Hooked on Gold Gazette Dec. 28, 2007.

HOOKED ON GOLD GAZETTE

· Gold Spot Closing Price for Friday: $838.80
· Spot price Dec. 21: $811.70
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Calendar of Events
December
12th GPOC Christmas Party 7:00 p.m. Bring unwrapped gifts for children for the Marines toy drive
19th GPR Members Christmas Party
24th CHRISTMAS EVE
25th CHRISTMAS DAY
31st New Year's Eve
JANUARY 2008
1st New Years Day
9th GPOC Meeting 7:00 p.m. Colo. Springs
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NEWS
Christmas is over and we are all back on track with our lives. The gold market is up, our buckets of black sand have been gone through, and we are looking to get equipment repairs under way. Our Christmas was white with 8 inches of snow falling at the house and a very frosty day enjoyed by all, with too much of everything. No better way to spend he day but with loved ones and friends. Hope all of you had as great a day as we did!

I am a bit late today as we had another 8 inches of snow yesterday which delayed our after Christmas shopping a day. We had to have a gold ring set with a garnet and sized for our daughter-in-law, along with spending that Christmas money that always burns a hole in your pocket. The grandsons had money to spend, too, so we hit the game stores and the mall. The snow is melting very fast here today, and Arvada hit around 41 degrees on our thermometer. We’ll wait for the news to see what the “official” temps were.

To continue last weeks review of the article in the December issue of ICMJ, it also mentioned the “seam” mining in California which produced a great deal of gold with hydraulic mining. These “seam diggings” were largely schist. They don’t always produce large numbers of nuggets, but they weather easily, and are not always easily identified on the surface.
Another interesting discussion is the order of geothermal mineralization events. The first is often quartz and lesser minerals, with later deposits being richer is minerals and less quartz. The last deposits contain the most concentration of heavier minerals, including gold, which would produce the nuggets. Of course, this explanation is a generalization, as there are always exceptions to the rules.

In world news, you would have to have had your head in the sand not to have heard of the assassination of Benazir Bhutto in Pakastan. This event is significant in the stabilization of the world and immediately pushed gold prices much higher, and sent the stock market lower. This is closer to the historic way that gold and the stock market have acted, going in opposite directions, rather than together as they have acted in the past few years. ______________________________________
If you find a broken link, please let us know
THE ARKANSAS RIVER is now closed TO MOTORIZED EQUIPMENT FOR THE WINTER UNTIL APRIL 1, 2008.
_________________________________________
Until Next week.
Good Prospecting to You,
Larry and Shirley Weilnau
http://www.hookedongold.com/
http://www.thevideosense.com/user/MQS/ Prospecting Videos
http://www.hookedongold2.com/ Looking for metal detectors on e-Bay? Click here
info@hookedongold.com contact us

Hooked on Gold Gazette Dec. 21, 2007.

HOOKED ON GOLD GAZETTE

· Gold Spot Closing Price for Friday: $811.70
· Spot price Nov. 17: $793.10
· Platinum closed at $1523.00!

"FRIENDS" by Robin Laws

May you be surrounded by yours this Holiday Season

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Calendar of Events

December

12th GPOC Christmas Party 7:00 p.m. Bring unwrapped gifts for children for the Marines toy drive
19th GPR Members Christmas Party
24th CHRISTMAS EVE
25th CHRISTMAS DAY
31st New Year's Eve
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NEWS

WOW! In a golden December issue of ICMJ (International California Mining Journal) there is a fascinating article on how gold is formed into crystals and nuggets. They delve into the various theories of steam, bacterial, and molten delivery systems for the depositing of gold formations.

The newest gold formation theory comes out of Australia where scientists have been cutting off slices of gold nuggets and examining them under microscopes after etching them, and finding that the crystals in all the gold nuggets examined showed twin crystallizing, which is only formed under high heat at great depth, and not under cold conditions at the surface as previously thought.

