Using magnet to remove black sand. Good? Bad?

[Colorider]

I'm still new to pannimg and am curious about the magnetic doohickeys used to pull out the magnetic black sands. Tried it a few times and it works great, but looks like it may suck up gold that is in the clump of material being picked up. Pros and cons of using one ? Or maybe tips on propperly using it.
Thanks for your info.

 

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[kuger]

Magnetic devices are gimmicks. They're junk. The 49'ers used gravity and wind to seperate black sand from gold in a process called winnowing. They'd throw the black sand on a blankey and two guys would flip the material up into the wind. The sand blew away and the gold fell back on the blanket. Same thing would probably work today. You could even improve on the technique. I saw a guy at Point Bar, Colorado using a variable speed Wet Vac and clear plastic hose to seperate very fine gold from black sand. The hose was duct taped to the Wet Vac and coiled into several loops as big around as a beach ball. The black sand was sucked over the top of the loops and the fine particles of gold fell back to the bottom of the loops and collected there. I asked to pan the sand in the Wet Vac and was surprised to find not even one speck of gold in it. I carry a small portable automobile hand held Wet Vac whenever i go to an area where lots of "Week-End" Gorrilla miners are digging. These guys almost never sweep their holes clean when they leave. Saves me a ton of digging and prospecting. I just go in on Monday and vaccum up the dirt and run it through my sluice. Remenber, "Time is Money". Any process, technique or strategy that is too time consuming, is wasting time you could be spending "getting more gold".

thats not entirelly true........dont beleive me,try it and see what your left with!!!Winnowing was used to Pan when they didnt have water "Campo Seco"= Dry Camp.......they did use "wind",but in the form of breath,blown gently over a blow pan which was made from thin brass like an opium can,or sometimes a metal can....I can show examples if you wish......also,saying the use of magnets is a gimmick is purely your opinion and not a very factual one at that......my clean up sluice has a rare earth magnet about 1" high just befor my first riffle....this sluice is used to process dredge cons from an area very thick with magnetite.......gold with not get "oreoed",and brought up with this method....only magnetite

 

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[KevinInColorado]

I totally agree.

Strong magnets are a modern tool which helps us get the gold the old guys couldn't catch efficiently. Newcatfish, If you don't like then, don't use 'em. ..but don't spread misinformation.

 

[russau]

i agree with Kruger and Kev on this! removeing the magnetics from your cons will help in your panning!