Thanks for the old timers they left some for me to find! And thanks for people like Chris Ralph, Jeff Williams, Dan Hurd and many other for helping me find it with their awesome educational videos. I don't look to get rich and I don't do this for some conspiracy end of the world stuff but panning and trying to find Gold is a real joy!
The San Joaquin river below Friant has several sand and gravel plants with recovery systems and rumor has it that 800 oz come from the large plant per year. Now that Lowes/Home Depot sand is about 200 bucks per ton retail in bags, but we used to buy sand direct for 7dollars per ton back in early 2000s. Even at that bargain basement price , and assuming 1 mg per bag that works out to a whole 1.98/ton in gold. so still not a good deal even at wholesale bulk by the ton purchase. Sluicing and panning are allowed on the river just upstream from those plants , and locals know the river and do very well.
After processing in the plant, it will be less than 1 mg. I don't know how much less because 1 mg is as small as I could measure. It might be 0.0002 grams - I just know its less than 0.001. The spots upstream - if you can read the river, you can pick out the good spots that will be maybe up to several grams per ton.
Some sand producers who dont think its worth taking the time and energy will for go the time and energy to remove the gold. There were more of those companies long ago. The gravel companies who process large amounts of gravels for making asphalt process large amounts gravel and rocks they are aware of the gold and make quite a bit but it pales in comparison to the money the get for the gravels. For asphalt. I spoke with the guy who worked in the gold room. Like i said its a lot gold but is pales in comparison to the money they make in asphalt. Also they use belt systems to move the gravels and in certain parts of the belt conveyors can be a lot of gold recovered. Gold us where you find it. It helps to keep your eys and ears open.
What’s crazy is a lot of guys know nothing about this, so here in Michigan with such fine placer there’s actually some of the best paydirt(for south mi)right where the conveyer flips up n meets the base of the machine n is often forgotten about, the company doesn’t care bc it’s a drop in the ocean but in surprised more guys don’t take it for themselves, hard to get permission to take it round here too(other places too, pretty obvious if you can get close cuz so much black sand), the quarries do recover most tho obv
It depends on where the company that bags the sand sourced it from. Crushed quarts that you can also buy from home depot and elsewhere that sells it, can also produce some nice crystalline gold and other mineral specimens as well locked up in the quarts.
Little rocks, little Gold. Big rocks, bigger Gold. I was waiting for a parts order at a CAT company near Boston and I went out to have a smoke. They have gravel beds around the building about the size of a golf ball. It's river gravel and I was looking around at it. I noticed a piece of Quartz that had stainning in it and sure enough three little pieces of Gold visible that are just under a "Picker" size. I wanna crush it to see inside but I like it the way it is. Sand is just too small of a source., Like you show, it's been run.
If that rock is mostly quartz and no other mineral (other than gold) then you can calculate the rest of the hidden gold content using a specific gravity test.
I have been collecting sand that comes creek runoff in a goldrich region in the west. I have 2,000 lbs of it and I am going to start sluicing it in my indoor sluice Tuesday when my vacation starts.
Well, there's going to be wild fluctuations in what the river concentrates, so if it is gold you may want to go give it a try and weigh it. Often the opportunities in a placer pit are upgraded from the mining activity of low grade gravel. The terraces at La Grange were like 6 cents to a yard at $20 an ounce. If it's above a gram to a bank yard, that's fine as gold tends to go. Sometimes people from the good old days of $300 an ounce have higher standards. It's hard to lose much more than 60% with anything that is anything, so run a yard and what does it weigh. Unlikely there's a bonanza piling up below the box, but that's what pans are for.
about 15 years ago Tom Massie did this on Gold Fever and he did pretty good so off to Home Depot for a bag of sand I didnt do as good as he did but there was Gold and it was enought to get another bag !!!!
Just started in on your book, finally found a copy at Armadillo Mining Co. Already learning a bunch! You really know how to lay it out for the beginner like myself to pick it up. Thanks again!