Also, the hotter the mixture was, the more additional minerals (impurities) can be associated with the gold….the higher the concentrations of silver or copper or both, the higher the heat needed. At the higher heat, a higher percentage of impurities can be present with less structural damage done to the crystals. The study also disputes the theory that large gold nuggets were formed as secondary deposits in colder conditions near the surface. Take a look at www.csiro.au/news/GoldNuggets/html to find more information on the study.

Since quartz is a major source for gold deposits, and they are USUALLY the fine or smaller type, the article goes on to explore how large gold nuggets are formed in the absence of quartz. If you have a curiosity for how gold is formed, I highly recommend you read this article and the ones that will come after it. This is the first in a series of reports on gold deposits ICMJ will be running. The next one will discuss schist and slate deposits of large gold nuggets.

Did you get all of your gift shopping finished yet? If not, you have one more weekend before the big day. Hooked on Gold will be visiting relatives until after Christmas Day, so if we are a little slow answering your requests, be patient. We WILL get back to you. Have a wonderful Holiday and a very Merry Christmas!
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If you find a broken link, please let us know
THE ARKANSAS RIVER is now closed TO MOTORIZED EQUIPMENT FOR THE WINTER UNTIL APRIL 1, 2008.
________________________________
Until Next week.
Good Prospecting to You,
Larry and Shirley Weilnau
http://www.hookedongold.com/
http://www.thevideosense.com/user/MQS/ Prospecting Videos
http://www.hookedongold2.com/ Looking for metal detectors on e-Bay? Click here
info@hookedongold.com contact us

Hooked on Gold Gazette Dec. 14, 2007.

MERRY CHRISTMAS

HOOKED ON GOLD GAZETTE

Gold Spot Closing Price for Friday Dec. 14, 2007: $793.10

Spot price Dec. 7: $794.40

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Calendar of Events

December

12th GPOC Christmas Party 7:00 p.m. Bring unwrapped gifts for children for the Marines toy drive
19th GPR Members Christmas Party
24th CHRISTMAS EVE
25th CHRISTMAS DAY
31st New Year's Eve
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NEWS

What a golden time of year! Do you have that smell of new fallen snow at your house? Some of us have had too much of it, and some nothing but ice storms. Hopefully everyone has their electricity back on. The Holiday is just around the corner, so I hope you have most of your Christmas shopping finished and the cards in the mail. They say the biggest mailing day will be this Monday, so get it off before then. You may be lucky enough to have post offices in your area that are staying open longer tomorrow.

If you have been watching the price of gold this past week, you have seen it go from a high of around $815 back to just below what it was last Friday. I am reading more and more material and financial papers that are agreeing that gold has and will continue to follow the stock market in it's ups and downs. If you look at both charts for that past 5 years, they are pretty much mirror images. What does that mean for gold next year? It can go either way. If the markets are up Gold will probably follow, and if it is down, ditto. Yeah, cop out, you say. But, this is a new trend in gold that the world has not seen before, and all are still waiting to see how it plays out. If gold is no longer the inflation hedge that everyone has always turned to, what will be?

China and India will continue to demand more of the world's gold every year, so the price must reflect that pressure. Who knows how much old gold is still in the vaults of the world's banks, and they trade it all the time as a commodity, often manipulating the price as they did much of '07. I find the ups and downs of the gold price in recent years to be nearly unpredictable, as there are so many variables that can and do effect the price. One thing remains sure. People will ALWAYS collect and horde gold. They love the yellow color, it's special properties, how it looks against the skin, and how heavy it feels.

New regulations are coming out this next year for Cache Creek usage. I went into some detail about it in the last blog, so if you haven't read it, you might want to do so.

