The Reg Wilson Gold Album

[jrbeatty]

Thanks for your reply Reg. Something about the body language in that photo seemed to indicate that you were no longer friends.

[mn90403]

Reg,

Let me get you started with this bit of information.  It says the nugget was discovered by Murray Cox in 1987.

It seems the parties 'involved' can't say much about it.

http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Big-Washington-Nugget-found-to-have-fishy-origin-2355529.php 

Mitchel

[Reg Wilson]

I was made aware of the Washington nugget hoax when Murray phoned me and told me of a story in the Gold Gem and Treasure magazine. Upon purchasing the magazine, I read an article titled 'The one they missed'. There was a photo of the 'Orange Roughie', and a story of how this nugget was found near the town of Washington in Califonia. G G T magazine had done a story some years earlier on the Discovery of the Roughie, but obviously had failed to notice that the two nuggets were in fact the same one.

I contacted a friend who was a well known and respected gold dealer to see if through his American connections we could find out how the Roughie had passed from Rattlesnake John to Saunders Gill who was claiming to be the finder. He was traced to a veterens hospital in Chigago, but due to his advanced years, had little memory of the events of that time. John was a returned soldier who had served in the Pacific in World War two. I had sold the Roughie to John after trying unsuccessfully for two years to find a buyer in Australia.

Researching American news articles revealed that the nugget had been exhibited across the country, creating a great deal of interest, due to the fact that nuggets of that size were extremely rare in California, and amazing that the 'old timers' had missed that one. Saunders Gill had claimed he had found the big slug using new American detector technology which enabled him to find it at a depth of over two meters, where the signal had 'sceamed' at him. The dodgy company that made these detectors were getting exposure, and were widely advertising them, while Saunders Gill was attempting to sell shares in a company to remine his property.

A geologist named Fred Hollibird had examined the nugget and declared it as a genuine example of Californian gold stating that pockets of cemented gravel in the nugget was proof positive that it came from the Blue Lead, as claimed by Saunders Gill. (why he didn't notice the obvious color difference between that lump and other Californian gold is beyond me.) Hollibird, who was in partnership with a man named Kagin, who owned the auction house that sold the nugget for US $460,000, issued a certificate of authenticity.

Meanwhile, Murray had been in contact with George Warren, who had a TV show in America. George had always believed that there was something fishy about the Washington nugget story, but lacked proof until a phone call from Murray. This was manna from heaven for George.who wasted no time blowing the whistle on the whole scam. At first Kagin and Hollibird tried to bluff it out, claiming that we were a pair of Ozzie con men out to try to stooge money out of them.(how would that work?) The idiots had picked the wrong nugget for a scam, as the Roughie had received huge publicity due to the fact that I had found it with a Minelab GT16000 prototype, and the deal that I had with ML was that anything of significance that I found could be used for advertising and promotion.That exercise probably sold thousands of detectors for Minelab.

Eventually Hollibird had to admit that the nugget was indeed Australian, and then claimed that he had been a victim. Kagin said that the money from the sale was refunded and the nugget resold. Saunders Gill went into hiding and the detector mob quickly withdrew all advertising. At the end of it all no one was charged with fraud, and the story just fizzled out, leaving history slightly rewritten as to the original finder and seller.

I shall leave it to the reader to deduce who the liers and crooks were.

[jrbeatty]

Just to be crystal clear Reg, I understand from the contemporary newspaper reports that the guy who "rebirthed" the "Roughie" was called Jim Sanders.

Was he also called Saunders Gill? And by Holliburd you mean Holabird, right?

[Reg Wilson]

JR, sorry about the spelling, and you are correct about Holabird. I was just trusting to memory on the spelling of his name, but Sanders was known by two names, and it may have been Sanders Gill, although I thought it was Saunders Gill. A bit of 'googling' would probably sort the matter out.

There are a couple more interesting and rather twisting  tales that can be told in relation to the Orange Roughie, but I shall hold forth until I am sure the readers would be interested.

[jrbeatty]

5 hours ago, Reg Wilson said:

- - the Roughie had received huge publicity due to the fact that I had found it with a Minelab GT16000 prototype, and the deal that I had with ML was that anything of significance that I found could be used for advertising and promotion.That exercise probably sold thousands of detectors for Minelab.

Certainly sold one to me! 

16 minutes ago, Reg Wilson said:

There are a couple more interesting and rather twisted tales that can be told in relation to the Orange Roughie, but I shall hold forth until I am sure the readers would be interested.

You have this readers complete and undivided attention - - -

[47 Grammer]

What a story Reg and fantastic reading.What I would give to sit around a campfire with you and JR, cant wait for the next installment

 

[Ashley100456]

Wow !  Fantastic post, Thanks Reg & JR.  Many many untold stories from that nugget photo collection, What a book it would be !

Cheers

Ashley

 

[Reg Wilson]

There were a couple of interesting post scripts to the Orange Roughie saga, and at risk of boring the readers of this forum I shall relate them, beginning with the bulldozing episode.

When it was realized that the extent of the patch was significant, we decided that it would be prudent to 'peg' the area. Rather than put a lease over it (the patch eventually measured 740 meters by 360 meters) we opted for four 'miners right' claims which we hoped would cover the auriferous ground. There was one claim in Murray's name, one in John Carr's name, one in Marlene Carr's name and one in mine. We hoped there would be some deeper ground where a scrape might yield gold beyond the depth that the 16000s could normally reach. When I had dug the Roughie at a depth of a bit over twenty inches, I detected the dirt before I back filled the hole, and low and behold there was a small color of a couple of grams in the heap. This gave the impression that there would be loads of small gold scattered across the patch that we just were not able to detect without scraping. The fact that the gold detected to that stage was mainly large (about 200 bits for 300 ozs) seemed to indicate that there would be perhaps that much more again in small colors. It seemed logical.

At that time I owned a Drott equipped with a four way bucket at one end (with the bucket open it would scrape quite well) and a backhoe at the other (most handy for taking a costean to check depth to bedrock). We agreed on a three way split after the landowners cut. One share for Murray, one share for me, and one share for the dozer to cover repairs, wear and tear etc. Murray and I would split the fuel costs. This is a fairly common arrangement among prospectors, and saves having to hire equipment when one partner already has a machine. I was to do the machine operating, and Murray the detecting.

Unbelievably, after scraping and rehabilitating a huge area only a bit over ten ounces was recovered. It seems those prototype 16000s did a mighty job the first time round, and the ground was shallow enough for them to penetrate to most of the gold. Needless to say, we felt a bit ripped off, and had we hired a dozer we would have suffered a big loss as the whole exercise took a number of weeks to complete. I then sold the Drott, and took a bit of a hit financially. From my point, it would have been better not to have bothered with the claims at all.

[vanursepaul]

That dang logic...... hahahahaha...

Good story and I have seen it played out in NV and CA...Where did it go????? lol