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I like stories like this. A California couple is out walking their dog on their property and the wife decides to look at old rusty can eroding out of the ground. The can is full of gold coins! Several more cans are found and they end up containing 1,427 rare gold coins, dating from 1847 to 1894. All in more or less mint condition and worth a fortune. And all just over the hill from me in Northern California. I really am hot to find a gold coin one of these days; been on my bucket list for a long time, and I am finally someplace where the odds are pretty good. http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Gold-Country-couple-discovers-millions-in-buried-5266314.php?gfs http://www.kaginsinc.com/coins/?p=672 http://www.kaginsinc.com/coins/?p=678

There were amazing finds made at Ganes Creek, Alaska in the early years of the pay-to-mine operation there. One of the early visitors in 2004 was Steve Burris of Idaho. Steve was hunting downstream of the airstrip in an area well known to have produced large nuggets in the old mining days. His Gold Bug 2 screamed as loud as a Gold Bug can scream, and when he looked down a dust covered yellowish rock lay at his feet. It was a huge gold nugget weighing 33.85 ounces, and to my knowledge it is to this day the largest gold nugget* ever found in Alaska with a metal detector, though the 32.2 ounce nugget found at Moore Creek may have had more actual gold content. The backside of this nugget is actually mostly quartz showing. Still, a very spectacular find. Here is a photo I took of the nugget in my hand when Steve was kind enough to bring it by the shop to show to me. It is the best photo I have seen of the nugget and I do not think I have ever posted it before. Heart of Gold found by Steve Burris of Idaho at Ganes Creek, Alaska Steve named the nugget the Heart of Gold due to its shape when looked at right and the fact he had open heart surgery not long before visiting Ganes Creek. Steve is a super nice guy and I had the pleasure of rooming with him and detecting on later Ganes Creek visits. Here is a photo of Steve during our visit to Ganes Creek in the last year of operation in 2012. He was swinging a Minelab X-Terra 705 that year that got him a 2.74 ounce nugget. Steve Burris at Ganes Creek, Alaska in 2012 Steve wrote a story for the ICMJ Prospecting & Mining Journal that was published in August 2004 and can be read online at http://www.icmj.com/article.php?id=1248 if you have an online subscription. *There have been several larger gold specimens found in Alaska with metal detectors but they were mostly quartz. See http://www.akmining.biz/mine/nuggets.htm