How Many Small Miners Are There?

[klunker]

you have that correct in that you cannot  make the discovery until the 90 days are up.  you cannot make a discovery on another piece of land and infer the deposit was on someone elses claim

  You can have made a "discovery" years before you post a location notice but you may be required, and should be prepared, to back it up.

If you have 10+ claims for sale on your website and they are only recorded every 91 days at the local recorders office and not registered with BLM you are NOT eligible for a small miners waiver exemption. This situation would also make your BLM registered  claims void as maintenance fees need to be paid.

 This identical situation was well documented and given to the Sacramento BLM office. Their response was "you are correct but we don't get involved in claim disputes"

[jasong]

I think everyone agrees that practice is despicable. But does the BLM have regulatory jurisdiction over a claim that never reaches the BLM filing stage and only stays within the county? Like, can they officially count a claim not registered with them towards their BLM-centric small miner waiver requirements? Because there is nothing about that waiver in the General Mining Act.

 

I'm just curious, I know the opinion. But what is the law or regulation? I'm just wondering because it'd be exceedingly difficult for the BLM to keep track of county filings...maybe impossible. They are completely separate databases and some counties still don't even have online access anyways. 

 

Let me be clear, neither I nor anyone else here supports that "paper hanging" garbage. I'm just floating a question because I don't know the answer to it.

 

Because the follow up question I have is this: if the BLM has no jurisdiction over a claim filed only with the county then can a miner go and mine as he pleases without filing other BLM paperwork like NOI's and POO's as long as he does it and reclamates before the 90 days is up? In other words, during that period is a miner exempt from CFR and only answering to General Mining Act legislation?

[Steve Herschbach]

What I wonder about is how many claims exist in this "shadow inventory"? All the stats posted by Clay Diggings are based on LR2000 but if claims never reach LR2000......

[jasong]

It's probably a lot, but then again not quite as many as people assume. I can say from personal experience, having spent the last 5 years living full time in the field prospecting in every western state except WA and NM, that the only places I see this sort of thing happening rampantly are around club-type goldfields (and California in general). The sellers are generally aiming for people who were in clubs but now want to own their own claims but don't want to put the effort or education in to finding one themselves, and the sellers are generally poor prospectors so they just find slices of unclaimed land in known areas where other real prospectors already did the location work and gave them a treasure map to follow.

 

From my experience the rampant blanket claiming by corporations with no discoveries is far more serious problem by many orders of magnitude to actual small scale miners who need to prospect large areas of land to find their own claims to work. I've seen one mutlinational do a blanket claiming of 2 different areas encompassing probably more land than all the paper hangers combined. And it happens weekly, all year, by many many companies, some of them just US shells for foreign investors monopolizing our public minerals for basically free - ~$200 per claim is peanuts to a billion dollar corp.

 

Also I think the waiver should be limited to like 3-4 claims and also have a total acreage limit, not just a claim number limit. Something like 80 acres. There are single guys who will never in their life touch or mine their claims, who own 1600 acres of claims and file a small miner waiver. There are hundred-milllion or even billion dollar large scale mines operating with less than 1600 acres of total disturbance, there is no reality where 1600 acres is considered "small mining". It's not an uncommon thing either, I see it in practically every goldfield in every state I've been to with these obscenely large, totally unused holdings.

[klunker]

I think everyone agrees that practice is despicable. But does the BLM have regulatory jurisdiction over a claim that never reaches the BLM filing stage and only stays within the county? Like, can they officially count a claim not registered with them towards their BLM-centric small miner waiver requirements? Because there is nothing about that waiver in the General Mining Act.

 Good point J. But the minute you post a location notice--It's a claim. Even before it's recorded with the county which definitely makes it count toward you 10 claim small miners limit.

[Clay Diggins]

In Arizona we haven't had as much problem with the 90 county relocators as we do with the pro paper claims salesmen.

 

The MO here is that a claim is made and then sold to easterners or eager recent arrivals with no indication that the claim is anything but the same as a purchase of property. When September rolls around and the new owner doesn't file with the BLM the ground is reclaimed and sent back out for sale.

 

A common variant on this theme is to make several claims of similar name in the same spot then sell them all to different people. They will still be arguing with one another when September rolls around - rinse and repeat x4.