Thanks again Chris, I would like to do some target hunting down in Folsom on the old tailing piles, but don't want to get busted roaming around...I've other places to go...I always take friends that visit us here in Placerville to 'Roaring Camp' for a day gig and let them do the panning booth and everyone gets their share of the yellow metal...Glad you are out and about...
I remember flying with my dad over the bucket line dredge piles south of Folsom in the late 70s. Holy crap, those things go for miles! A lot of those piles have been built over since. I asked my dad what they were and he explained what a bucket line dredge was. He saw one operating as a kid in the late 30s. There is another large area of bucket line dredge tailings near Snelling CA on the Merced River. And there is the remnants of a bucketline dredge a couple miles south of the Tuolumne River just west of county highway J59. It is on private property sitting in a pond, with some tailings around it.
I think if there is gold in this sand, this could be, then the gold must be very fine microscopic. I think the best option to check sand for gold is a miller table 🙂👌
I’m having a very hard time collecting my very fine flour gold here in Montana you should do a video of how to collect that very small micro gold every flake counts 😊
I bought a gold cube last year and went through 4 buckets of sand I brought back from lake superior. I had already ran it though my sluice with miners moss and I found more than double the gold with the gold cube. They are not cheap but if there is gold in the dirt it will catch it.
@@ChrisRalphyou should’ve put one so big there’s no way it would even be in sand as a joke n then right after let all the stupid people know it was a joke😂see how many people stop the video n go to Home Depot before you get the chance
My opinion If you are buying sand for a project go ahead and run it thru a sluce then use the sand for its intended purpose have some fun find a little gold then you are not spending money needlessly
It would seem to me.... A smart person wanting to mine gold, would set up a gravel pit and like you say, wash the gravel, is it just my thinking, or is there a lot less red tape if the government thinks you are just selling washed gravel and sand?
@@ChrisRalph if I could afford to go to California… flakes are definitely more satisfying than dust… hopefully make it to Australia in 2028 to find some nuggets n see another eclipse. It’s just for fun, n part of the fun is finding and using any info I can, even the process is the reward since even if that allows me to find twice as much gold I’m still not covering gas money
40-60g gold in 1 ton of sand??? Sound insane and inpossible. It mean 1 yard sand has 45,6g up to 68,5g of gold, so 2 ounce/cubic yard VS gold rush tv show they happy for 1 ounce/100 cubic yards and this sand has 200 times more!
Confirms my hunch. There is gold in some builders' sand but you won't become a billionaire washing it out now. The gold price will need to rise significantly to make it viable.
i done 25 kg of sand from europe bricoshop, not a spec ... could not tell i did it bad, first time was on the sluice.. nothing.. try angain with a 3d print gold box thats slower water speed ... again not one spec...
It all depends on where the sand comes from. Much sand for sale in the western USA comes from gravel operations that do recover byproduct gold. They don't recover 100% - so there are small amounts of gold left over in the sand products they sell.
I assume you're here in California? What do you think about the South Yuba river? I find that alot of the time i am the only one out there , while rivers like the American river , or the northern Yuba are JAM PACKED on a pleasant sunny morning , not to mention TONS of claims everywhere... Why do you think that the South Yuba has been more or less "ignored" ? Also If you have any advice on how to move bigger boulders and any shortcuts to removing overburden to get to bedrock let me know! (i assume there are no shortcuts , just lots of hard work!) Also i tend to inhale ALOT of dust when i am digging in dryer bits of the bank and i am worried about silicosis... or possibly health problems later on because of this... do you have any tips other than just holding your breath?
I am not in CA. The difference is easy access. Hwy 49 runs all along the NF Yuba, so access is easy. I don't know the condition of your lungs and I'm not a doctor, but try to make less dust.
As time goes on, and the value of gold increases and the methods for recovery improve, working the discarded tailings of others looks more inviting.