GPOC members and anyone wanting to join the group needs a "heads up" as to the membership dues change in '08. Singles will be $25.00 and families $30.00 a year, the first price raise in 15 years. The cost of maintaining the claims goes up each year, as well as things like postage and paper. The new GPOC website is coming along nicely, although it isn't published as of yet. When that happens, I'll blog it here, so watch for it. They are ready to add their old store back in, as well, so you will have another source for your "stuff." I am hiring an expert early next year to help me with the problems I ca not seem to figure out on my own, and have purchased a new template for the website. A new look and feel will go along with it, and, with luck, I can put up a page for all to look at before the whole thing goes live and you are in shock and not sure where you are. Colors look like they will be in the brown, golden yellow, and burnt orange ranges, and it will have a more denim/western feel. Right now you can find the Christmas giffs that are sprinkled around the site for your enjoyment, and after the holidays I should be able to get some new video clips working in the pages as well. Have a fantastic week, and I will report to you on Friday with another chapter in gold. (HINT: The new ICMJ is out and I haven't read it yet. Larry always gets to it first and he isn't finished yet.)

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL!

______________________________________

If you find a broken link, please let us know

THE ARKANSAS RIVER is now closed TO MOTORIZED EQUIPMENT FOR THE WINTER UNTIL APRIL 1, 2008.

_________________________________________

Until Next week.

Good Prospecting to You,

Larry and Shirley Weilnau

http://www.hookedongold.com/

http://www.thevideosense.com/user/MQS/ Prospecting Videos

http://www.hookedongold2.com/ Looking for metal detectors on e-Bay? Click here

info@hookedongold.com contact us

Gold,Cache Creek, and SNOW

Cache Creek last fall Just one of the pictures featured in the new 2008 calendar you can find at the hookedongold cafe press store A Fabulous Gift for that Prospector you know


Waiting for the feds to decide our interest rate fate. In the mean time, gold is back at $810 this morning, after a short rally yesterday before falling back near $800. SNOW and cold is wrapping the mile high city in a black and grey scene after a weekend of freezing temps. We are looking forward to some sunnier skies tomorrow and the rest of the week, even if it is more than chilly outside. The mountains are blanketed in up to 8 feet of new snow with more on the way. I guess our November snow decided to fall in December.

And what of GOLD? Well, even though it is winter here in Colorado, plans for next year's prospecting season do go on. The BLM is beginning their plans for Cache Creek in 08, with road improvements a possibility. Those who are hoping for a facility of some type instead of the woods for relief, will find that they should probably plan on bringing their own facilities, as it will be required of all campers, as well as metal fire boxes for your campfire. New restrictions on the number of days you will be allowed to prospect the area with a high banker will be imposed as well, and even though you may balk at the idea, according to the outlines of the agreements on using the funds that were used to purchase this tract of land, the alternative is to close the area to prospecting altogether. MINING the area cannot be allowed. Those who stayed this past summer and mined the area for weeks and more than a month at a time will not be allowed to do so next year. AND the BLM is planning on frequent visits to insure compliance. Please remember that a few years ago this area was not accessible to you at all, and we believe the restrictions are reasonable considering the alternatives. I should add here that the recreational prospecting limitations will pertain to high banking and not hand tool or metal detecting usage at this time. Camping restrictions will apply to all. Camping is not going to be allowed in the parking lot, but there is AMPLE room to do that close to the parking lot. This restriction will free up the parking lot to day use, which it will be restricted to and is its' intent. We would welcome comments on these issues, as the BLM would like additional input. We are in contact with the BLM on Arkansas River prospecting on a regular basis, and can answer some of your questions as well as inform BLM of your concerns.

Hooked on Gold Gazette Dec. 7th

You can find the Goldpanner on an ornament along with several new gifts at My New Store

Another attempt at getting a store up has made me late with this post, but still early enough for you to make your gold purchase for the weekend. LOL!

Gold Spot Closing Price for Friday: $794.40

Spot price Nov. 17: $783.10

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Calendar of Events

December

12th GPOC Christmas Party 7:00 p.m. Bring unwrapped gifts for children for the Marines toy drive
19th GPR Members Christmas Party
24th CHRISTMAS EVE
25th CHRISTMAS DAY
31st New Year's Eve
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NEWS

Gold news abounds this week with the announcement of the construction that is beginning at the Climax Moly mine north of Leadville. The reopening of the mine is bringing much needed jobs to the are, and they plan to consturct several buildings in the next two years with a 2010 date for the beginning of mining operations

Also in the news this week from the financials, is the drop in production of gold in South Africa. Gold production has fallen from an output of 400 tonnes in 2001 to what will be nearly 240 estimated tonnes for 2007. Also, China will soon outpace the U.S. as the second largest gold producer in the world.