 

There is one family in New Mexico that sells claims that haven't been made yet. Once the victim buys the claim AND pays "the document fees" a claim is filed with the BLM somewhere nearby and no location record is made with the county. Similar result as above but with no capital outlay.

 

Then there are the much bigger scams. What happened with the Peter Pocklington Liberty Belle scam in Quartzsite is pretty common in the southwest. The problem with these bogus mining claims security scams is the perpetrators have to maintain the claims even after the scam is exposed because they would be destroying the only assets the regulators have to seize. If they don't maintain the claims they are open to fraud convictions as well as security violations. Essentially the claimed ground is locked up for years just to save some tricksters azz.

 

Reviewing thousands of claims in a year has become disturbing because of the number of overclaims we see. In my view it's a much bigger problem for small miners than claim sellers. Popular areas are often claimed 3 to 5 claims deep while good ground lies open just a few feet away. This is mostly due to incompetence on the part of locators but in places like Rich Hill there are groups that purposely overclaim and submit NOIs to get the BLMs assistance in driving out senior locators.

 

Miner against miner is way more common than most here understand or admit. Lots of dirty tricks going on out there both with small and large miners. One of the local miner battles is about to go public in a big way and no miners will come out ahead in that situation. Miners are often painted as uncaring crooks because we can't seem to police our own even though with have the legal tools and methods to do so. A few bad apples do spoil the barrel when it comes to public perception.

 

I'd guess that about 90% of mining claims are blue sky and speculation. That's not really so bad when you consider that the nature of making your living hunting rare minerals that can't be easily seen or sniffed out is by definition a risk. By it's very nature mining is a gamble in the best of circumstances. Spreading your bet in that situation is a valid strategy.

 

With unsure market conditions and rising costs it's anyone's guess whether a three or ten year long gamble will pay off at the end even when the deposit is well located and defined. The small miner actually has an edge in mining but a much more personal risk profile.

 

It takes a certain type of individual to succeed at this very knowledge intensive profession. Combine the huge range of skills needed to succeed with the drive to take the personal, physical and financial risk involved and include a big dash of dreamer and treasure hunter and you have a very rare individual indeed.

 

Take out just one or two of those qualities and you have your typical locator. Given enough time and enough drive and intelligence some of those typical locators could become the rare successful miner. Successful miners are what enable us to have cell phones and electricity and even this forum. We need more successful miners if we want to continue to live the rich lives we now enjoy. I'm thinking we have to allow a lot of wannabe miners to succeed or fail so we can have a few really good ones. It's always been that way and I suspect these same conversations went on 100 and 1,000 years ago.

 

I think where we can most help this process to succeed is to:

 

1. Learn to effectively police ourselves.

 

Outsiders have a lousy track record in policing miners, ultimately it's up to us to clean up our collective act. Self regulation is possible but only if we can turn our attention inward rather than concentrating on the bad guys - whoever they may be at the moment.

 

Hating the miner in the place you would like to be is a "grass is greener" thing. Picking the most extreme opposition to what you are doing and concentrating on "beating" that fringe group is never successful in the end. In my opinion we need to stop looking at our differences and begin cooperating. It's really past time to build on our strengths and leave the anti mining crowd to their grass skirts and wood tools - they will come around or perish.

 

2. Encourage all our fellow miners to educate themselves and share the knowledge they have accumulated in their varied experiences.

 

There are great educational opportunities and incredible resources available to miners today. You are participating in one of those resources right now. There are many others. Lets not waste this opportunity to come together and share our knowledge.

 

Let's not make this golden age of information freedom into the next television. We can shape this to our advantage rather than just becoming consumers looking for the best feel good buzz. Let's stretch our patience and tolerance enough to include the miner sitting next to us and really listen to what they have to share. There are some very knowledgeable people right here on this forum and I know some of them are reluctant to share just because of the independent miners tendency to discount ideas and knowledge that that don't jibe with what they "know".

 

This is probably the best forum on the internet for miners to share and be civil so this might be our best chance to make that a habit and extend it to other forums and groups. Take real advantage of what Steve is offering here. We can't lose and we might even win with a new mining culture based on knowledge and cooperation.

 

In my business I tend to see both sides of the small versus big miner battle. Just putting aside the fact that both types of miners are playing by the same set of rules you really need to look at the needs of exploration groups and larger mining groups in relation to your own small miner chances of success.

