# Let this be a lesson



## Shecker (Oct 7, 2008)

I live just north of the Gunnison Gold Belt, a belt about 20 miles through north to south and 30 miles east to west. For years I driven past an obvious vein of greenish-gray rock and told myself that someday I would sample it because it looked like it might have some copper and silver it. The traffic was light today so I said to myself "this will be the day." When I broke off the outer oxide coating on this vein I felt like an idiot. For 7 years I have driven past this vein, thinking like everyone else that nothing so close to Gunnison could be so good. The vein is the richest vein of Calaverite I have every seen. It is packed with all kinds of brilliant silvery cubes. I have seen some good stuff from Cripple Creek, CO, and this puts it to shame. And it is setting in plain sight of the highway. The vein strikes roughly to the NE so now I have an area where I can claim it.

The motto to this story is assume nothing. Check it out and maybe you will be rewarded with something good too.

Randy in Gunnison


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## JustinNH (Oct 7, 2008)

Nice! Theres a spot by where I gold pannign, in a road cut, that had 1/4 to 1" pytite cubes in great condition. A nice addition to any collection and people drive by the area daily!


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## Rag and Bone (Oct 7, 2008)

Got any photos...or coordinates


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## Harold_V (Oct 8, 2008)

Shecker said:


> The vein is the richest vein of Calaverite I have every seen.


Not in my wildest imagination can I envision prospectors driving past an obvious vein and not having discovered it. 

I don't mean to toss a wet blanket on your party, but I think I'd withhold my assessment until I had the find verified. There's more than a few people that are aware of that district yielding Calaverite. I'm having a hard time believing you're the one to recognize something that was there for all to see. Can it be all others didn't recognize it?



> The motto to this story is assume nothing. Check it out and maybe you will be rewarded with something good too.


My point, exactly. Not wishing you any misfortune. Before you christen it Calaverite, might it be a good idea to have it authenticated by someone with credentials?

Keep us posted. If, by chance, your find is what you claim, I can provide a little guidance in extracting. I achieved nearly 100% with the lot I ran. It defies normal procedures, if you're not aware. Cyanide alone, for example, won't dissolve it. 

Here's a link to a nice picture of Calaverite. 

http://www.mindat.org/photo-160271.html

Harold


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## Shecker (Oct 8, 2008)

Harold we are going to have it tested by an analytical chemist in Denver. I have worked with tellurides for years. The crystals are small but I have some that demonstrate classical monoclinic structure. One even showed the classic v-shaped, parallel monoclinic striations of Sylvanite. Satellite imagery indicates that this structure heads over the hill with a NE strike and outcrops for about 1/2 mile. I've got the winter to play with this and I will be collecting buckets of this material until the snow flies. I will post data and pictures as they become available.

Randy in Gunnison


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## Shecker (Oct 8, 2008)

Gunnison is a mining area. And I was told by several local mining men that the vein in question had been tested by everyone and no one had found values in it. So I did some checking. Everyone though that someone else had tested it.

This reminds me of when I was a paramedic student. One night an unconscious young lady was brought in, accompanied by her parents. This was a gal who presented a classic pattern of profound hypoglycemia. So I asked the doctor if anyone had done a blood sugar test. He told me that he personally knew she had been seen by every hospital in Albuquerque that every ER doctor had checked her for low blood sugar and had found nothing amiss. He told me, straight out, to get off his back.

So I went and interviewed the parents and the more I talked with them the more I was convinced that this girl had severe hypoglycemia. So I went and bugged the doctor. He finally agreed to do the test to get me off his back, but he made it clear that there was no hypoglycemia I was going to be in trouble.

When I reported for shift that night the doctor was ready with an apology.
The test had shown profound hypoglycemia and they had to infuse large amounts of 50% dextrose in water to save her life. A CAT scan demonstrated the presence of a large insulin secreting tumor. She was out of surgery before I reported for shift. The doctor also said that he personally called every ER doctor in the city to determine if her blood sugar levels had ever been checked. In fact no test for blood sugar had ever been administrated because every ER doctor thought someone else had done it.
The doctor told me that being a pest I had saved the girl's life. He also said I could officially be a pest whenever I wanted and he would listen.

Now it appears miners are subject to the same phenomenon. They "know" because everyone had checked it; so why should they waste their time. 

So let this be a guide to future work -- miners aren't any more knowledgeable in what they suppose than doctors.

Randy in Gunnison


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## Harold_V (Oct 8, 2008)

Shecker said:


> I will post data and pictures as they become available.