Colorado based Newmont mining has been consistently selling off it's other mining interests to concentrate on it's copper/gold production, according to a spokesperson this last week. Gold is expected to settle around $800 for the near future as the dollar continues to slide. If the Feds reduce rates again in December, it will not bode well for the dollasr, however, it will mean that U.S. goods and services will be much cheaper for foreigns counries like Canada to buy.

Another interesting thing I saw this week was that the true inflation rate in MEXICO was 3.7% this past year. Pretty impressive given their past problems. They are also creating many new jobs and are beginning to attract their own citizens away from the U.S. Now, if they succeed in keeping their people in Mexico, who will fill all the jobs in the U.S. that they do now? Interesting dilema.

Have you looked at the price of gold coins recently? The Morgan mint is advertising SILVER dollar coins for $19.95 plus shipping on very good to AU ungraded coins. Gold coins are up at least 20% since August.

As a last note, GPOC is almost ready to upload their new site. They were hopeful that they could get it done by now, but a few glitches have them jumping through hoops. Watch for it the next week or so. MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL!

______________________________________

If you find a broken link, please let us know

THE ARKANSAS RIVER is now closed TO MOTORIZED EQUIPMENT FOR THE WINTER UNTIL APRIL 1, 2008.

_________________________________________

Until Next week.

Good Prospecting to You,

Larry and Shirley Weilnau

www.hookedongold.com

http://www.thevideosense.com/user/MQS/ Prospecting Videos

www.hookedongold2.com Looking for metal detectors on e-Bay? Click here

info@hookedongold.com contact us

NEW! Gifts with Gold Prospecting Themes

One of the prospecting pictures in the new 12 month calendar. Real prospectors doing what they do, as well as pictures of real mines. Check this and other items out at my new store

Well, the Gazette is back to the blog as there are technical problems with the delivery....AGAIN! Boy, anyone who tells you running a website is easy is crazy. There seems to be more things crop up every day that should not be a problem than you have time to find solutions for. AND all the holiday rushing around to do as well. Not to worry, we work with what we have and find answers to our problems as we find the time. In the mean time, you will get some fresh content every few days when we are not plagued with more problems than we have solutions for. New pages are planned for this winter, as well as updating old pages, and we continue to find a way to put the store back together that doesn't include a technical genius. All we need is some simple code and a few pictures. How hard can that be? Don't know, but it is apparently more than we can handle right now.

Gold looks to be rebounding this morning and is at over $803 as I write. The wind is blowing hard again today which is warming temps into the mid 60's in the city and bringing some more much needed snow to the high country. I have some intersting news for the Gazette this Friday, so watch for that at the end of the week. Visit my new store at Cafe Press for some gift ideas for that prospector you can't find anything to get for Christmas. I have four items up now, and if the response is good, I'll put up variations of what I have. Have a custom job you want done? Cafe Press makes it easy.

Good Prospecting to You,
hookedongold.com
Prospecting Gifts

Hooked on Gold Gazette, Nov. 30th

Yes, Mt. Elbert is once again covered with snow.


The HookedonGold Gazette icons have disappeared from computers for some reason, and so, until I can figure out what happened, the Gazette will appear here for all to read, and those of you who have never subscribed will get a look at what we talk about in it. We always start with the spot gold closing on Friday.

Gold Spot Closing Price for Friday Nov. 30th: $783.10

Spot price Nov. 17: $785.40

Looks flat to me even though there have been ups and downs in the last two weeks.