Very true...
He always delivers quality content, I respect his work
Thanks, glad you enjoy the videos.
He is well educated- honest and doesn't exaggerate
An old timmer told me no matter how careful one is to get all the gold out there always is some left.
That old timer was correct.
@@ChrisRalphaa..2rgggtb36
Thanks for the old timers they left some for me to find! And thanks for people like Chris Ralph, Jeff Williams, Dan Hurd and many other for helping me find it with their awesome educational videos. I don't look to get rich and I don't do this for some conspiracy end of the world stuff but panning and trying to find Gold is a real joy!
Life is a dream and even if im an armchair adventurist its ok. Cause dreams are all ive got left sometimes.
The San Joaquin river below Friant has several sand and gravel plants with recovery systems and rumor has it that 800 oz come from the large plant per year. Now that Lowes/Home Depot sand is about 200 bucks per ton retail in bags, but we used to buy sand direct for 7dollars per ton back in early 2000s. Even at that bargain basement price , and assuming 1 mg per bag that works out to a whole 1.98/ton in gold.
so still not a good deal even at wholesale bulk by the ton purchase. Sluicing and panning are allowed on the river just upstream from those plants , and locals know the river and do very well.
After processing in the plant, it will be less than 1 mg. I don't know how much less because 1 mg is as small as I could measure. It might be 0.0002 grams - I just know its less than 0.001. The spots upstream - if you can read the river, you can pick out the good spots that will be maybe up to several grams per ton.
@@ChrisRalph I Hear you Chris. Its pricey to get an Ohaus .0001 Mg capacity scale, and take care of it to keep it accurate over its lifetime.
Some sand producers who dont think its worth taking the time and energy will for go the time and energy to remove the gold. There were more of those companies long ago. The gravel companies who process large amounts of gravels for making asphalt process large amounts gravel and rocks they are aware of the gold and make quite a bit but it pales in comparison to the money the get for the gravels. For asphalt. I spoke with the guy who worked in the gold room. Like i said its a lot gold but is pales in comparison to the money they make in asphalt. Also they use belt systems to move the gravels and in certain parts of the belt conveyors can be a lot of gold recovered. Gold us where you find it. It helps to keep your eys and ears open.
No doubt the gold is just a by-product and they make far more on the gravel and sand rock products.
What’s crazy is a lot of guys know nothing about this, so here in Michigan with such fine placer there’s actually some of the best paydirt(for south mi)right where the conveyer flips up n meets the base of the machine n is often forgotten about, the company doesn’t care bc it’s a drop in the ocean but in surprised more guys don’t take it for themselves, hard to get permission to take it round here too(other places too, pretty obvious if you can get close cuz so much black sand), the quarries do recover most tho obv
Thank you for all the great videos.⛏️
Glad you like them!
Okay - I love this video. It is great and tackle a legit question.
Glad you enjoyed it!
It depends on where the company that bags the sand sourced it from.
Crushed quarts that you can also buy from home depot and elsewhere that sells it, can also produce some nice crystalline gold and other mineral specimens as well locked up in the quarts.
If you get the quartz from the right place...
Little rocks, little Gold. Big rocks, bigger Gold.
I was waiting for a parts order at a CAT company near Boston and I went out to have a smoke. They have gravel beds around the building about the size of a golf ball. It's river gravel and I was looking around at it. I noticed a piece of Quartz that had stainning in it and sure enough three little pieces of Gold visible that are just under a "Picker" size. I wanna crush it to see inside but I like it the way it is.
Sand is just too small of a source., Like you show, it's been run.
In the first run, the gravel plants are sometimes getting lots of gold as a by-product.
If that rock is mostly quartz and no other mineral (other than gold) then you can calculate the rest of the hidden gold content using a specific gravity test.
I have been collecting sand that comes creek runoff in a goldrich region in the west.
I have 2,000 lbs of it and I am going to start sluicing it in my indoor sluice Tuesday when my vacation starts.
