NATIVE GOLD QUARTZ from the BLUE MTNS. of OREGON

Ruler is 1/4" wide (6 mm). U.S. 10 cent coin is 17.8 mm in diameter.
 
Specimen weight: .59 Grams - 9.2 Grains
 
Size: 11.1X7.5X5.5 mm   
 
When quartz is intruded with precious metal, it becomes highly collectible. That's when you enter the mystical realm of GOLD! Here's a piece of Blue Mtns high grade. The host is predominantly-quartz. Seeing real gold in it's most-natural state mixed with quartz is a bit of mineralogical magic. Miners only rarely luck onto a filthy-rich pocket, vein, or some isolated float rock with gold visible to the naked eye. Some mines, however, encompass massive vein systems with ore bodies bursting with bonanza ore. Here, the golden presence shows, the product of naturally-occurring mineralization. 
 
  I don't sell low grade ores. I sell naturally-occurring gold quartz with visible gold. These high-grade beauties are expensive to acquire and even harder to find. Prices aren't based on the amount of gold, but on the authenticity, rarity and collectibility of specimens.

 
U.S. SHIPPING - $5.00  (includes USPS tracking to all U.S. destinations)
 
INTERNATIONAL CUSTOMERS S&H
$16.00 
 
 FAST REFUND OFFERED (If, for any reason, you're not happy with this item)
  
For years, I poured through old mining dumps with a hand lens. Within that vast multitude of rocks, I observed every color of the rainbow; white, orange, yellow, red rust, black, burnt, purple, and tons of cinder-looking rocks. Anything altered that showed promise was examined. In all that time, I never found one rock with visible gold in it. That still strikes me as remarkable given the law of averages and sheer number of rocks involved. Granted, when you're blessed with a rich claim to work, finding gold can seem relatively-easy. Having great gold stare you in the face every day is really quite the luxury. Most small-scale artisanal miners tell a far different story. They reached the same conclusion I did, that "there's no easy ounces." Yet, having spent years in the trade working the goldfields of North America, I honestly believe a person stands a better chance now than ever before of finding a good deposit; one that would pay decent wages. Remember, this is treasure hunting, so your payoff could escalate into something unimaginable. $4300 per oz gold offers quite an incentive, really. Twenty five years ago, no one forsaw gold increasing by six, seven, eight, ten times. Knowing that, who in their right mind would have sold off their finds? Problem is, when your beans play out, a man does what a man must. Jumping ahead, conditions couldn't be better for mining. All it takes is time, determination, the right tools, access to the right claims, good luck, and mining regs which actually allow a prudent man to mine.
 
Typically, in metamorphic-volcanic environments, super-heated hydrothermal solutions, fluids associated with volcanic activity, carry dissolved gold along with silica and other minerals. Under extreme pressure, this aqueous mixture fills fissures and faults in major rock formations. These contact alteration zones are the interfaces between larger geological components. Contacts act as conduits into which dissolved minerals like gold, silver, copper, lead, and silica, are injected. As they cool, they crystallize and become part of the hard, country rock environment. In the process, veins, sills, dikes, ledges, leads et al. are created. The same principle applies to large porous rock formations, especially carbonates, jasperoids, and other sedimentary rock types. If your particular terrain is quartz-fissure country, contact zones would be the most ideal areas to hone in on. Canyons, creeks, rivers, arroyos, and dry washes drain these contact zones. With the out-wash, detrital material is carried away and redistributed. If these zones are auriferous and haven't been worked to death, a prospector may be in business. "No man is big enough to get it all." 
 
  Weight Conversions:
15.43 GRAINS = 1 GRAM
31.103 GRAMS = 1 TROY OUNCE
24 GRAINS = 1 PENNYWEIGHT (DWT)
20 DWT = 1 TROY OUNCE
480 GRAINS = 1 TROY OUNCE
 
S & H
Discounted for combined shipments.
 
U.S. BUYERS & INTNL. 

PAYMENTS
 For U.S. buyers: We accept paypal
 
For intnl. customers: We accept paypal.
 
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Payment must be made within 7 days from close of  auction.  We ship as soon as funds clear. If you have questions, please ask them before bidding.
 
REFUNDS
  We leave no stones unturned insuring our customers get what they bargained for. If you're not satisfied with this item, contact me. Then, if the problem can't be fixed, return product within 30 days in  'as purchased' condition for a full refund.