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Calendar of Events

December

12th GPOC Christmas Party 7:00 p.m. Bring unwrapped gifts for children for the Marines toy drive
19th GPR Members Christmas Party
24th CHRISTMAS EVE
25th CHRISTMAS DAY
31st New Year's Eve
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NEWS

We had a few great days up at Cache Creek earlier in the month, before this cold snap rolled in. BRRRR! It has been chilly this week here. There continues to be work done up at Cache Creek, and most of it is orderly without many problems. The undercutting of trees continues to be a concern. Too many trees have withered and died this season in the pursuit of gold.

How is your Christmas shopping going? Wish I could help, but getting my store back up continues to plague me. I have tried, yet, another builder only to find that it will not show pictures even on the pages I build. There must be some silly thing I am not doing correctly to cause all of these programs to react in a similar way. Oh, well. THE NEW Prospectors Calendars, Mousepad and Gold Panner Ornament are all up on Cafe Press. Yeah, that's why I'm late getting this out. I finally got all the right pictures in the right sizes, and got the items put together this morning and afternoon, so you have some gifts for prospectors for this Christmas season. Check them out at my new store at cafe press. You can find a couple of links on the website as well.

Off to do some Christmas Shopping. I still have several geode and fluorite pendants, as well as prospector figures and Orocal jewelry left. If you are interested, email me at info@hookedongold.com and I can send them to you and bill you by PayPal e-mail billing. I've done it a couple of times now, and it sure works slick! If only I could get the durn store to work, we'd all be happy. LOL! Merry Christmas!

______________________________________

If you find a broken link, please let us know

THE ARKANSAS RIVER is now closed TO MOTORIZED EQUIPMENT FOR THE WINTER UNTIL APRIL 1, 2008.

_________________________________________

Until Next week.

Good Prospecting to You,

Larry and Shirley Weilnau

www.hookedongold.com

http://www.thevideosense.com/user/MQS/ Prospecting Videos
www.hookedongold2.com Looking for metal detectors on e-Bay? Click here

info@hookedongold.com contact us

Have a Golden Christmas Holiday Season

Gold in White Quartz, Black Quartz, or Nuggets in 14K Gold or Sterling Silver


Oh My Goodness! I had NO idea it had been so long since I had posted a Blog! November has flown by, and we have done many things since I past talked with you. Of course I helped at the Gem Show earlier this month in Denver, but we have also gone looking for gold at Cache Creek just before it snowed last week. We found a nice bit of gold up there and went home happy to have had a few days in November to find gold.

In case you've had your head in the clouds all month, you should have seen the spot gold price go from around $750 to $842 to $782 back to $823 and down to $809 right now. The dollar continues to slide and gold goes up.

Hope all of you had a GREAT Thanksgiving holiday, and also, a good start to the Christmas shopping season. I continue to have problems getting pictures to show in my new catalog, which is discouraging, but I will continue to find the answers to this problem. I have even had an expert look at it, and he didn't understand it either. I have two more to consult with, as well as try to find the answer myself. It has taken up ALL of my time trying to find a path to get everything to upload correctly. I have some terrific items to show, but can't seem to get everything going in the same direction. When I come up against these obstacles, I always figure there is some good reason why I cannot get it together right now. The answer to that question raises its' head at some time in the future, and I am usually glad I did not find the answer when I was looking so hard for it. Have a GOLDEN Christmas Holiday Season, and Merry Christmas to everyone. Buy gold for Christmas; coins, raw, jewelry, whatever. It is only going up in value and it WON'T be cheaper any time soon.

GoldnStore and Gold Jewelry

Orocal Jewelry available through Hooked on Gold. 14K gold or Sterling Silver. Gold in White or Black Quartz and Nuggets.


Whoa! It's been a long dry spell getting bogs out! Many things are going on right now with trying to get a store back up on the site. I cannot get pictures to show no matter what I do, even with physically adding the paths by hand into the server. Don't know what to think, but it has been an enormously frustrating month trying to find answers to all the problems with the store. I will be attempting another avenue this next week before I throw up my hands and give up! Can't do that of course, but I do feel like it. I have way too much to offer you right now in jewelry, equipment and gold to give up, so be patient. I WILL find a way. I am also working on a prospecting calendar and t-shirts.

