GotAU?

For those that forgot to bring their topographic maps and want to try to find a position written in PLSS using Lat Long, this is a useful website with several geographic tools: https://libguides.lib.msu.edu/c.php?g=95495&p=623951

Just found this explaining different ways in California that the possessory interest value can be determined depending on the commodity: https://assessor.lacounty.gov/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/E-291.pdf

Clay, this is an excellent and very well written description of how claims are taxed and the background behind the process. You could use what you've written here for an informative piece on the MLM site as well. Thank you for the description, even a newby like me understands a lot more about it now. One question if you don’t mind, you mentioned that possessory interest is based on the minerals, is that based on reported annual mineral recovery records or by a standard estimate based on the in situ minerals on the claim?

That’s not a bad idea, that and other types of artifacts. Some guys are really into tolken hunting, The various bars and houses of ill repute used to pass those out to their customers, sort of like the fake quarters you get at the game places. And then there’s all the Civil War and other historic site buffs.

Hey Jim, I think I figured it out. Based on the California board of equalization, and this is different for various states, unpatented mine claims are included as “Taxable possessory interests”, and are based on the market value of the claim. It’s interesting that in Oregon there’s a public law that prohibits taxation of unpatented claims, but not so in California. This describes California taxable possessory interest: https://www.boe.ca.gov/proptaxes/pdf/ah510.pdf This is a letter from the board of equalization answering a question regarding taxable possessory interest statu

I believe unpatented claims are federal land, so why are they considered as private property and taxable by the counties in any state, including here in California? Is it a property tax or assessment for something like a buiness tax? I’m new to claims and am not sure what the typical county tax fees are that I would be facing if I wanted to stake one here in So Cal on BLM land. Also, how do the counties assess the value for determining the fees for the taxes?

That’s impressive sleuthing! Whenever my wife’s work (she’s an archaeologist) runs into obscure land descriptions that use geographic points like yours that are long gone for benchmarks, sometimes Sanborn maps help. They located the foundation and walls to a Spanish mission annex building using the description of where it was in a old document describing the building it was next to in town.

Clay, curious- so do you use an automated method of scanning and converting the location descriptions of claims from BLM records to geographic coordinates on MLM, or do you have to code those manually? I used to work for a cartographic company, and manually coding information from legal land documents for GIS was excruciatingly slow. I am impressed by the work you have done on the site!

Jim, I can see APN numbers and a map showing parcel boundaries and other information about patented claims mapped on our county Online GIS system, but it’s only the patented claim lands that show up. Are you able to get information like that on all mineral claims?

@Clay Digginsand @jasong and others who helped here - just want to thank you for the free time and education you are providing us, I really appreciate your responses, and am sure a lot of us here are benefiting by this - thanks!

People rebuild GP batteries and modify older SDC-2300 batteries themselves, its very easy to do as Minelab used a common sized SLA battery for the GP’s and LiPO cells for the SDC. Lithium batteries that are sealed in a case can be rebuilt for computers and other devices also, it just depends on the voltage and amperage specs, size and availability of the cells that Minelab and other manufacturers used for them.

If it’s a patented claim, I would think that’s now private property and should be on the county tax assessors parcel maps with the new owner’s name, an APN number, etc.

Here is the Public Land Survey System (Township/Range/Section) kmz for the US, and historic mine and Geology kmz file set for California, and a kmz file for Arizona that I downloaded from USGS in the past. Open each of them with Google Earth and good Internet connectivity. I also suggest closing these kmz files in Google Earth before leaving it, it will try to open the files the next time when you restart Google Earth and it takes awhile otherwise. They are interesting to browse on Google Earth, and were plotted using the information provided by claimants so beware, many of them are

I’ve been curious about using the Bureau of Land Management’s MLRS site https://mlrs.blm.gov/s/ to figure out where to go detect on open lands in heavily claimed areas, and I’ve noticed that it does show some “active claims” on the maps highlighted with red crosshatching, but it doesn’t show “active claims” in other areas at all. It’s strange because the map key includes a code for active load and active placer claims, in addition to closed ones. I’ve heard that it’s because BLM hasn’t caught up on the records yet, but does anyone know why otherwise? I hope it becomes available because tha

Those aren’t sunbakers, they’re golden goose droppings! 😉 Wow, how unique and beautiful they are!