 
NOSE FOR GOLD 
Swinging a pick-axe doesn't come easy for me any more. Years ago, it was a different story. I liked to dig. Call it getting up-close-to-the-gold and personal. Naturally, it's hard work, but to feel that chunky gold in your hand; to see it in a pan; those are the payoff moments.
My first summer spent prospecting in Arizona gave me my first real taste of what gold digging, in a literal sense, was all about. That was almost forty-six years ago. Too bad we don't get to do things over again with the promise of a different outcome. Yeah, mining was a trip, and this fossil digger's nose still twitches when some promising formation or exposed bedrock hoves into view. A flyover of rich drainages and historic diggings via Google Earth fills me with renewed gusto in seeing all that unworked ground; realizing how much gold they left behind. Make no mistake, with the right tools and sufficient access, I can still sniff out 'old yeller'. 

One key point to remember - No one finds gold without access. I did not borrow this wisdom from Parker on TV, from Mr. Gold or Mr. Backyard Gold. My goldfield beginnings began in 1980. What I learned came from the School of Hard Knocks. A pickaxe and shovel make stern instructors, but they taught me a lot. Perched at the throttle of a big excavator enables operators to get down to the gold layer in a hurry, but for shallow ground, a pick and shovel do the same thing at a fraction of the hassle. Of course, without access, it doesn't matter how you intended to mine. Access entails variables no uninitiated prospector would understand. Access means everything! When another claimant owns mineral rights to a claim, that authority prevents anyone but the owner or permitted entities from digging or prospecting within the boundaries of that claim. Every bit as important as recognizing gold-bearing formations is having the authorization needed to wade in there and start mining. The former is useless without the latter.

Eighteen years swinging a rock hammer, hiking mountainsides, deserts, and canyonlands, hauling dredges in and out of claims, hammering gold off creek-bottoms, hydraulic cuts, and desert washes around the western mining states, seeing where and how the old timers worked - it all counts as valuable experience in the life of a prospector. You don't just hike down into some remote canyon and pan out an ounce or two. Best set your expectations a few grains lower. Many times, there's overburden to move; too much to excavate by hand. Often, water covers the best ground and dredging restrictions are being enforced. Some formations demand you tunnel beneath countless feet of sediment in gravels that contain zero to no gold. Maybe there's hard-packed clay and caliche on the claim with gold locked up inside that. Naturally, pounding away to free up the gold won’t be easy. Much of the time, gold frequents the largest boulder packs. That means prying behemoth rocks away from their companions. There's no other way to find out what tenor the dirt is sealed up between them. Maybe a claim's lousy with old tailings. With today’s gold prices, one would be wise to check those out as well. Clip zones offer more potentially-rich areas to investigate. A real prospector should be prepared to check out every nook, crack, and cranny where gold might be hiding. Whether it's placer or lode, extensive physical sampling of a claim is imperative. If it's placer you're after, sediments will be your target; figuring out where the minable, gold-bearing strata is. More often than not, you'll leave an area disappointed. No matter how much gold exists in that vicinity, it won't matter if you can't open up promising zones to sample them. Do you see what I'm saying about access and it's many connotations? Deep gravels, vegetation-covered bars, tree-root tangled creek-banks, enormous boulder packs, alluvial fans a hundred feet deep, and high terraces hidden and running back into the mountains have a way of defeating a prospector before he even gets started. Even with X-ray vision showing you where to dig, a person still has to figure out how to get that cursed gold out of the ground. Not that gold isn't found near the surface. Occasionally it is, but usually, it's down close to bedrock or on false bedrock.

One time, I watched a friend right from where he was sitting reach down and pick up a seven pennyweight nugget. That's it. He spotted something unusual lying on the ground and picked it up. I witnessed it. Crazy, huh? No detecting or digging needed. He walks down the ridge from about twenty feet away and says "Gene, is this gold." I thought "HC...no way"! It was about that time I began taking the notion of metal detecting a lot more seriously.

Generally, gold lies buried beneath millions of other leaverites. Prospecting, identifying where it is - that's your first objective and a durned important one at that.  If you follow the earth's signposts, land features like rock formations, elevation changes, boulder packs, clay beds, black sand deposits (and trails), twists and bends in a drainage, after a while, you begin to realize there are correlations between where gold settles and the geophysical features of one’s terrain. If sampling indicates the presence of gold, at some point, heavy equipment may be needed to commence mining in earnest. On many claims, large excavators are essential for opening up ground so it can be tested. On others, hand sampling may suffice. Someone once told me "to be a good prospector, you gotta have the eye of an eagle and be able to dig like a gopher." They said a mouthful.

 

Thanks for checking out our digs.

Gold of Eldorado  1-14-13