alienbogey

As far as I know Juneau is the best and perhaps only chance for SE Alaska nuggets. I have gotten pickers from sniping/sucking bedrock and I've picked up a piece of quartz on a trail that has (barely) visible gold in it. I've detected there once with no luck, but the ground was not so highly mineralized that a VLF detector wasn't effective - I found the usual bullets, bird shot and shell cases with no trouble.

Rob, Thanks for the info but that's not really what I meant...... To me, a cleaned nugget looks unnatural, kind of artificial. I like them best the way they look right out of the ground with the local color unaffected. I was in a gold shop in Ketchikan Alaska and every nugget looked exactly the same (other than shape) - perfect, shiny yellow gold. These were nuggets from all kinds of different districts in Alaska. Didn't look right all. I asked the owner about it and he agreed that they looked somewhat artifical that way, but said that the tourists won't buy them unless they look like newly minted gold coins. They say an expert can tell where a nugget came from by looking at it. . Part of that comes from the natural "patina" the nugget acquires from eons of laying in the stream or ground. I'd never destroy that patina by cleaning it - to me it's as much part of the natural nugget as it's shape. Just my opinion - again, do with your own gold as you please.

Are you sure you want to clean your gold? To me, cleaned nuggets don't look right, you lose some of the individuallity of the piece. Does it hurt the value to clean a nugget? It certainly does with old coins, and a cleaned old coin doesn't look right either. It's your gold, just thought I'd ask.

More Rich Bar stories? Okay..... The 4 ounce nugget the guy found near me was in the overburden. Digging to bedrock he filled about ten 5 gallon buckets with overburden. At the end of the day working the bedrock he had nothing. He was really beat an ALMOST dumped out the overburden buckets rather than pack them back to his camp to run through his highbanker. He did it, though, and the 4 ouncer came out of one of the buckets. A fellow named Kelly was up there every week back in those times. He was really, really good at crevicing and just generally sniffing out the gold. He would ask people if they were done with their "claims" and if ask permission to work them - then he'd get gold from the "worked out" spot. Basically they did all the work of removing the overburden, then at the end of the day his knowledge and skills would produce the gold. Don't think he was a bad guy - he always asked and he'd give advice and pointers to anyone. In one small area of the Rich Bar ground was a pond that filled a deep depression in the bedrock. Norm, the owner, knew it would be good, so he and Kelly arranged a 50-50 split. Kelly brought in a pump and he'd have the pond drained within an hour of showing up. He got around 40 ounces in a month at the pond. Again, he showed us the gold. A story Norm told came from the Depression years. Rich Bar was worked again. The owner worked some of the ground and allowed unemployed men to work parts of it on shares. The owner one day uncover a small, 6' square of virgin bedrock the 49'ers had missed. He had a crowd of guys volunteering to help work it out but wanted to do it himself. One guy, assuming he didn't want anybody to highgrade on him, offered to wok the ground for free, NAKED, just so he could see what it was like to see what the 49'ers had seen.

Rich Bar was the richest piece of ground on the whole Feather River system. It is patented ground. I used to take the family to Rich Bar in the summer from 93 to 96. It was the best pay to pan place I've ever seen. The owner at that time was Norm Grant - a really great guy. He and his son excavated to bedrock with heavy equipment and if the overburden looked good they'd wash it through a trommel type plant. I saw his son pan some of the concentrates from 40+ yards - yowza. Once they hit bedrock they'd quit and let the recreationists get down there to crevice and whatnot for $40 for the day - keep what you find. If you found something big there was no reason not to tell Norm - it was keep what you find, period. Our goal was always a 1 ouncer but our best from there was 1/4 ounce. I personally saw a guy recover a 4 ounce nugget eight feet from where I was working. Normally there would be half a dozen or more multiple ounce nuggets found each summer. Our best day was a little less than 1/2 ounce total. A retired couple hit a pocket and in two days recovered 15 ounces - they showed us the gold. They got 30 ounces that summer - Norm let them camp on the place and they kind of acted as caretakers. We moved in 96 and haven't been back but did know that Norm had sold the place. We'd also heard that the new owner is working it himself. Our kids were small then, Norm let us camp on the place, we'd dig and pan, the kids would dig and dig, and we'd all swim in the river after knocking off. Good memories.

nuggetshooter, I notice you're from Sacramento. This is getting off topic, but do you ever go up the Feather River after gold? We used to live in Fallon, Nevada and used to pan and sluice the Feather River Canyon, strictly recreationally with our kids. Our favorite place was Rich Bar when Norm Grant owned it, it was pay to pan, he uncovered that bedrock with heavy equipment and you'd go in and crevice and such. I saw a 4 ounce nugget found 8' from where I was digging. Best we found was 1/4 ounce. We saw a retired couple hit a pocket and get 15 ounces in two days. Now that I'm finally going to get a gold detector I keep thinking of areas I know in the Feather Canyon where I'd like to take it......

nuggetshooter, We'll be there the last week in February. Yes, Gerry has spent a lot of e-mail and phone time with me and when I couldn't decide between GB2 and GMT he offered to bring both along so I could try each of them. I've read that Rye Patch has been really worked over and supposedly the best chance there is with the expensive PI jobs, but I'm mainly there to get the training on the machine from Gerry - if we find something(s) it will be a bonus. I have no doubt we'll leave something for you, though.

Thanks for all the feedback. I'm going to go VLF for a number of reasons, economy among them. I'm going to buy the detector new from Gerry of Gerry's Detectors in Boise and take his detector training at the same time. We'll be down in Rye Patch, Nevada at the end of the month. I can't decide between the GMT and GB2, so Gerry is going to bring both and let me decide after trying them out.

You guys must get this a lot but I'm going to ask anyway....... I'm going to buy a new gold nugget hunting metal detector. Here are some relevant facts: 1. I have little metal detecting experience. 2. I have a fair amount of panning, sluicing and crevicing experience. 3. PI is not in the budget. 4. I can afford VLF in the Gold Bug II price range. 5. I live in Washington State, there are a few areas with nugget potential, I have no idea of the local ground mineralization. 6. I will probably get the chance to take it to Alaska, Oregon and Nevada. Maybe California and Arizona, too. 7. This will be strictly recreational, it might get used 3 weeks a year. I'm leaning towards the White's GMT. I like the thought of automatic ground balance. You may have seen this post before on other forums, I'm trying to get as much input as possible. Thoughts, comments, suggestions?