Way cool!

I wish you the best of luck. This could prove interesting. 

Harold


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## Oz (Oct 8, 2008)

Shecker had asked me if I would post these pictures of his ore for him since his computer will not cooperate. I will let him fill in the details for all of you.


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## Shecker (Oct 8, 2008)

The first picture represents some samples from the crumbling that I first was a vein unto itself.

In the second picture you can see some of the harder mineral part of the structure. A few shin crystals are viasible.

The third picture shopws some of the free gold that is in this ore. This gold is so fine that it can washed out with nothing but water.

The fourth picture is a flask of poor man's AR with which I treated some of the ore.

Now here is the big news of today. This original that found is not a separate 6 to 8 foot wide vein, but a crumbling zone of material within a vein that is roughly 1/4 of a mile wide. How far this structure runs north to south is at yet unknown. To the east it is terminated by an upthrust of granite. I have yet to find the western terminus but I am still working on it.

Randy in Gunnison


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## Harold_V (Oct 9, 2008)

Shecker said:


> The fourth picture is a flask of poor man's AR with which I treated some of the ore.


The color isn't a positive sign of anything. What matters is the reaction with stannous chloride. Iron, which is obviously present, would yield a yellow solution. 

So then, what does a stannous chloride test reveal? 

Shiny bits can be mica. 

Harold


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## Shecker (Oct 9, 2008)

Hi Harold

One of the disadvantageous of living in a small town is that there things I just cannot get. Tin is one of these and I have no stannous chloride. The silvery bits are three dimensional cubes with a metallic luster and a specific gravity in the range of 8 to 10. I have never seen a mica that is a three dimension face centered cube and that heavy. The first thing that struck my mind when I found this deposit was that it was a metamorphic rock full of mica. It only took a few minutes to dispell the idea that it was a regional metamorphic region lying next to a granitic intrusion. But I believe that in an area of proud mining tradition and still active mining that this is what has caused others to pass over discovery. I will be having this material tested by an analytical chemist.

One last thing for now. I have seen these same old timer's look at a mineral sample and say "oh that's just pyrite." This material has since been identified as a variation of Sperrylite. The old timer's are great source of information for what they did and knew. Back in 1968 I know one old timer who everyone know had a gold mine (and everyone knew as well knew that he and his partner were living on Social Security and had no other money) put forty poun ds of gold bars in my minds. They lived on Social Security and were producing 25 pound bars of gold every week and keeping them for a time when the price would go up and government restrictions would be lifted. This old timer was a mining engineer who recognized a mineral structure that no one else had seen or understood -- a gold bearing porphyritic structure. Now it is a parking lot for junk cars and the owner doesn't even know there is gold in very large amounts right there.

Unfortunately my camera does not give detail up close. But I will be getting better pics. And as they say for now "That's all folks."

Randy in Gunnison


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## wildbill_hickup (Oct 9, 2008)

Randy

I live in one of those towns you speak of. I found an acceptable source of tin at my local hardware store in the form of tin solder. Mine is from Oatly and has a dark blue label, it's not pure however it is 95% tin and 5% antimony which is good enough I guess as others here use the same thing. I mixed up a batch and it seems to work.


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## Shecker (Oct 9, 2008)

Thanks Wildbill

I bought some lead free solder that was listed as 95% tin and cooked it in HCl for about an hour. The solder remained completely impassive. I got exactly zero stannous chloride from it. Frustration.

Randy in Gunnison


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## Harold_V (Oct 9, 2008)

Shecker said:


> One of the disadvantageous of living in a small town is that there things I just cannot get. Tin is one of these and I have no stannous chloride.


Surely you have some scrap steel? Dissolve some in sulfuric acid, then use the solution to precipitate gold you may have in solution. Ferrous sulfate is an excellent precipitant. For that matter, if you placed a piece of iron in the solution, any gold present would cement on the surface. 

I'm hoping you have what you think you have, but I have to be real frank with you, Shecker. I've been through this with a few prospectors-----who allow their hopes and desires to cloud their minds, interpreting signs in the most positive of ways, ignoring any signs that don't agree with their desires. It's the reason prospectors don't get along well with refiners, who often can't recover the metals claimed to be present. I'm of the opinion that while many refiners have earned their bad name, there are times when they haven't been dishonest, but the unwitting victim of a well meaning, but poorly informed, prospector. 

That, too, can be a lesson for readers. 

I'm pulling for you 100%----but I am a skeptic like you've never encountered before. 