I hope its good and productive sand.
How’d it go
Awesome Video thank you Chris
Glad you enjoyed it.
Great information sir. I am curious about rhodium and if there is a place to go look for it. Based on my quick internet search, this is very rare
Rhodium is very rare and occurs only as traces in other ores, like platinum.
I know of a river in Alaska full of 'flour' gold but was told its too much labor to get it out. Plus its a salmon stream.
It depends on how much gold is in a stream "full" of gold.
Well, there's going to be wild fluctuations in what the river concentrates, so if it is gold you may want to go give it a try and weigh it. Often the opportunities in a placer pit are upgraded from the mining activity of low grade gravel. The terraces at La Grange were like 6 cents to a yard at $20 an ounce. If it's above a gram to a bank yard, that's fine as gold tends to go. Sometimes people from the good old days of $300 an ounce have higher standards. It's hard to lose much more than 60% with anything that is anything, so run a yard and what does it weigh. Unlikely there's a bonanza piling up below the box, but that's what pans are for.
about 15 years ago Tom Massie did this on Gold Fever and he did pretty good so off to Home Depot for a bag of sand I didnt do as good as he did but there was Gold and it was enought to get another bag !!!!
Right, but Tom probably dumped a couple grams of gold into his pan to make it look good. Tom faked a lot of stuff.
@@ChrisRalph LOL !!!!!!
Just started in on your book, finally found a copy at Armadillo Mining Co. Already learning a bunch! You really know how to lay it out for the beginner like myself to pick it up. Thanks again!
Awesome, thank you! Glad to hear it!
Thanks again Chris, I would like to do some target hunting down in Folsom on the old tailing piles, but don't want to get busted roaming around...I've other places to go...I always take friends that visit us here in Placerville to 'Roaring Camp' for a day gig and let them do the panning booth and everyone gets their share of the yellow metal...Glad you are out and about...
Roaring camp is a good spot. There are lots of placer areas around Placerville.
I remember flying with my dad over the bucket line dredge piles south of Folsom in the late 70s. Holy crap, those things go for miles! A lot of those piles have been built over since. I asked my dad what they were and he explained what a bucket line dredge was. He saw one operating as a kid in the late 30s.
There is another large area of bucket line dredge tailings near Snelling CA on the Merced River. And there is the remnants of a bucketline dredge a couple miles south of the Tuolumne River just west of county highway J59. It is on private property sitting in a pond, with some tailings around it.
I think if there is gold in this sand, this could be, then the gold must be very fine microscopic. I think the best option to check sand for gold is a miller table 🙂👌
Miller tables work well but they are very, very slow........ in processing the gravels.
@@ChrisRalph what do you suggest to collect it faster mercury?
I’m having a very hard time collecting my very fine flour gold here in Montana you should do a video of how to collect that very small micro gold every flake counts 😊
look at the videos linked near the end of this video.
I bought a gold cube last year and went through 4 buckets of sand I brought back from lake superior. I had already ran it though my sluice with miners moss and I found more than double the gold with the gold cube. They are not cheap but if there is gold in the dirt it will catch it.
You should have thrown a nugget in there for RUclips, go viral and start a run on Home Depot sand 😂
Some guys would do that for views, but I wont - my videos are for real.
Especially with RUclips's New traffic restrictions.!!! Very well said though😊😊😊😊
@@ChrisRalphyou should’ve put one so big there’s no way it would even be in sand as a joke n then right after let all the stupid people know it was a joke😂see how many people stop the video n go to Home Depot before you get the chance
Chris, this is hard to believe
What part is hard to believe?
My opinion If you are buying sand for a project go ahead and run it thru a sluce then use the sand for its intended purpose have some fun find a little gold then you are not spending money needlessly
That makes sense to me.
That book is a very good buy.
I'm glad to hear you think so.