GOLD! Now THERE'S a subject that excites the imagination of all of us! It is down from its' high this morning of around $837 to be $830 right now. Quite a ride since the middle of September when it was still hoovering around $650. Everyone who wants to sell gold has done so, and so the price is finally moving in an upward direction.

Meanwhile, Cache Creek is still open for a few more weeks, and the weather reports indicate that they have little snow on the ground, although Independence Pass is now closed due to snow. The pass is about 10 miles west of the Twin Lakes area and much higher, so the snow would tend to stick there more. We here in Denver are enjoying another 3 days of temperatures in the 70's, with a small front coming in on Sunday that MIGHT give us some precip. A far cry from last year when we had already had 3 large snow storms, and daytime temps were in the 30's and 40's. Both caused, I am sure, by global warming due to man. Indonesia's' volcano continues to erupt spewing more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere each week than man produces in a whole year all combined. Kind of like the sediments mother nature throws into the river after a rain compared to dredging with a 4-inch or smaller.

On a sadder note, I regret to report that a long time GPOC member, board member, gem and mineral collector and all around good guy, Lou Severini, died the day before Halloween in a one car accident south of Raton, New Mexico. Funeral service will be held in Woodland Park this Saturday, November 10. For more information visit the GPOC Tem. Page.

Get out there and FIND SOME GOLD. It's worth over $800 an ounce and going up.

Gold and Mercury

WOW! Gold is up to $788.40 this morning and has been advancing since the spot market opened yesterday afternoon! Has anyone been finding gold recently? We have seen some nice gold still coming out of the Cache Creek area and the Leadville area. Speaking of Cache Creek, there has been mercury found in a couple of areas there, so be aware that it is there. Mercury is known to exist in the area naturally, as it was used heavily in the past. You will find it in abundance at the end of the old sluices, so if you get into some lose sand that shouldn't be where it is, you may find mercury in your cons. Gather it all together and put into it's own bottle. Keep water on it, too, as it gasses off at a low temperature. If you put into your bottle with clean gold it will foul the clean gold when it comes into contact with the mercury. We keep ours separate until we have enough to take to someone who knows how to properly handle mercury to have the gold recovered. If you are thinking of processing it yourself, be advised that one WHIFF of nitric acid will make you deathly ill for 2 weeks, OR WORSE, from nitric acid poisoning! You CAN DIE from inhaling the stuff, so be very careful!!!!!! We prefer to take our small amount to a professional. It simply is not worth your life or health. Could we do it ourselves? Sure, but why risk it. It might be more interesting to just keep it in a bottle to talk about. We have had ours for about 5 years, now, and add to it most years. When will we take it to process it? Oh, maybe when we fill the bottle. It is about half full now, so maybe in another 5 years. Maybe not. If mercury covered a BIG nugget, we would probably consider it then. The other thing is that once gold has had mercury on it, it never seems to come back to it's original color after it is processed. The silver gets extracted along with the mercury and leaves it a duller color, if there is copper in with it. Copper is the most frequently found metal combined with gold, so it is highly possible your gold will have the brownish color of a gold-copper combination after it has gone through the mercury cleaning process.

Rockies got swept last night. Bummer, but they DID come a long way to even BE in the World Series. The 8 days off didn't help, either. However, we won't make excuses. The Sox pitchers and hitters were spot on all four games, and ours were not. Hitters seemed to finally get back in the groove by the end, but the pitching was less than stellar. Watch out NEXT year!!!

Gold Tops and Plunges

Dreaming of Summer Prospecting



HMMMMM. PDF files are tough to load on a website. No matter. The first page of the new catalog, along with the new page template, should go up in a couple of days. Pay with PayPal.

