Jim McCulloch

Jim Straight taught me a naughty trick on how to learn where to go to find the Most Happy Yellow Metal. He approached me at a Gold Show, and dropped an awesome chunk of Auriferous quartz into my hand.  "Where do you think this came from?" he asked. 

I answered [Place A]? "Nope. Not there" he answered.

"How about [Place B]? says I.  "No, not there either" came his reply. 

"Okay, it's gotta be [Place C], right?"

"Sorry, Jimmy, your three guesses are up." He then turned to walk away.

"Aren't you going to tell me where it came from?"

"Nope.  But I did learn about three new places to find this kind of stuff. Thanks!"

And, yes,  this a true story. HH Jim 

Since some recent posts have discussed search coils for the Goldmaster 24K, I thought it would be helpful to resurrect this thread. HH Jim 

Mitchell, not only do you need to wear eclipse glasses, but you also need to thoroughly line your hat with aluminum foil, plus wear rubber- soled, nonmetallic shoes. And, no howling at the moon. Also, just when the eclipse totals, sing "Take me to the moon". HH Jim 😁

Dan and Barry, nice posts. There is still plenty of detectable gold in the greater Coolgardie area. "Back in the day " (1900) hundreds of two-man drywasher teams supported themselves, usually working at night. For those persons wishing to try night detecting,  let me emphasize GPS, snake gaiters, LOTS of lamp batteries, and be prepared to dig a lot of rusty screen wire. HH Jim 

I recently heard a reference to a story about an Australian man who found over a million dollars in gold ore in his backyard. Does anyone know if that is true? Thanks!

Speaking of fishing and gold, at a SoCal gold show I sold a GMT to a guy, who, like myself, was an avid Surf Perch fisherman. The sale included my list of Southern California gold nugget areas. A few weeks later I again met him at the Las Vegas show.  He told me that he had given up his regimen of fishing every Sunday.  I asked him "What happened, did you become a communist?" At that he showed me a little over four pounds of the Most Happy Yellow Metal that he had detected over the last eight Sundays. Way cool...

One day, Jimmy Sierra and I were operating a booth at a gold show. Two guys came up, and one asked me for the formula for Aqua Regia. I gave him the formula, and he thanked me. I asked him what he was going to use it for, and he said he was going to use it to burn the quartz off some really nice gold specimens that he had. I told him that was the wrong thing to do, to remove quartz requires Hydrofluoric acid, not Aqua Regia, which would dissolve the gold.

The men began to scorn and belittle me. No matter what I would say, these guys did not listen to me. To them,  I was an idiot.

Suddenly, Jimmy piped up and said to me "Jimmy, Jimmy, you are always getting it wrong. They're right, yes, Aqua Regia is what you use to remove the quartz from gold specimens." He then directed them to the chemical dealer across the aisle, whom he knew stocked the ingredients to make Aqua Regia.

I have often wondered how using Aqua Regia to remove quartz from gold worked out for them... 

Thanks guys. Dick has been gone for 15 years,  Jerry for 8, Jim Straight for 4. They were pals and mentors to many. 

Jerry Burnett was one of my mentors in gold mining. He began gold mining as a small boy. On YouTube look up the "First Class Miners" channel, and scroll to the video showing "Jerry's Historical Gold Prospecting" photos. You'll see Jerry at various ages, plus Dick Delahanty, and some Area 51 Gold. For me, the video is a trip down memory lane.  HH Jim

Dave,  "haunting " is a wonderful way to describe Dale. Every time I recover a rusty boot tack I know that I am walking in the foot steps of a fellow miner that preceded me over a century and a half ago. Heady stuff. And yep, 'ol Bob was a great guy. Far too many of his ilk are no longer with us, Dowie, Doc S., Woody, Ken D., Jerry B., etc. 

The first time that Hawkeye and I met Richard AKA Dick Delahanty was at Pinto Placers. We crested the hill in our truck, and down near the bowl area was a wonderful setup, camper truck, canopy, carpet, easy chair, ice chest, etc. A small man was smoking a pipe, reading a book. Hawkeye said "That guy really knows how to camp". He turned out to become one of my best friends and detecting partners. When he found those 51 oz in a day at Area 51 what happened was he later showed them off at a club outing. His other detecting partner was there, was later shown the spot, and took out 32 oz after he had agreed not to exploit it on his own. That really hurt RD's feelings. The first time he took me to Area 51 was my best day, numerically, for gold. Six hours, 84 pieces. I knew that smoking that pipe was going to kill him one day, and I told him so many times. It did. I lost one of my best friends. Bummer.  

Dave, we only got about 1.5 inches at my place,  probably about the same at RSC to the West.

However,  Palm Springs got slammed. How did your friends in Forest Falls fare? I saw a video of boulders that were the size of small cars being swept along by the flooding there. HH Jim 

Hurricane Hilary is beginning to pound Southern California, with as much as 10 inches of rain predicted for our auriferus mountain and desert areas. I even viewed a broadcast from a NZ TV channel on YouTube detailing what might happen.  Here's hoping that Muy Mucho Oro gets revealed, but with without loss of life. 

The town of Sonora, California, was one of the first of the 1848 mining camps. The headstone of John Paul Dart is one of the most impressive headstones in the Old Sonora cemetery. In his memoirs Dart states that the rendered fat of grizzly bears was the chief cooking fat. He states that "The miners are amusing themselves killing deer and grizzly. One miner got hold of an old grizzly the other day, and vice versa. The bear tore him up pretty bad..."

Northeast, if I encounter grizzly dung that smells like pepper spray, I'm not going to spend time sifting through it searching for bells. 

Easy. Piles of grizzly dung will smell like pepper spray. 

Reminds me of the immortal scene in the movie "Jeremiah Johnson" where the old trapper asks Johnson "Pilgrim, can you skin griz?" 😳 

Norm, ------ ---- gold, buddy! Doing some ----- ----- digging always ----- off! -‐---- for sharing-.

Well done, old son. Perhaps the finest and most informative article you've written to date.  If I was still at "Treasure" magazine it would certainly get published. After 40 years of wearing out my knees digging the Most Happy Yellow Metal, I (k)need all the help I can get. HH Jim

Very probably, yes.

I have a very strong super magnet affixed to the end of my hoe, and once the target is in the cup, I swirl the magnet throughly through the dirt to remove the magnetic materials, magnetite etc., as well as sift the target to the bottom of the cup. This action significantly enhances the signal volume. But then again, removing more and more dirt has the same effect.  My conclusion is that mineralization, soil mass, and target orientation all contribute to signal strength.  However,  I prefer it when a loud signal is indicative of a big nugget! 😏 Hope this helps. HH Jim

Whoo hoo Reese, nice cold gold. 

Ger, please pass along my regards to Keith and Spud, if you kindly will. I wish I was with you guys. 

After reading all of (what little) had been published at the time (1983), and spending several hours practicing in my backyard with my Garrett Groundhog A2B, my first piece of (really choice) high-grade ore came off a tailings pile in Dayton Nevada after 20 minutes detecting.  Totally ruined my life...

Good for her! And she is wearing snakeguards, too, proof that you are a good father.