Gold Fever

The sickness one gets when involving their lives with gold is very serious!

I have seen it happen a number of ways, even between good friends, but it is most dangerous when claim jumping is the goal!

Claim jumping was common in the old days, I have seen this myself during another "gold rush" to the hills. It was in the early 1980’s when everyone was sure gold, now at $800 an ounce, was soon to go over a thousand. Claim jumpers in hard to reach areas would pile rocks and place a paper inside a plastic bag claiming the area for their own, often with "shoot on site" warnings! Most of the time their claim was above or below this area, but it contained very little gold and the next one down had better possibilities. The law at this time said you must dig on your claim at least one month out of each year. Which actually meant you only had to dig once in that month, then go to the Court House and pay to keep your claim current. I would do the actual "dig" for others, who were unable to make the trip. When I found evidence on trees or in the rocks by others trying to claim it for themselves I would document it on video or by a picture. Then I would re-chisel the tree or take the paper back to those who owned the claim. I still have a few of those warnings somewhere, they are somewhat amusing, often not spelled right, just like in the "old days." Once I came close to being shot, some of the old timers up in those areas are a bit crazy, they want to be left alone and they should be! In safe areas I took my kids along to help with the work, it is the hardest thing I have ever done in my life. Digging for gold is like finding free money lying on the ground. You don’t have to put up with a boss to get the money, you don’t have to raise the price on goods and resell it for the profit. It is like printing your own money, or in a way, getting it from nowhere! It causes a strange feeling to come over you, gold fever they call it. When you find some, you get excited and begin to dig faster and harder, you ignore the pain in your back and the coldness of the water. You can easily over do, and have trouble making it back to your pickup before nightfall. The work is better when shared with others, but be careful about choosing your partners, watch out for greedy or self-centered people. They will turn on you after they get the "fever," I recommend family or lifetime friends who do not "worship" money. I remember one trip with people I had not know very long out by Sand Creek that ended badly. We gathered the gold into one container all day long and got back to camp after dark, planning on separating it in the morning. There was a big argument about who would hold it and all night long everyone kept walking by my tent to see if I was still there. I finally got up and rounded up enough light to get it separated… that was at about 2:30. In the morning one of the fellows could not find his pouch and before long he had accused each of us, one at a time. We finally broke camp and went home early. He found his pouch just before we left, while crawling around the "call of nature" tree! That guy was a nice fellow normally, friendlier than most in fact. But the fever affected him more than anyone I had ever seen before. You just never know until you get it!

Tourists will pay a great deal of money for raw gold, especially after they have tried to pan it themselves... often 10 times what it is worth! Even Mountain Men and their families will "trade" three or four times the going rate, they also know how much work it is to get. Jewelers will pay about double the weight, but only if it is a useable nugget for a necklace or something.

The key to getting the most money is in presenting it. Small flakes and dust should be in a small bottle of water with a tight lid, most common is glass, (but don't drop it, the small pieces are hard to recover, especially off of cement). Nuggets are best in a box with a see-through opening in the top, use a black felt background.

Keeping it around is dangerous, friends will rob your house, and take other things while they are at it, either put it away or sell it.

Do not become possessed with the metal in raw form, it can affect you badly, sometimes even when in the form of a ring...