Not much going on with gold right now. The usual selling and buying of mining companies continues to go on while the gold mining industry consolidates its energies. Are you watching gold? Kitco has the taskbar download on their page, so get one for minute by minute updates of the prices of gold, silver, and platinum at kitco.com. If you don't preview this site at least once a month, you are really missing out on a lot of information. Gold touched just above $772.00 before plunging below $748, yesterday, before settling back around $752. Today, buyers are pushing the price back above $757. It's likely a good bet that some bank dumped a bunch of the metal after it hit $772 to cause the sudden drop.

Had to turn the furnace on this morning for a shot of heat. Even though it will be in the 70's later today, it was a bit chilly at 62 degrees. A power plant outage and 6 - 9's has us without much time to hunt for gold in October. BUMMER! BUT, we are talking with friends and making plans for the gold areas we will look at next summer.

GO ROCKIES!!!!!

Hooked on Gold Website changes

2 Days Work at Cache Creek this summer


Did the wind blow at your house today? It sure is here! Gold is slipping up past $766 after sliding back around $755 yesterday. Wasn't it just last month it was around $650? An accidental break through on my webbuilder yesterday has me wizzing through pages and building the new template a lot faster than I was. Boy, am I glad that headache is over. I found the path purely by accident, and am amazed that the instructions did not include this tid bit of information. Anyway, I should be able to build about 3 pages a day until I get to the forms and picture albums.

GO ROCKIES!!!

The store part is started and I need to add the pay pal buttons. You should get to see the new template on that page next week with a few catalog items on it. It will appear as a subdomain of hookedongold, so don't be confused when the look of the page changes. You can e-mail me and let me know what you think of it when it goes live. The new template should also solve the problem of the page being too wide. I have no control over that with the present template, and is one of the main reasons I am changing it again for a new look.

GO ROCKIES!!!!

EVERYONE is wanting to get back up to the mountains and get some more gold before it gets too nasty. We have had snow in the high mountains this past week for a total of around 20 inches already. The ski resorts are jumping up and down, and they all had ONE RUN open with man made snow on it last weekend. Only a few are open for skiing, however. Oh, did I mention.....

GO ROCKIES!!!!
(For those of you who live in a cave, our own Rockies baseball team will be playing in the WORLD SERIES next week)
GO ROCKIES!!!!

We are making prospecting plans with friends for Thanksgiving week. Even if it snows, we can go prospect the casinos in Blackhawk. I never did like shopping with the crowds the day after Thanksgiving and have most of my shopping done by then. Well, time to go build another page or two. Get those cons cleaned up. I want to know how much gold you found this summer.

A Golden Rocktober

Snow in Gold Country


Did you see gold's spot price this morning? It has been fluctuating between $757 and $760!

We had a conversation with the BLM head this morning about Cache Creek. FYI! There MAY be another spot opening up for prospectors in the near future. Can't say anything right now, but we have prospected this area, and there is some very good gold to be found here, too! While we were prospecting Cache Creek we did find several interesting areas that the BLM will consider opening in the future. For now, enlarging the parking lot, keeping the road repaired and toilet facilities are on the top of their list.

Our golden Rocktober is shaping up nicely for the Denver Rockies, who won last night's third game by a score of 4 to 1 against the Diamondbacks! Me thinks their "snakepit" has a mongoose lose in it. LOL! We had rain and drizzle in the city most of the day, and the game was played in drizzle to moderate rainfall. On a side note, those of you who ventured up to Cache Creek may have had a surprise of snow, as the storm came in about half a day earlier than expected. Some of the northern mountains got as much as a foot of the white stuff. Today's possible "sweep" game is a late one, and we probably will not be able to stay up for the last pitch to see who wins. I almost missed Torealba's homer to bring 3 runs in last night, dozing off!

Got any prospecting or metal detecting stories? Blog back at me. Others would like to know what you do, too.

Gold and GPOC's new board and club dues increase

RAINBOWS We all know that the rainbow ends in Colorado, but did you know that they both do?

So are you watching gold blow through $750 today? I've been doing computer cleanup for hours, now, and have been watching it steadily climb from $740 yesterday.

