Disagree entirely - how many can afford a claim? The good old miners right allowed HAND METHODS ONLY - pan, shovel, sluice box or cradle and was well suited to a family going on holiday and panning a few colours on any river providing it was not claimed. It is stupidity to say that these people are after 'hand outs as that is simply not true - we, the citizens of this country are supposed to own it and why shouldnt they have the right to pan a few colours. You have the right to recreationally fish dont you? Do you think maybe that only commercial fishers should be permitted to take fish? Same situation. As for the fisheries - I have no doubt that it might indeed come to the situation whereby one day no recreational fishing is allowed and you have to pay a registration fee to go fishing - I wonder what those who agree with you about re-establising the miners right so that you can pan a bit of gold on an unclaimed river bank will think then?
A claim on the other hand allows you to use mechanical means and to commercially mine gold or to reserve a stretch of river or an area of land for your EXCLUSIVE use. This in effect means that you and ONLY you are entitled to the gold within the bounds of your claim.
As for claim jumpers? - they are tossers - just the same as poachers and thieves.
Agree with you and GoldstampX lots of people expect it easy There are plenty of recreational areas to pan and sluice. Still plenty of gold to be had.
Not hard to setup a claim and if there are a few of yous you can spread the cost. Theres still plenty of creeks here in Otago where you can average 1 g +per hour with a small dredge like the Kakanui River at Clifton falls. Surprised as to why it hasn’t got a claim on it yet.
People just got to think and put the research in.
If your spending 12-15 k on a claim and can only use hand tools you have done something seriously wrong me thinks
To give some of the dreamers out there and idea of how much money you spend. And how much gold you get for your efforts. Here is my quick info chart. All prices are estimated. You will have to put in a solid effort to make the daily profits.
Public fossicking site: Yearly cost $0
Gold pan Cost $20 daily profit $50+ on a good creek.
Sluice box Cost $200+ Daily profit $500+/- on a good creek
Spend money to make money. Yearly costs $3000+
Buy a claim on trademe. $28,000
Put in your own claim $8,000-15,000. Lots of factors involved.
Once you have a claim.
4 inch dredge $5000+ Good creek. $50/hour
5 inch dredge $10,000+ Good creek $100+/h
6 inch dredge $15,000+ Good creek $200+/h
Those are the common sizes of dredges used.
Good winch. $300+ MINE was $500 used
Tools, bars, wire rope, etc. $500+
Wetsuit $200+
Extras $200+++++++++…
And in case your really dreaming
Heavy equipment mining.
$300,000 to over a million to start.
Yearly fuel bill. $50,000-100,000+
Good things dreams are still free.
I did meet and elderly fellow a few years ago who would go to a fossicking area and make about an OZ a week with a sluice box. So it is possible to make a wage at the public places. But you will work for it.
The recreational areas have been well done over, even before they became recreational areas, good for recreation. The topic was earning a living. Basically in the premise of it’s better than going on the dole, for some. If your in that situation, generally your not in a financial position to afford a claim. So your barking up the wrong tree a bit there, no offense. Cheers
Awesome info their Goldstamp!
I can’t say Iv done that well in the fossicking areas Iv been to haha, but I have seen guys doing well working a fresh slip and they worked for it. Sluicing all day is no joke. I prefer being in the water with a bit of bouyncey myself. But whatevers clever at the time.
Like you say the dole and a warm dry house at the end of the day is probably better and more stable lol. Bloody sad state of affairs.
I have seen a few claims now for around the 28-30k mark. Quite a hefty mark-up from 8-15…
Spend months doing research. More months making sure there is enough gold to make money. And your $8-15,000 can be worth $30,000 also. Hard work. Nobody wants to do it for free.
It’s like guys who have no idea what they are doing spending $8,000 building a home made dredge. You could spend $12,000 on a proline, and in a few hours make the extra $4000 somebody cheaped out on. While they spend weeks wondering if they are losing more then they are catching. Cheap shit is still shit.
You can’t open a restaurant and not buy the food until someone orders it. It always cost money to make money. Buy the right gear once and don’t worry about it. A good investment will make you money if you do the research and hard work. Or sit on the dole. Nothing comes for free in this world. Just the dole.
A person would be a fool to claim an area unless they did their research first and then the cost is offset by a few ounces of gold.
That is not what the thread topic is about - it’s about opening up the rivers etc to allow recreational gold panning just as you could from the 1860s through to the 1970s. I dont think those of you who speak against this realise just how many of YOUR rights have been lost since the 1960s
rights in all aspects of life have been erroding since the begining of governance.
its the globalist agenda now to prevent individuals from being able to make a living from the land hence the attack on farming mining etc. just increase compliance costs so its only possible for large corporate enterprises to undertake.
god forbid average joe could ever go to a creek with a $50 shovel and $20 gold pan and make a living no no no we must impose many thousands of $$$$ in barriers hoops and hurdles, thats not enough so we will throw in environmental compliance and rediculous h&s standards and now youre in 2020. Now move to the city and the govt will look after you…
That is gold! Right on the money!