 

The simple fact is most small miners will never strike it big. Whether it be from a lack of skill or luck success is a long shot for the individual. If you look past all that land that's "locked up" from your prospecting and see that success is sometimes just a matter of finding a deposit worth claiming and leasing to one of those juniors or majors you so despise you just might see a brighter future.

 

Are you good at identifying mineralization and defining deposits? Maybe you are destined to be one of those people claiming large blocks of mineralization and proving the value to someone actually capable of mining a lower grade large deposit. Instead of cursing all those 2 gram deposits maybe you could actually make your living collecting lease checks instead of trying to live off 10 grams a day. You would then be free to look for the next deposit worth claiming and leasing. Heck you might even realize that perlite or potash mineralization you've been ignoring could pay your rent without even lifting a shovel.

 

The fact is small and large miner is relative to your experience. You will find you are one of the "big boys" just at the point you have something the big boys want. While you are dreaming of a better backhoe you might just be missing the point. Making enemies in your mind of people and companies you don't understand could be the one thing holding you back from being that full time successful miner.

 

 

 

 

 

[Clay Diggins]

A little different story when we look at small miner claim acreage. Small miners claims have a very different profile than the total of all claims does. I'll do an acreage profile on all claims next and see just what the difference is apples to apples.

Curiously most of the California gold mining production historically was from lode mines on the Motherlode between Georgetown and just south of Mariposa.

Now for small miners placers seem to be the going thing.

 

Only Colorado, Montana and Washington have more small miner lode acres than placer acres.

I hope this chart is better titled.
 

[LipCa]

And how did you determine who were "small miners"?

By company name or what?

[Clay Diggins]

And how did you determine who were "small miners"?

By company name or what?

 

I don't determine who the Small Miners are. The miners themselves make that decision.

 

Small miners make a declaration to the BLM of their status and claims held under the Small Miners Waiver each year. When a miner has declared that they hold 10 or fewer claims those claims are no longer subject to the annual claim Maintenance Fee payment.

 

This is a chart of the acreage of all the claims not subject to the annual Maintenance Fee payment due to the claim owners declaring themselves "Small Miners".

 

"Small Miner" is not an indication of the size of operation being conducted. When it comes to mining under the Mining Acts all miners are subject to the same laws.

 

The only difference between a  "Small Miner" and all other miners is the exemption from annual maintenance fees within the BLMs fee structure. Those miners who own 10 or fewer claims have the legal right to not pay annual maintenance fees and instead perform the annual labor described in the Mining Acts.

 

A Small Miner can own up to 200 placer acres or up to 206.6 lode acres. In aggregate the claims owned by a small miner can not exceed 10 claims regardless of the acreage or claim type.

 

Small miner status is not automatic just because a miner owns 10 or fewer claims. A free declaration must be made and filed, by the claim owner, at the State BLM Office(s) each year before September 1 for the Small Miners Waiver to be invoked. There are additional annual labor, recording and filing requirements to maintain the Small Miner exemption.

 

Many claim owners who are eligible to declare "Small Miner" status choose not to take the exemption. Those claim owners must make their annual Maintenance Fee payments by September 1 each year no matter how many claims they own.

 

Small Miner is an indication of a claim owner's status but that status only applies in relation to claims. There are no benefits to being a small miner except the exemption from annual claim Maintenance Fee payments.

 

A Small Miner is not allowed to take the claim fee exemption if they are associated with other miners who exceed the 10 claim limit.

 

Example:

When a 160 acre placer claim is owned by 8 people who own no more than 10 claims per person and declare themselves as Small Miners the claim is exempt from the Maintenance Fee payment. This 160 acre claim could be a large producing mine but the owners would still be Small Miners under the BLM fee structure. That claim's acreage would be included on this chart.

 

When a 160 acre placer claim is owned by 8 people and one of those people owns more than 10 claims the claim IS subject to the Maintenance Fee payment no matter what the size of the mining operation is. That claim's acreage would not be included on this chart.

 

As you can see this is really all about claim fees - not the amount or type of mining being done.

[rumblefish]

And how did you determine who were "small miners"?

By company name or what?

 

I'm 3' 4". Is that small enough?