How much gold were the first 1849 California Gold Rush miners getting with pans?

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firebird

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Oct 17, 2018
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Central Valley California
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I can't seem to find any specific info on how much gold were they actually finding in virgin placer deposits back then, only vague descriptions about how they found lots of flakes and nuggets just using gold pans, not even using rocker boxes or sluices. Were they getting over 1 ounce a day? And how much was gold actually worth back then, compared to today which is around $1300 an ounce?
 

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firebird said:
Metal detecting for nuggets seems like a huge waste of time, the gold here in California is just too worn down and rolled around by the water to be big nuggets. I've had more luck just using a shovel and a $5 plastic gold pan. Only Australia still has the huge gold nuggets that we dream about.

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That’s a bold statement...much to learn yet. ;)
 

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firebird said:
Metal detecting for nuggets seems like a huge waste of time, the gold here in California is just too worn down and rolled around by the water to be big nuggets. I've had more luck just using a shovel and a $5 plastic gold pan. Only Australia still has the huge gold nuggets that we dream about.
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You never know Firebird!

 

firebird said:
Metal detecting for nuggets seems like a huge waste of time, the gold here in California is just too worn down and rolled around by the water to be big nuggets. I've had more luck just using a shovel and a $5 plastic gold pan. Only Australia still has the huge gold nuggets that we dream about.

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I call crapola on that
There could still be undiscovered veins waiting
 

jeff-gordon said:
I call crapola on that
There could still be undiscovered veins waiting
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No doubt, but will the government ever let us get into it? You can't even use a sluice anymore in many public areas. I wouldn't be surprised if gold prospecting is completely declared illegal in California soon.
 

Gold is a funny material...

I was told that there is actually more gold in the ground than silver, but due to gold fever; whether it be from us trudging all over the countryside to find it, or my wife wanting a 24 carat wedding band, rises its desirability. This has not changed since the caveman days when man found shiny soft thing in a stream, glossed it up and gave it to his woman.

And the volume mined is also a misnomer because of its unique properties. It can pounded into the thinnest sheets, and mixed easily with other elements to make it go pretty far.

The two points I just made enable gold to have a HUGE demand for recycling, probably one of the most recycled materials on earth due to its value and desirability. To wit, I do not see advertisements on television where companies make money sending out packets in the mail for you to send in copper objects that they will appraise for scrap value and send a check to you for. In that sense, it kind of stands outside the law of supply and demand in terms of in-ground-gold, and makes gold a world wide currency of sorts. To that end, in-ground discovered gold is only making up for the gold of the world that gets inadvertently taken out of circulation.

Even that could be short lived. As I often JOKE...it took a lot of shoveling in a cemetery for me to get Katie's diamond engagement ring! Now myself, I am only joking, cemeteries give me the creeps, but I have known many hermits growing up who had no qualms about entering old cemeteries long hidden in the woods with shovels, and grabbing those rings off long departed souls. What would happen if gold hit $2400 an ounce? I shutter to think, as I am sure the sales of shovels would drastically increase to make up the short fall.
 

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Gold is a one of a kind metal. The market spot price is only the trading value. If its weighed against the fiat weve printed from thin air it's worth much much more. Gold and silver are both greatly undervalued but a powerful market force when it able to be manipulated.
You can see it's true value in places around the world where currencies are failing, just as ours will eventually.
The stock market in general holds the spotlight because when the markets fall so does tax revenue and that's a no no. Gotta keep it pumped for all it's worth and that's a guaranteed payday for PM holders.
 

firebird said:
That was a once in a lifetime find though, wasn't it? It always bothered me how worn down that nugget is, it must've broken off from an even bigger chunk somewhere but that still hasn't been found.
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When I purchased my TDI SL detector from Bob I talked to him about this find and his palm sized nugget he found in Northern Nevada. He honestly believes there are still big nuggets out there, you just need to put yourself into areas that have a history of giving them up and then look for what the old timers missed.
 

firebird, interesting comment!

A few years ago I came across a video about Magadan Russia and its Gold. It is a BBC broadcast, they sent a "Woman Reporter" out to the area where Mom & Pop used to pan for gold but the Russian Government made it illegal, after jailing a few people the government then leased the "area" to a commercial mining group. The commercial group then cut down the forest and bulldozed the area. Bulldozed, not dig a few shovels full but bulldozed. As the "ORIGINAL VIDEO" with the woman reporter out in the gold area closed the final words of the video were by the commentator back in the studio. His final words were "I wonder if this is what will happen in the United States" (this is as close to the quote as I recall as right now the Video has been modified several times and that ending comment by the commentator in the studio was CUT OUT shortly after I viewed the video). The current video still shows the bulldozers with many large piles of tailings where once there was a forest. I wonder what the Greenies would think of their efforts if they knew that out there somewhere there is a plan to "Industrialize" the canyons of California that the Greenies are helping to make happen? Industrialize = bulldoze and Rape the land Bare!
Check out the Magadan Russia video on youtube!............................63bkpkr
 

The chemtrails are drying out the west and in a few generations or so the land will be barren and burned up. By that time no one will live there and it will be easy. It's been planned since the 40's.
 

nonsense.

It's been proven that chemtrails don't work cause the earth is flat.

They disperse too evenly and ruin everything.

Especially bithday parties.

And it was all actually planned way in the future when man only has four toes.

Not from evolution. But, the doctors cut them off.

To restock the last bar on the planet.

It's in the Yukon.

Google it.
 

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Boise bison Idaho the first year with pans and rockers and basic mining tools the best spots were giving 5 to 7 ounces a man per day. Those spots are gone. Idaho City sits on top of 20 to 40 feet of tailings that were washed down. Wide spots were dredged where we mine I'd say the valley bottom is filled with 4 to 10 feet of tailings.
 

Boise bison Idaho the first year with pans and rockers and basic mining tools the best spots were giving 5 to 7 ounces a man per day. Those spots are gone. Idaho City sits on top of 20 to 40 feet of tailings that were washed down. Wide spots were dredged where we mine I'd say the valley bottom is filled with 4 to 10 feet of tailings.
 

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Originally Posted by Madmox
Or to put it another way all the gold ever found by mankind would barely pay 1/3 of the national debt.
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that stings a little...

Originaly posted by Kevinincoloradro
Which is why we don’t have, and can never have, a gold backed currency..




I will have to disagree with you on that one Kevin............ The central banks and the FED will never let the gold standard return... They would lose the control they have worked so hard to gain over the masses.

“Whoever controls the volume of money in any country is absolute master of all industry and commerce.”
― James A. Garfield President of the United States

You may also find these quotes interesting............. https://www.turbodieselregister.com/threads/famous-quotes-about-the-federal-reserve.213495/

 

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