We have local sand in our home depot in anchorage ak and I've found a little bit
That is interesting. Certainly gold in Alaska!
It would seem to me.... A smart person wanting to mine gold, would set up a gravel pit and like you say, wash the gravel, is it just my thinking, or is there a lot less red tape if the government thinks you are just selling washed gravel and sand?
There are more than plenty of obstacles to starting a gravel plant. Gobs of red tape no matter how you are mining.
Definitely a fun experiment..
Glad you enjoyed it.
Hmm Home Depot could add a little gold color on the bag use the same label and charge $3 more, they would sell.😂
maybe so.
I feel like if you know the source of the sand this could be used to decide which streams to go to
Or just look at the multitude of info on the gold bearing streams of California.
@@ChrisRalph if I could afford to go to California… flakes are definitely more satisfying than dust… hopefully make it to Australia in 2028 to find some nuggets n see another eclipse. It’s just for fun, n part of the fun is finding and using any info I can, even the process is the reward since even if that allows me to find twice as much gold I’m still not covering gas money
40-60g gold in 1 ton of sand??? Sound insane and inpossible.
It mean 1 yard sand has 45,6g up to 68,5g of gold, so 2 ounce/cubic yard VS gold rush tv show they happy for 1 ounce/100 cubic yards and this sand has 200 times more!
I think we have a misunderstanding.
I live in the Redding area. Have you ever played Around shasta county
Very little, but there certainly is gold there in Shasta County.
Thank you for responding I like your videos very informative
Confirms my hunch. There is gold in some builders' sand but you won't become a billionaire washing it out now. The gold price will need to rise significantly to make it viable.
Yes, a person is better off gathering their own gravel samples in and around old gold mines.
i done 25 kg of sand from europe bricoshop, not a spec ... could not tell i did it bad, first time was on the sluice.. nothing.. try angain with a 3d print gold box thats slower water speed ... again not one spec...
It all depends on where the sand comes from. Much sand for sale in the western USA comes from gravel operations that do recover byproduct gold. They don't recover 100% - so there are small amounts of gold left over in the sand products they sell.
What do you use to collect that fine micro gold?
very careful sluicing with my miners moss sluice and then careful panning.
I been stacking for years leeching,what direction do I go I haven't started networking yet any suggestions??should I put it on fire before selling?
Can you explain please - You know what you are thinking, but I have no idea what you are talking about.
I suppose to be richer than operah I guess u can say
What state are you buying sand in
In Nevada. But for sure the sand is from California.
Fish on! Clicked the bait!
Hope you enjoyed it.
Before I watch the show, I'll say you didn't make enough to pay for sales tax on the sand.
Good Guess!
That's a great thumbnail. Everything you need to know right there. Go rent a u haul and get you some SAND!
But you see the results of the Home Depot sand - less than 0.001 grams - not much. Better gold from the old gold mines.
احبك في الله
رزق حلال ورجل صادق
I am humble before the Holy One.
Thanks 😂
Glad you enjoyed the video.
No, you can't make money from it.
That's right.
But it's fun to experiment!
@@ChrisRalph
Glad you enjoyed it!
First! LOL.
You got it!
I assume you're here in California? What do you think about the South Yuba river? I find that alot of the time i am the only one out there , while rivers like the American river , or the northern Yuba are JAM PACKED on a pleasant sunny morning , not to mention TONS of claims everywhere... Why do you think that the South Yuba has been more or less "ignored" ?
Also If you have any advice on how to move bigger boulders and any shortcuts to removing overburden to get to bedrock let me know! (i assume there are no shortcuts , just lots of hard work!)
Also i tend to inhale ALOT of dust when i am digging in dryer bits of the bank and i am worried about silicosis... or possibly health problems later on because of this... do you have any tips other than just holding your breath?
I am not in CA. The difference is easy access. Hwy 49 runs all along the NF Yuba, so access is easy. I don't know the condition of your lungs and I'm not a doctor, but try to make less dust.