We have become slaves to the system and that’s the way they like it.
It’s going to be interesting in a year or 2 when we experience what global depression looks like, I hope they can still look after us then, but I doubt it…
There is not a lot of forward thinking going on in the Beehive that’s for sure
Exactly
On any investment. 10% is a bloody good return.
So you spend $30k on a claim. $15k on a dredge and some gear. And if you want to dredge full time you should be at least 10oz a year. So 2 years later. You should have 20 oz. Hopefully that’s about $60k.
With that $60k you have made all your money back plus paid aprox 5 years worth of fees. So you now have 3 years to make nothing but money. If you didn’t buy a shit dredge you are always sinking your extra cash into.
I have a proline. In 10 years I have spent…$400. Not including oil changes.
This summer I will have to spend another $1000 for a new hose.
Like any business. You need money to make money. Only dreams are free in this life.
Oh. And the dole.
Yes you start by spending what is for some a fortune but if you know what you are doing and do your homework you would be reimbursed many times over. In the past l would have paid today’s costs on one of my better days. 6 ounces in 2 hours just below Arrow Falls - January 1977 or 1978. Today that’s about $17,000. That wasnt the best day either. The gold is there but do your homework.
yup I have read and seen your photos and stories inspiring, I am still looking for that bedrock crack that was missed… I am getting around $100 an hour with my 4 inch which aside from the cold water getting in my wetsuit I am happy with
Yeah Goldstamp! I have a Keane which I am happy with so far - Proline seemed like the engines more reliable maybe (from reading) - but have no experience of them. Spent a while looking before I brought and paid for it with gold I got from hand sluicing. 4 Inch was over 8k with the Hookah system etc. But less than 3 ozs nowadays! Lucky for me I have a decent day job so dredging for me is mostly about the hard work keeping fit and having fun. Rather than $. But I think people underestimate the cost and the hard work.
Fishing and gold mining entirely a different kettle of fish, excuse the pun. Folks being able to run rampant and dig wherever they felt is not wat is wanted or needed, and will soon have thave the tweety bird folks getting government and councils out to close the industry down all together. A claim between 6 or 10 individuals would keep claim costs down. But alas, this as been mentioned countless times on this forum before, and has anything happened so far? probably not. As I was saying above, folks just want stuff handed to them.
In all those years people never ‘ran rampant’ as you suggest. In fact hardly a ripple was caused. I think it absurd to even suggest that people ‘ran rampant’ digging and damaging the environment. We are merely talking about a ‘miners’ right’ and people panning and maybe using a sluice box or cradle. Do you see people running rampant within the bounds of the gold fossicking sites? No you do not and nor do they do so when they can pan, cradle and use a sluice box within the bounds of all rivers.
In the early 1980s when gold escalated in value there was the same suggestion that people would be rushing about gold mining every where and it never happened! Even with the first suction gold dredges of the 1960s, a chap Holdaway and my uncle being the first it never really took off as one might think it may h ave. It only gradually became more popular and there was no big rush with the sudden gold price rises and it wont today either.
If you think about your rights in your own country the analogy between gold and fishing is VERY relevant and not a different kettle of fish at all.
It has NOTHING to do with people wanting stuff handed to them - that is what you say - it is a matter of fair rights within your own country and if you want to really gold mine using mechanical means then you have to pay to do so and that is also fair enough because then you effectively lease a stretch of river for your exclusive use using machinery to commercially mine gold and make real money out of it.
It amazes me that anyone even thinks that the old miners right system and being able to ‘have a go’ on any river led to people ‘running rampant’ even with huge gold prices.
I wonder if you are of that age when the prices rose sharply AND the newspapers predicted a resurgence of interest in gold mining - a resurgence that never really happened. We had interests in three claims and the media were keen to interview us as they thought there might be a rush for the gold - we never agreed to the interviews and the whole thing died a natural death. If you had been around then you would well know that no body is going to ‘run rampant’ if the Miners Right was reintroduced and it stands to reason that it would be no more noticeable in any river than it is in the present gold fossicking sites where the recreational gold fossicking is concentrated and by your logic the place should be torn apart - but it isnt!
For sure and the other thing which makes it even more of an investment is the depreciation on a dredge like a Proline is low so when or if you go to sell it your getting quite a lot of there money you originally put into the capital investment back.
The same goes for the claim when or if you choose to sell.