Harold


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## JustinNH (Oct 9, 2008)

Yeah, Im definately interested to see how this pans out. (yep, i used that phrase on purpose )


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## geubrina (Oct 10, 2008)

Yes, I agree with Harold.

I think, the best is fact. In my area, also, we found similar stone with pyrite dotting the broken surface of the rock.

So, when will you take out the gold out of the rock and show us the pictures?


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## jewelerdave (Oct 10, 2008)

I have found a few sulfide deposits in road cuts in my neck of the woods as well, road cuts are awesome for finding stuff,
now I am in Northern Colorado and there have never been any major strikes but there were some rich pockets that didnt last long. here and there in northern co and southern Wy.
Thus far I have yet to find anything worth going after, Most professional assays have yielded minuscule amounts, one being as high as 1/4 opt but a narrow vein in a cliff by a busy road. A no no to just dig into. but most being 1/20th or less opt, and some that contain no gold at all. Just because it looks right, does not mean its there sadly, But fun to check otherwise.

I have had surprising luck randomly dredging around here, even finding traces of placer gold in the Fort Collins city limits. And further up in some areas where there is no history of gold production I have found nuggets as large as 1/8th of a gram.

I dream of finding some small missed rich vein of good ore, just because I think it would be a great find.
But I have to say, from 1859 until the 1930s experienced guys who had a lifetime of mining under there belts crawled these hills all over the west. And inexperienced guys dug every quartz out crop they saw to get tested.
Even well into the 20th Century people were scrounging around looking, just as I and many others do today. Yes some things can be found, a perfect example is the Summit Ville Gold Boulder found in the 70s by the side of the road, over 300 ounces in one rock, probably exposed for 20 years with no one seeing it. But defiantly covered by dirt when the old timers searched those hills well. It was discovered by a mining guy who was doing exploration work for the company, and almost didnt believe it when he saw it. 
So one cant rule out the possibility of great finds still being made.
its out there, however I have much better luck searching mine dumps than little exposed veins here and there, in dumps you can almost always find micro visible gold you can see under a loop, and metal detecting has results too. In fact just last week I saw a guy with an asprin bottle about 1/5th full of thumb to pea sized gold specimens found metal detecting.

That day I dint find much, but I found just a little over a half gram. and some great copper specimens!


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## butcher (Oct 10, 2008)

hope keeps us digging, many mines in my area still have gold and as much as they did years ago, many mines shut down or were abandoned not because they ran out of ore but because of cost of mining or cost of labor or richer claims elsewere,war time. or goverment shut down no war nonesential mining, or a man could make more money and eat better by logging or farming or at some other job, in my opinion from what I have done mining requires money,and moving tons of ore and large scale processing, but prospecting is fun, and a good hobby for me, but I wont give up my day job though, many of the roads and towns are there because, they were trails used by the Indians for thousands of years, and widened for wagons ect or were to mining camps mineing towns farms ranches ect, so many mines are in towns alongside the roads ect. yes there is ore not discovered or was passed up looking for richer sources, n less labor or transportation, not cost effective to work,Ive worked abandoned mines that were 40 miles from nowhere and when they were worked the only way to it was by foot or by horse , now a modern vehicle can drive to it. other mines they dug the ore and hauled it by wagon 27 miles to the stamp mill on some very trecherous steep mountain roads, mining never has been or never will be a way for most anybody to get to wealth, very few ever got rich, it just amazes me how hard our forfathers worked for their bread, only if you love hard labor and have optomism, most miners and prospectors made enough money to barely feed themselves, beans and venison ectconsidered a good meal,most who made money done so by selling the claim, selling to the miner.dishonesty,or by the shear grace of God. well keep diggin its still there just not as easy as we would hope other wise it would not be as rare or costly. My opinion Keep diggin.


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## AKDan (May 20, 2009)

Any updates on this since last October?


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## Richard36 (Nov 30, 2009)

AKDan said:


> Any updates on this since last October?



I agree.
I would like to hear more about this story.

"Road cuts" truly are great places to look, especially in regions that have the correct geology for mineral veins to form. I have found alot of the small pocket loads that I have located by doing exactly that. 
Driving through the woods in geologically correct regions is sure way to find a few easily accessable mineral veins. 

Not all will contain PM's, but quite often contain other valuable metals. 

It is fun, and gets me outdoors if nothing else, and that is as much the point for me as anything else.

The adventure involved with the quest of the hunt, and completed with the thrill of the find is what it is all about.

Sincerely; Rick. a.k.a. "The Rock Man".


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