There are claims for sale from time to time and I was wondering how one would go about evaluating them…
Like, people on trademe post some random photos of gold with those claims but no info if that’s their total gold they ever found on the claim or from a day or panning…
Is there a way to evaluate how profitable a claim would be besides trusting what the person who’s selling it tells you?
I wouldn’t buy a claim without spending a week dredging various spots of my choosing. Or if I knew the claim owner well and was prepared to believe their stories 
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The only way is to do some testing of your own, like Mathias above has stated. Either doing some dredging punch holes down to bedrock or at least doing some sample panning or high banking. Dredging would be quicker & more effective & you will get an idea of gold size & amounts of as you go on down through the gravel layers down to bed rock.
JW 
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Or, as a seller, you could fill a couple of 12 guages with gold and shooot them into your claim you’re about to sell to some schmuck like the incident in little valley near alex
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Hi Pax,
Sadly I think the biggest part of a claims value today is how bloody hard and costly they are to get approved.
A friend recently got a small dredge claim approved after over two years and god knows how much cash. So there is value just in the permit.
Old saying on the Coast, no one ever sold a claim worth a damn.
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If you haven’t much experience mining Id suggest you pay someone that does to do some prospecting for you. Because it is not a game of chance. There are a lot of variables that come with finding gold and gathering it efficiently. You may have a9 claim with the best gold in the world, but that golds sitting under 10 metres of gravel and a hardpack layer at the bottom or in a gorge thats not accessible or to narly to get a dredge into. Theres also the issues with how much has been worked in the past, are you digging where someones been before and so on and so on. First questions Id be asking are how much and who has worked it? Has the owner done much or are they a hobby miner? Can they put you onto an area that you can mine and guarantee its not been worked? What is the history (due diligence, research)? Do they have some kind of record of gold recovered and time it took etc. Are thete any hidden issues such as access, environmental, govt etc. Compare different claims and ask around, advice is free. Its peace of mind you are after at the end of the day. But nothing is set in stone with gold, its a hidden asset. My advice is do as much due diligence as you can muster and then work your arse off once you get your claim because itll take some time to figure it it out from there.
Its definitely not a dig a hole and get rich quick affair.
When I sell I plan to have all of things on offer for the buyer as an owner should and Il be asking good money for it as well.
If you are not getting good info from the owner that would ring alarm bells for me.
Hope that helps. Also the advice above from JW and Mathius is gold.
Good luck👍
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Thanks for all the input 
I’m not going to buy a claim this year… Need to actually try it all out first and see if I actually like it… Just trying to keep that gold bug quiet for the moment… The bug always wants me to buy a claim… No idea why…
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A gold claim doesn’t guarantee there is consistent payable gold in it after expenses. There might be the odd decent pocket here & there but a lot of poor to dead ground in between. Working the poor & dead ground still costs time & money. You have bad weather & floods to contend with when you can’t dredge at all. High fast flowing dirty water when you can see anything.
JW
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Tell us more salcrete. I’ve heard it was done hadn’t heard about the little valley incident. spent alot of time out that way as a kid exploring on dirtbikes
I had been told by a person who knows one of the owners of one of the claims for sale that the gold shown as representative of gold from the claim for sale came ftom another location entirely.
I made no commemt on the Trademe sale listing as l have learnt not to trust anyone when it comes to gold while at the same time minding my own business and doing my own thing.
The best thing is to ask to test the claim for a few days at locations of your choice. Also get a written agreement prior to doing so for the simple reason that if you strike a rich patch the vendor might suddenly change their mind.
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I haven’t got the book anymore unfortunately, i think it was 'John mcraw, gold on the dunstan '.
But it was about a group wanting money as an investment into a fake claim.
Shotgun shells got loaded with local gold, and if i can remember the prospective buyer got shown how rich the ground was?
If you drive the road into little valley, when you get to where you’re looking over it, look to the left a little, you should see some small cluisings on the hill.
I also grew up in these hills as a kid, all the way from there to doctors point.
So sorry John sanders is leaving, the end of an era.
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