Prospecting Heads Across The Pond

As the price of gold has risen, traditional placer-gold areas like Alaska and British Columbia have seen an influx of new prospectors; there've even been hopefuls in Alberta, a province more known for oil and gas. Gold fever has spread so far, it's now taking hold amongst hopeful prospectors across the Atlantic in the U.K.

As the price of gold continues to hit record highs, interest in finding it has grown despite the area's most experienced prospector admitting his biggest haul is a mere 11 pieces the size of a grain of sand....

Alf Henderson, 80, of Bowness-on-Windermere, has been hunting for gold for 40 years.

Now instead of just a handful of hardy hopefuls spending their spare time knee-deep in cold streams, he now finds himself joined by up to 40 people at a time....

He does pass along the same caution that experienced prospectors usually give to cool off gold fever: the chances of making money off the hobby are slim. Best to do it for the fun.

The article includes this informative graph that compares gold to silver and the U.S. dollar index:



Also included is a map of the hot spots for panned gold in the U.K.

Gold Records Bringing Out New Prospectors

Thanks to the gold bull market, and the newfound publicity for the metal, there's a lot of people catching the gold fever. As a result, prospecting supply companies are doing a land-office business in a place more known for oil and gas: the province of Alberta in Canada.

“Every day since Christmas, we've sold a gold pan. I've never sen anything like it,” says Kathryn Walters of Bedrock Supply in Edmonton. “I definitely see gold fever this year.”

And it isn't just pans that people are buying. Books on how to find gold are becoming almost as tricky to find as gold itself. New print runs have been ordered, and photocopied versions are filling the void until they're ready.

Neil Dougherty of Touchwood Enterprises in Edson, Alta. says sales of the top-of-the-line metal detectors he stocks have doubled in the last two years. They cost $5,595 and he sold 23 of them last year....

There was a bit of a gold rush in Alberta more than a century ago, centered on the North Saskatchewan river, and that's where Albertan interest is centered now. As is always the case, only a lucky few will stike it rich - and only those who treat it as a serious career will make a living off it. For most, prospecting and panning will be little more than a hobby - at times, a frustrating one.

Pair Who Found £300,000 Ancient Gold Treasure Trove Have Falling Out

In a drama reminiscent of the old movie The Treasure Of The Sierra Madre, two former friends have had a falling out over the splitting of the proceeds they're entitled to after finding a cache of ancient Celtic gold coins on someone else's property.

A British Museum valuation committee has now followed convention by ruling that half should go to the landowner, farmer Cliff Green, 69.

But metal-detecting enthusiast Mr Darke, 62, who found the treasure, is furious that he has been awarded £75,803, while Mr Lewis, 56, who was drafted in to help later, will receive £74,196.

Undisclosed costs in the ongoing legal battle they are locked in means the final figures will be significantly less.

Mr Darke describes the episode as a ‘nightmare’ and says he wishes he had never come across the first coin – but has vowed to fight the ruling.

Mr Lewis admits the bust-up has left a ‘nasty taste’ but insists he got what he deserves as he located most of the hoard.

‘As far as I’m concerned it is a fair deal, end of story,’ he added.

The story begins back in 2008, when Mr. Darke found a single coin while searching a 30-acre plot in Dallinghoo, near Woodbridge, Suffolk. He later found eight more, and asked his then-friend Mr. Lewis to give him a hand. Together, they unearthed hundreds more coins. Because Mr. Darke thought he deserved more, because he found then first and did a lot of work doing so, he and Mr. Lewis got lawyers and are entangled in a legal dispute.


It's a sad ending to an adventure that resulted in the most significant find of ancient Iceni coins to date. The Iceni were a Celtic tribe located in Suffolk that revolted against the Roman occupiers back in 61 AD. The coins have been dated as being made between 40 and 15 B.C.

Gold Rush...In Sudan

There's a real gold fever developing in Sudan, spearked by prospectors finding gold out in the desert.

Lured by tales of fortunes made overnight, businessman Amir Tabidi ditched the comfort of Khartoum to spend weeks braving blistering heat, bandits and snakes to hunt for gold in remote Sudanese desert areas.

Camped out in the wilderness without electricity or daily showers, Tabidi and his group found nearly 2 kilos of gold (worth nearly $94,000/57,500 pounds) in just two weeks of hunting with metal detectors. That was enough to convince the 34-year-old to make the arduous trip two more times -- joining countless others with similar dreams.

"Sometimes we would arrive at a place at night where there was just nothing there," said Tabidi, who works in his family's gold jewellery business in Khartoum.

"But by 5 a.m. you could start hearing the beep-beep of metal detectors, and by morning the whole area would be filled with people walking around with metal detectors. You'd say -- 'Where did all these people come from?' It was amazing."...

Those prospectors operate in a grey area: they tend to walk across the border to Dubai or Beirut to unload their gold. The Sudanese government is thinking of encouraging them to stop selling gold abroad and to organize them into co-operatives in part to make sure child labour isn't used. Formally known as artisanal miners, these prospectors produce most of the gold that comes from Sudan. For the lucky few, there's a lot of money to be made. Unfortunately, their prospecting is deterring more systematic searches for the metal: there's little point in spending a lot of money if the gold is going to end up being lifted by artisans.


So, the only hope for mining companies is to go underground where artisanal miners can't reach.

Gold Popular Enough To Reach Hollywood

Perhaps in response to the show Gold Rush: Alaska, veteran director Michael Mann and writer Paul Haggis are teaming up to put together a thriller similar to Humphrey Bogart classic Treasure Of The Sierra Madre. Taking place in a contemporary setting, it's to be entitled Gold.

The story follows prospectors and speculators on the ruthless search for gold and comes from Patrick Massett and John Zinman (co-executive producers of "Friday Night Lights" and "The Chicago Code") who first wrote the spec script as a feature writing sample.

Initially, Haggis was circling the project to direct himself before taking on other projects. However, the writer showed the sample script to Mann and he took the the story immediately. The director has picked up the script for his Forward Pass production banner and intends to direct the film as well....

The article from which this snippet was taken notes that movies about gold-hunting have been few and far between lately. That paucity may change as gold enters into the mainstream.

100 Oz Nugget Approaching Auction

Today is the day that a 100-oz gold nugget, a lucky find by a Nevada Couty resident who's unnamed in the write-up, is being auctioned off. Found in bedrock underneath some old mining tailings, It's now known as the Washington Nugget.

The find was far from total luck.

The Nevada County resident had his undeveloped property – not far from the old mining town of Washington – assayed by a professional for possible gold deposits.

"Just to see what gold would be down to the first 10 feet," he said.

There was some fine gold, and a hint that there might be more in the bedrock beneath the old mining tailings.

Knowing how Gold Rush lodes were found in similar bedrock, "it led us to think there may be some," he said....

What did the trick was ground-penetrating radar, which is also used in archeology. The nugget itself was about ten feet down in a crevice; after the radar was used, a metal detector did the trick. The man also found to much small, but still large, nuggets in the crevice he exposed.



Below is a picture of the lucky fellow with his find, gotten from the same article linked to above: