jasong

Ok yeah that's what I was guessing. That was in large part due to organized crime manipulating small markets, which doesn't exist in Canada as much as here. The miners didn't help themselves there either though, the mining industry in the 90's and prior was in fact a poster child for penny stock scams and fraud which was in part what attracted all the government regulations. Two sides to every story I guess. I just watched a movie on one such fraud. As far as I know you can still seek funding and go public, and penny stocks can be traded OTC. Just not on the NYSE or anything.

I also have some claims which I've optioned to a Canadian mining/exploration company, though not for gold. I'm not so convinced it's politics in play as much as the Canadians I've spoken with just seem more willing to take risks in the small scale/junior side of the mineral industry. Most of the junior mining or exploration jobs I see are for Canadian based companies, and many of these are often pursuing projects larger US based companies have passed over. I'm curious which laws in specific make it harder for a US miner to raise capital for mineral exploration in the US than it is for a Canadian miner to raise capital for an operation in the US? I see imbalances in things such as the way MSHA regulates a 1 person operation the same way they regulate a 1000 person operation, making the costs to actually start mining prohibitive for small scale miners, but this applies to any foreign entity mining here just like it does to US citizens. From what I can determine, all the legal documents are still filed in the US for a foreign corporation, the laws of the US apply to all issues regarding the exploration and mineral extraction, and to my knowledge the corporation must have a US based entity or citizen in order to hold the claims outright if the option is executed fully. A stock sale can occur in the country of origin to raise capital and need not be in the US, but that has nothing to do with mining or mineral regulations and more to do with international finance law. Is this what you mean by being easier to raise capital outside the US?

Merc reacts to nitric acid (10k testing solution) so it can't be mercury if you didn't see a reaction. The torch must be oxidizing something if the color is changing. I'd give it a streak test. Difference between low purity gold and brass is pretty easy to spot on a streak.

Give it a streak test on the back of your toilet lid or some other unglazed ceramic, gold streaks gold, brass is more brassy-brownish. Or if you have some nitric acid, brass starts reacting right away, gold doesn't do anything. XRF is definitive though. 19.33g/cm3 is too dense to be 14k gold so I would try the specific gravity test again. I've found electrum nuggets down to 59% gold/41% silver, none of mine have been tarnished out of the ground though but who knows maybe different soil types react different, so with all that oxidization on it I'd have to guess brass brazing slag but these things are impossible to tell from pics. Make sure to reply back after you figure it out one way or another, a mystery needs a solution!

Nice job man! Those new coils are good stuff. I get better performance on chondrites from the 17x13 Evo in Sens Extra than on the GPZ HY/Normal by up to a few inches depending on the piece. Haven't tested irons though.

The problem I have with the Nokta is it falses a lot on the upper 2-3 settings. Its almost impossible to use the upper 2 unless the pinpointer is totally vertical and even then sometimes it just doesn't work, drives me crazy, you can't lay it down on the ground sometimes without turning it off. I'm thinking about getting the Garrett AT now. My experience with Nokta in general has not been good, it took 3 Fors Core's (and something like 2-3 months) to get a working one. Other people had the identical problems online and Kellyco said they had a lot of units sent back so they clearly have QA/QC issues. It's the company I keep wanting to like but they just can't get me something that works. Maybe they'll get it together in the future. I know other people have had no problems at all though so, experiences vary I guess. Oh yeah, the other thing which I find kind of hilarious is that the pinpointer case, both on the inside and outside, came reeking of cigarette smoke. I got asked if I started smoking again when it was sitting in the backseat. Different standards in different countries I guess. I had to throw it away.

Yes, the newer pinpointers will when set to high sensitivity. I've had mine go off on rocks which I took home, crushed them up and found nothing, and then it won't go off on the pile of crushed powder. Also had it go off on really hot clay lenses, dig 6 inches into them and it won't go off on the clay I removed from the hole but it still beeps on the clay at the bottom of hole no matter how much I dig.

The Hermit is pretty close to perfect, the only thing where I want to make improvements is the sides since if you belt mount it and fall they slice you open, and then to put a beefy magnet holder on the top for a 1x1 square rare earth. Also the scoop needs to be 2x thicker, I'll show you a pic of my scoop sometime, it looks like frankenstein re-welded together 4 or 5 different times. Muriatic is Hydrochloric Acid, I mentioned something at the end of the video about tossing it in some Hydrochloric to take that black coating off though I mumble a lot. Reason I use CLR is it isn't strong enough to damage any of the oxide coatings if its only soaking for 20 minutes or an hour or so. I sell all the nuggets I find so I try to keep them as close to "au-naturel" as possible and whoever buys them can process them more if they want.

Haha nice yeah Hermit Picks are the best. Are they being built with magnet slots in them now, it looks like it in your pic? I welded one onto mine but it wasn't tall enough to hold the magnet when I really knock it around. This summer since I will now have a garage to build a workshop in I'm going to design my own pick based on the Hermit and Supersede pick designs.

I think I might do even better trading the Z for a backhoe. Better hide your golds in the meantime while I'm still armed with it.

I found the culprit!

You'll get full 4G LTE with Verizon in the places you are asking about, Q and Rye Patch. Gold Basin too. Half the time I post to forums I'm sitting on a rock with my phone taking a break from detecting. I was getting 10mbit data out in the middle of the prairie in my trailer in NNV, almost as fast as a home cable line.

Cool, nice trip. It's a real tough area to get nuggets out of. If you go to Gold Basin with the GBPro, look for shallowish (gravel depth 2-6") washes and makes sure to detect side walls, lots of 0.1 to 0.25 gram pickers out there, hard to learn at first and takes a few trips to get the feel, but once you get the feel for it it's hard to get skunked with a good VLF out there.

I've detected that area before and all I can say is get ready to dig bullets like you've never seen and wear orange.

Thanks Flak for the kind words. Oldies, I can't control how a they look when I pull them up. Most that I find are pretty crusty too in general but they aren't always, especially in low clay areas or places where the wash is sandy. But if you want crusty, I have crusty and then some, keep an eye out. Thx Uncle Ron.