Re: Where To Start (rant content warning. long reply)
Holy cow Cactusjumper, our paths have indeed crossed over the years. The claims we considered buying but backed out of were a group of four, that the owner had only recently filed; he had some interesting test-pan records but had not dug to bedrock anywhere. If memory serves, he was asking $14,000 for the group, but when I asked about taking a few samples of my own he said no, and the deal fell through. A fairly big mining company bought the group not long afterwards, even though he had not one drill log or a single assay report (at least he did not when we were negotiating, or he would not tell me) probably you already know the company as they were the largest gold producer for several years because of it and even worked through the winters.
{Begin rant}
We had a much worse "incident" with mining claims in Alaska, a few years previous to trying to buy these claims on Valdez creek. We had found a very nice placer deposit on a creek near Mount Distin, north of Nome and filed three claims which pretty well covered the placer - downstream of the claims, we found very little gold so three served the purpose. The land had been tentatively approved to the state of Alaska, so when we went to file the claims the BLM refused to accept our claims and told us to file them as State placer claims. Trying to obey the law we filed the claims as state placer claims, which as you know are forty acres in size, not based on 20 acres per owner. The prospecting season was over, (you know how soon winter approaches in the Seward peninsula) and my time to be out prospecting had run out so had to return home. With our prospecting records we negotiated with a smaller mining company in Alaska to work the claims on a percentage basis, (a word of advice here for prospectors and treasure hunters - keep a notebook of your explorations and finds, including how many colors per pan, places where no gold was found, contact zones, etc this is very important if you hope to negotiate a sale or lease for your mine) and they began shipping the equipment into Nome over the winter, with an idea to do some exploratory trenching etc after ice-out.
So we thought things were progressing as hoped for; we knew from our prospecting that the claims would produce gold in paying quantities, though we had not found bedrock. (I tend to dig down six or seven feet, if bedrock is not hit by then I go to heavy equipment) We also had a large number of samples that we shipped home and some concentrates to have assayed. In the spring, we got registered letters from attorneys for the Bering Straits Native Corporation, that they were taking us to court to seize the claims, as they now said the BSNC had "selected" the land as "reindeer pasture" (NOT kidding, wish I were) and we had a nice legal fight on our hands. The mining company put everything on "hold" until this was cleared up. The state of Alaska even took our side in the legal battle, since the land had already legally been "tentatively approved" (title passed to the state instead of BLM) but you can guess the outcome - the BSNC won out. However, they also broke the laws in the deal, I won't post everything they pulled here in public, but they contracted with a major mining company that went in and started mining the claims a full YEAR
before the federal court had decided the issue. We would not have even known they were doing it, except our partner paid a visit to the claims and found them hard at work on it, and nearly had a gunfight on the spot. They got $4.5 million in gold the first year, $7 million the second year, don't recall the third year and they were stopped by the state refusing to allow them to continue using the water from the tiny creek. This incident made us pretty cautious about buying claims where
anything was the least bit "iffy" - you know what I mean. So we were "millionaires" for a short time, after a lot of hard work and many hundreds of camps over so many creeks I lost count - in one year I know, we prospected 51 different creeks, as I kept that notebook.
The real bite in the arse, is that we were told by the judge AFTER the hearings, that if we had "cross-filed" our claims, that is filed them BOTH as state placer AND as Federal placer claims, the court WOULD HAVE REJECTED BSNC's CLAIM ON THE LAND. So if we had broken the rules when we filed, we would have won. It would have taken us more than three years to get all that gold of course, but it would have been good paying years.
{/Rant}
Sorry for the rant, have had some very negative experiences by trying to do things the LEGAL ways over the years which resulted in our being 'cheated' out of a veritable fortune on more than one occasion. ("Fortune" to us anyway, not billions of course.) That is sad about your uncle, sorry things played out that way.
You know, you would think that after a person has been "burnt" in mining a few times he would quit the game, but somehow that darned "gold fever" seems to be incurable, and hope springs eternal. Just a thought here Cactusjumper, but you know they never did find the mother lode that produced all that gold on the Nome beaches and creeks......
It is funny they say that once you have been to Alaska, you never come all the way back. Thanks CJ my friend for bringing back the memories, for the good ones far out-weigh the bad.
Roy ~ Oroblanco
There where the mighty mountains bare their fangs unto the moon,
There where the sullen sun-dogs glare in the snow-bright, bitter noon,
And the glacier-glutted streams sweep down at the clarion call of June.
There where the livid tundras keep their tryst with the tranquil snows;
There where the silences are spawned, and the light of hell-fire flows
Into the bowl of the midnight sky, violet, amber and rose.
There where the rapids churn and roar, and the ice-floes bellowing run;
Where the tortured, twisted rivers of blood rush to the setting sun --
I've packed my kit and I'm going, boys, ere another day is done.
(from The Heart of the Sourdough, Robert Service)
You say this is "for your father" and you only get a percentage. 
Uh-huh. Well. What are we to make of this? 
) but now I am really wondering about San Domingo wash. 
