GhostMiner said:

Come to our claims. I have 520 acres of them. It's mostly leased but I retain prospector rights on the leases. Bring your crew & just give me 25% of what you find.

That's mighty kind of you GhostMiner and I just might do that down the road.  My goal for 2022 is to find Gold with a detector in California and Colorado.

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1 hour ago, Gerry in Idaho said:

That's mighty kind of you GhostMiner and I just might do that down the road.  My goal for 2022 is to find Gold with a detector in California and Colorado.

I know nothing about detecting for gold LOL. It would be great to get a group of experienced people out there and see what they find. How deep can you detect a picker? I've got many tons of hand stacked rock that are probably full of them.

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You being on this forum with your claims and knowledge of mining could be a win win for a group of people.

If you are serious about getting some experienced nugget hunters on your ground, I recommend you have a predetermined amount of people sign up.  Try to get both experienced PI/ZED and VLF users so you have all aspects of detectable gold covered.  Try to make it at least a 2 day event since you have so much ground.

I know for a fact I have helped claim owners in the past by showing them where I was finding gold with my detectors.  I've even had my photos used to help sell claims.

This could be a fun eventful trip for a lucky few folks.

As for as size and depth of pickers, the VLF detectors can find some really small pickers in bedrock, but depth is lacking.  1/10 grain less than an inch and 1/10 of a gram 2 to 3", 1 gram 4 to 8" is possible.

With big detectors, we have found solid nuggets of 2 gram near 18" and bigger gold down over 3 feet.

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2 hours ago, aufarmer said:

I own 8.  Some of them are now 3 or 4 deep in being over filed on.  Used to stress over it but have pretty much given up on dealing with it.  Tired of spending all my time reclaiming other peoples holes to stay out of trouble with the BLM, and now with the BLM on a mission to save the sage grouse (and being in prime sage grouse habitat) it probably won’t matter in a few years anyways.

It's the yellow bellied mountain frog in northern Cal. If you have them in a creek you have a problem. They must be protected. The BLM will accept any filing. However, it has to go through adjudication which can take a year or more. That's where a top filing should be caught. 

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35 minutes ago, Gerry in Idaho said:

You being on this forum with your claims and knowledge of mining could be a win win for a group of people.

If you are serious about getting some experienced nugget hunters on your ground, I recommend you have a predetermined amount of people sign up.  Try to get both experienced PI/ZED and VLF users so you have all aspects of detectable gold covered.  Try to make it at least a 2 day event since you have so much ground.

I know for a fact I have helped claim owners in the past by showing them where I was finding gold with my detectors.  I've even had my photos used to help sell claims.

This could be a fun eventful trip for a lucky few folks.

As for as size and depth of pickers, the VLF detectors can find some really small pickers in bedrock, but depth is lacking.  1/10 grain less than an inch and 1/10 of a gram 2 to 3", 1 gram 4 to 8" is possible.

With big detectors, we have found solid nuggets of 2 gram near 18" and bigger gold down over 3 feet.

DSCN0004.JPG

DSCN0036.JPG

DSCN0011.JPG

Very interesting. We have a number of dumps where the old long toms deposited all the rejects. The old timers lost a lot of gold with the wooden boxes. Might be interesting to have a 2 day event. Maybe i'd catch the detecting bug. 

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Claim Jumping is the act of challenging another locator's prior mineral rights by overclaiming them and challenging their paperwork in court. Claim jumping is traditionally heavily frowned upon by the courts.

Higrading or High Grading is the act of taking minerals from a mineral property without the permission of the owners. Higrading is a problem in virtually all operating mines and it's rampant in small placer operations. Although higrading also applies to uninvited prospectors most convictions are of employees who were caught higrading gold or gemstone operations.

Higrading is theft of minerals. Claim jumping doesn't involve theft of minerals but instead is an attempt to invalidate another's right to the minerals. In essence Claim Jumping is the attempted theft of mineral title.

Here's the most common legal definition of "Claim Jumping":

The location on ground, knowing it to be excess ground, within the staked boundaries of another claim initiated prior thereto, because law governing manner of making location had not been complied with, so that location covers the workings of the prior locators, is what in mining circles is known as “claim jumping.”

https://cite.case.law/nev/42/302/

There used to be a lot of problems with unsavory characters trying to steal claims with paperwork schemes. Some people still try it today to intimidate but they aren't going to be successful in court. The courts really shut all that down years ago. I think that and movies are reason the term "Claim jumping" is so misunderstood today.

 

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