Nevada Prospecting On Private Land With Permission

[Steve Herschbach]

42 minutes ago, Clay Diggins said:

The land in question is in a very productive historical and current mining district and has been under mineral lease to a large mining company in the past. It's a purchased property - It's never been claimed and the original patent was not mineral related.

Is it? I saw nothing about that in the post. Whatever, consider me properly chastised. 

[Clay Diggins]

6 minutes ago, Steve Herschbach said:

Is it? I saw nothing about that in the post. Whatever, consider me properly chastised. 

Lead shared the location with me privately. I checked the land status. There was no way you could know that. No need to feel chastised for what you don't know. I certainly didn't intend to chastise anyone.

But that's really the point. If you don't know it's better to find out before you go. Lead did the right thing and I'm pretty sure he has more confidence now. Confident, informed prospectors are 32.8% more successful and at least 13.2% more attractive.

[Lead Detector]

3 minutes ago, Clay Diggins said:

at least 13.2% more attractive

Just walked passed a mirror, and right before it broke I realized I need to call B.S. on that. The rest of your claims seem pretty accurate though! 😆

[Clay Diggins]

1 minute ago, Lead Detector said:

Just walked passed a mirror, and right before it broke I realized I need to call B.S. on that. The rest of your claims seem pretty accurate though! 😆

Please don't PM me any pictures you took of yourself in the mirror! I get too many of those already from miners.

((((shudder))))

[Lead Detector]

5 minutes ago, Clay Diggins said:

Please don't PM me any pictures you took of yourself in the mirror! I get too many of those already from miners.

((((shudder))))

I haven't found a camera lense strong enough to handle a selfie yet, so your safe from that 🤣

[mn90403]

So, I read some of this to my wife and she had a question which I liked.

If you go to this private land you have been given permission to hunt and you find with a metal detector a silver coin, a gold coin and a gold nugget, which ones can you legally keep?

(Now I just thought that each of the states have different laws about lost property.  The finder many not really be entitled to it!  Just like a treasure ship.)

How deep are surface rights vs subsurface?  This kinda gets back to the lode vs placer claim rights.

[Lead Detector]

7 minutes ago, mn90403 said:

Now I just thought that each of the states have different laws about lost property.  The finder many not really be entitled to it!  Just like a treasure ship

I just looked in my law books under lost property. section 1, paragraph 3, it clearly  states "FINDERS KEEPERS, LOSER WEEPERS" . 😁

[Clay Diggins]

1 hour ago, mn90403 said:

So, I read some of this to my wife and she had a question which I liked.

If you go to this private land you have been given permission to hunt and you find with a metal detector a silver coin, a gold coin and a gold nugget, which ones can you legally keep?

(Now I just thought that each of the states have different laws about lost property.  The finder many not really be entitled to it!  Just like a treasure ship.)

_________________________

How deep are surface rights vs subsurface?  This kinda gets back to the lode vs placer claim rights.

Different states do treat lost, stolen or abandoned property differently.

In this particular situation the owners bought the property without any reservations (lock, stock and barrel). In other words they own anything found on the property even though it was originally lost or abandoned. Stolen property is a different story for obvious reasons.

That makes it pretty simple. Anything on the property that wasn't stolen belongs to the owners. If they give you permission to search for and keep the stuff you find then it becomes your property. So you could keep the nugget and the coins unless they were known to be stolen. I know of no exceptions in any law to that principle.

_______________________

Surface rights are the rights to beneficial use of the surface (agriculture, roads, buildings etc.) and for physical support for real estate. Surface rights don't include any minerals.

Valid placer and lode claimants have exclusive ownership of ALL the locatable minerals found within their claim boundaries. The rights of placer and lode claimants to any and all minerals found on their claims are equal.

A placer can not be located over a lode claim. A lode claim can only be located over a placer with the knowledge and permission of the placer owner and even then only if a lode deposit has been discovered within the boundaries of the placer claim. In that situation the new lode claim replaces the placer claim within the lode claim's boundaries.

[Redz]

20 hours ago, Clay Diggins said:

lode deposit has been discovered within the boundaries of the placer claim. In that situation the new lode claim replaces the placer claim within the lode claim's boundaries.

Just curious why you would pay to file a new claim over ground you already hold the rights to? The placer claim would allow you to prove the lode. Only reason I can see is if you are developping a subsurface mine

[Clay Diggins]

42 minutes ago, Redz said:

Just curious why you would pay to file a new claim over ground you already hold the rights to? The placer claim would allow you to prove the lode. Only reason I can see is if you are developping a subsurface mine

Good logical question Redz.

If a lode deposit is discovered on a placer claim AND the claim owner wishes to go to patent the lode deposit will be excluded from the placer patent unless it has been claimed and paid for.

Also if a placer claim owner gives permission to a non owner to prospect the placer claim and the non owner discovers a lode deposit the non owner can claim a new lode claim. The new lode claim displaces the pre-existing placer claim within the new lode boundaries. That might seem like a far fetched possibility until you consider all the prospecting clubs that permit their members to freely prospect their placer claims. I encourage all prospecting clubs to put a clause in their member contracts to avoid this situation.

Interestingly the only reason for all this complexity of placer versus lode is because a lode patent costs twice as much per acre as a placer patent. Lode= $5.00 per acre,  Placer = $2.50 per acre. The government would lose $2.50 an acre if known lodes were patented within a placer patent. That was a lot of money in 1872 when Congress set the fees. Congress hasn't changed the acre patent fees since 1872.

Here is a link to the placer claim patent law.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/30/37