** Lost Gold At The Dead Man's Mine ** A Miners Journal **

[GhostMiner]

   May 25   2002

 

   When I woke up this morning there was a cold drizzle of rain coming down and dampening the camp. We all gathered at my camper for breakfast. Jacob said he wanted to come up to the dig site so we decided we would all just go up together like we used to do. Seeing as it was a little cool we were anxious to get to our work and warm up some. 

   Jacob took a look at our open trench work and made a few suggestions as to widening it out some and cutting a ramp descending deeper into the mountain heading north. So we all worked on that all morning and Jacob took samples to pan every half hour or so.

   When we broke for lunch we asked him what he thought about the progress and gold at the current site. He was very positive about it and was convinced we were going to hit some heavy gold deposits sooner than later. That was always good encouragement coming from someone like him who had the experience we lacked. He’s been here and done it before and we all trust his judgment. By day’s end we had washed 17 yards of gravel and were all pretty happy because Jacob had been showing us a little gold in the test pans all day long.

TO BE CONTINUED ................

[GhostMiner]

   July 8   1950

 

   After consulting with the geologist yesterday I am still convinced we will find a glory hole in the bedrock somewhere to the north of our current drifting. I have enough funds to continue mining and exploring for another week. The gravel is still not paying for the work but the slope is declining gently to the northwest away from the fault. 

   

[Old Miner Don]

1 hour ago, GhostMiner said:

   July 8   1950

 

   After consulting with the geologist yesterday I am still convinced we will find a glory hole in the bedrock somewhere to the north of our current drifting. I have enough funds to continue mining and exploring for another week. The gravel is still not paying for the work but the slope is declining gently to the northwest away from the fault. 

   

Dang it!

[GhostMiner]

15 minutes ago, Bedrocker said:

Dang it!

Sometimes chasing a dream can be quite expensive in many ways.

[Mike Furness]

16 hours ago, GhostMiner said:

Sometimes chasing a dream can be quite expensive in many ways.

That my friend is an understatement! My metal detecting for gold habit took me through 7 or 8 detectors over about a 15 year period. The most expensive was $10,000. Or more precisely $9,999.00. My least expensive was $599. Most were in the 4 figure range especially for the GPZ and GPX's. The good thing about that is that all paid for themselves over time. And then there is tournament fishing from my kayak! Fishing is supposed to be relaxing and enjoyable right with small investments of rod reel, hooks, line and baits! LOL! 14 rods later and reels of course and a continuing need for line, hooks, sinkers and a myriad of baits. Oh and a $3000 pedal kayak, spare paddle and quality PFD! All told I bet my 'hobby' fishing has about $10000.00 tied up in it. And then there is all of the tournament fees just to enter in the range of $50 to $300 per tournament! Monetary winnings for the tournaments ... well ... not so much! 🤣 But dreams are made to be followed ... Never give up on dreams!

[GhostMiner]

5 minutes ago, Mike Furness said:

That my friend is an understatement! My metal detecting for gold habit took me through 7 or 8 detectors over about a 15 year period. The most expensive was $10,000. Or more precisely $9,999.00. My least expensive was $599. Most were in the 4 figure range especially for the GPZ and GPX's. The good thing about that is that all paid for themselves over time. And then there is tournament fishing from my kayak! Fishing is supposed to be relaxing and enjoyable right with small investments of rod reel, hooks, line and baits! LOL! 14 rods later and reels of course and a continuing need for line, hooks, sinkers and a myriad of baits. Oh and a $3000 pedal kayak, spare paddle and quality PFD! All told I bet my 'hobby' fishing has about $10000.00 tied up in it. And then there is all of the tournament fees just to enter in the range of $50 to $300 per tournament! Monetary winnings for the tournaments ... well ... not so much! 🤣 But dreams are made to be followed ... Never give up on dreams!

   I agree. We decided to lease claims and take our cut right off the sluice in the form of raw gold. There is no risk or cost. I have seen several want to be gold miners lose everything including their wives. Not a business for the faint of heart. We love the exploration end of the business. I also invest in good mining companies.

[GhostMiner]

4 minutes ago, GhostMiner said:

   I agree. We decided to lease claims and take our cut right off the sluice in the form of raw gold. There is no risk or cost. I have seen several want to be gold miners lose everything including their wives. Not a business for the faint of heart. We love the exploration end of the business. I also invest in good mining companies.

   Here's a true story. I got a call from a guy that had a gold mining claim about 10 miles from my claims. He was losing his money & asked if my partner & I would come look at his ground. It was an old hydraulic operation from the 1800's. I asked him if he had done much research on it before buying it & he said no but it had an active permit & that's why he bought it. He had gold fever and wanted to mine gold immediately. Then my partner asked him if he had even walked the claim & done any testing. He said no but the geologist told him there was still gold on it.

   So we walked the claim from the creek at the bottom all the way up the mountain. It had all been commercially mined several times and was obvious that there wasn't much left here in the way of gold. Lot's of old hydraulic cuts & hand stacked rock. We ran some tailings through his trommel and found traces of gold but nothing mineable unless gold was $5000/oz. He had been taken and but good. However, it was his own fault for being in a big hurry. There were two claims completely mined out & he had paid nearly $100,000 for them. That's just one of several examples of what I have seen happen to people with gold fever. It can be ugly.

[Old Miner Don]

5 hours ago, GhostMiner said:

   Here's a true story. I got a call from a guy that had a gold mining claim about 10 miles from my claims. He was losing his money & asked if my partner & I would come look at his ground. It was an old hydraulic operation from the 1800's. I asked him if he had done much research on it before buying it & he said no but it had an active permit & that's why he bought it. He had gold fever and wanted to mine gold immediately. Then my partner asked him if he had even walked the claim & done any testing. He said no but the geologist told him there was still gold on it.

   So we walked the claim from the creek at the bottom all the way up the mountain. It had all been commercially mined several times and was obvious that there wasn't much left here in the way of gold. Lot's of old hydraulic cuts & hand stacked rock. We ran some tailings through his trommel and found traces of gold but nothing mineable unless gold was $5000/oz. He had been taken and but good. However, it was his own fault for being in a big hurry. There were two claims completely mined out & he had paid nearly $100,000 for them. That's just one of several examples of what I have seen happen to people with gold fever. It can be ugly.

What?!?!? Paid almost 100 grand and never looked at them first? I thought you were going to say that he paid maybe $15 or $20 thousand dollars for those claims. I would love to talk to that guy. I have something here in Oregon that I could let him in on.

[GhostMiner]

1 hour ago, Bedrocker said:

What?!?!? Paid almost 100 grand and never looked at them first? I thought you were going to say that he paid maybe $15 or $20 thousand dollars for those claims. I would love to talk to that guy. I have something here in Oregon that I could let him in on.

   Yes, pretty stupid wasn't it. He got sucked in because there was an active permit he could use to start mining without waiting. The problem was he was mining low grade tailings. He paid the $100K because it included the permit which proved to be worthless. Gold fever is real & it's scary. People's eyes glaze over & common sense goes out the window. 

[GhostMiner]

1 minute ago, GhostMiner said:

   Yes, pretty stupid wasn't it. He got sucked in because there was an active permit he could use to start mining without waiting. The problem was he was mining low grade tailings. He paid the $100K because it included the permit which proved to be worthless. Gold fever is real & it's scary. People's eyes glaze over & common sense goes out the window. 

   Oh, & here is something else about those claims. Just a couple of yrs prior to selling the claims to this person the claim owner had leased them to greenhorns from New York State who had gold fever. They had never mined before just like the other guy. The cost? He charged them $25,000 for a lease. Did they get any gold? I heard maybe an ounce before they went bust. Can you say ouch? Or predator?