Finding Gold

I don't know if this is purely survival, but it has a "rugged feel" to it, and in a long-term survival situation, being able to find gold is probably a good skill to have. Gold will always have a value and makes a great barter tool.

So has anybody tried panning/dredging/sluicing for gold before? Can you give any advice?

Is it safe to say that most rivers and creeks will have >some< gold in them? I'm interested in just getting a pan and going to a river to try it out, but I don't know if it's viable or not... namely people will probably think you're stupid for trying. Even if I can get one flake for a few hours work, it will be worth it, but if I get nothing it will be a huge disappointment. I've tried looking for a general distribution of areas that are high in gold content, but not much luck besides a list of states in the US, namely California, and here in Canada the Yukon. I guess I can't blame people for wanting to keep that kind of a thing secret though. I've seen some gold flake looking kind of things at the beach when snorkelling, but I'm guessing it's most likely fool's gold.

Any other common precious metals/gems that are relatively easy to find without investing in equipment?

Oh, and if you did manage to find a few grams of gold or some rough emerald/sapphire or something, where would you be able to sell it?

Thanks



[edit on 6/22/2008 by Yarcofin]

Oh Lord. When I was young and foolish I decided I wanted to go prospecting for gold. I bought the pan, a sluice, read all that I could and watched the TV show, Gold Prospectors of America, or some such nonsense.

Then one beautiful spring day I was busting my butt running a machine and my boss came by and flat out pissed me off. I loaded up my tools and walked for the door. On the way my brother came over and asked me where I was going, I told him I'm going prospecting for Gold. He ran over, grabbed his tools and said he was coming with me.

The next morning the car was loaded up and we were heading for Georgia. That's right, Georgia. Allot of people don't realize that the first gold found in America was discovered in the south. It was the first American gold rush.

What they don't tell you on that TV show is gold prospecting is really hard work. After a week of digging, sluicing, panning and generally working like a Hebrew slave, we had one little fleck of gold to show for our efforts.

We came back home, made a scrap book of the adventure, and got real jobs.

Trust me, I've been there, gold prospecting will kill a man in a short amount of time and the payday sucks too.

It's just not worth it.

Why would you want to prospect for gold in Sit X? What good does gold do, money? You don't need money in Sit X, you need survival skills.

IMO in a survival situation you would be better off finding as well as stockpile food . By the time you and anyone are with build and maintain your shelter amongst other things including keeping yourselves secure you wont have time to go looking for Gold . Even if you had the time to search for Gold as I have already noted there are other more important things that would need to be done .

agreed,there are far better skills to learn if you want to survive a sit x. get handy with a bow and arrow. Knife throwing,spear throwing and trap making.Stuff like that.

I got a story for ya. As a kid 5-6 years old, my family moved to Alaska and drove the Alcan highway. This was during the time the Alcan was in construction. We stopped off the side of the road not sure where. During that time I wandered off further into the the woods a bit and played in the dirt the road crews and bulldozers pushed off to the side. I found some rocks with green crystals that now (later in life) I believe may have been emeralds. At that time some was as large as my fist. They was like crystals only green no it wasn't 7-up bottle My mom was calling for me and so I put the pretty rocks back just as I found them. So somewhere along the roadside of the Alaskan Alcan highway is the largest Emeralds you ever saw