Gold Prospector's of Colorado October meeting is for the election of officers and they have retained, basically, the same board they had last year. "New" officers will take over January 1st. The club is still looking for a treasurer, so any of you GPOC members out there that have accounting skills can still step up and do your duty.

The attending members were asked to vote on a proposal by the board to increase dues by $5.00 a year beginning in January 2008. It was passed by unanimous vote. This is the first increas in dues in about 15 years, and still puts the dues well below even "social" prospecting clubs. With the increase fuel, materials, reclamation, store items, postage, paper, printing, etc, the increase still is not keeping up with our added expenses. Those who attend the meetings and volunteer at the demos are helping to cover those costs more than members who are outside the Colorado area. There was a proposal to increase dues substantially to those who live out of state. That propasal will be discussed by the board and may come up for voting early next year. Input to these ideas are welcome and can be sent to info@hookedongold.com to be forwarded to the GPOC board for consideration.

There is still much talk about Cache Creek, and with the mild weather many are taking day outings up there for some fall fun finding gold. The Twin Lakes area is wonderful to visit any time of year you can get up there. The BLM will be touring the Point Bar and Prospector #3 areas on the Arkansas, and will be trying to run past Cache Creek for a look see. Hooked on Gold will be sending our recommendations to the BLM Canyon City office head, Dan Grenard, for possible impovements on the area. Time to get those metal detectors out and swing over some parks that have been used all summer by others while you were in the mountains.

Gold in Sylvanite and Telluride hunting

Snow in the High Country


Well, the weekend is over and we had a ball picking up old ore pieces from Cripple Creek! The sylvanite and telluride deposits there are VERY interesting. Seems that the largest visible gold deposits are in a quartz layer, but the sylvanite appears to run in a rhyolite type of rock that is super hard. We'll have to research more about the types of rock these deposits were in. Never thought to do that before. HMMMM. The more we know the more we know we don't know.

After that we spent a pleasant hour for lunch at our favorite Chinese restaurant in Colorado Springs, and then off to metal detect a soccer field. THAT was interesting in the 50+ mile an hour wind that kicked up in the afternoon. Larry picked up $.22 while I resized pictures on the computer. The amount of sand that blew in the face was too much to deal with. However, the wind did blow the low out of here sooner than expected and we missed most of the rain and snow predicted. The high country got a few inches to a foot, and we got a light shower Sunday afternoon. Freezing temps were reported around the state this morning as the cloud cover went away and all of our heat vented into space. This next week is supposed to be glorious, so anyone looking to take a trip to Cache should have decent weather in the low to mid 50's to work in. The gold coming out of there has been consistent all summer in the best layers. How are you doing cleaning up those concentrates?

Gold 'n' Fall

Fall colors on the power line road at Cache Creek, Colorado


Rockies Win and advance to the playoffs with a 13 inning win against the Padres Monday night! Exciting for Coloradoans! They have been stalked this morning from the air in Philadelphia taking their bus from the airport to their hotel.

Snow today is flying at Georgetown, with wet and slushy roads in the northern mountains. Fall is in full swing, and it is getting hard to find golden aspens as they drop their leaves and colder temps move south. The Arkansas River is now closed to motorized equipment until April 1st, but still open to dry washing, panning, and sluicing.

Did I mention the azure blue skies we are enjoying now that the air has dried out? Our last few days in the mountains late in September was magnificent with color. The pictures that were taken do not do it justice, as the camera adjusts too much for the brightness of the light coming from a sun lower in the sky, but still shows skies bluer than blue. The gold taken out of Cache Creek this year was substantial, and everyone had a terrific time finding it. We heard of only one problem all year, and that involved lack of water. Other than that, everyone got along pretty well, and everyone found gold, even witha pan. I, myself, took out several grams just using a pan while testing various layers and levels. The gold is nice and chunky with depth. Larger flakes were found and some round nuggets as well. Nothing really big, but larger than is found on the Arkansas. Two rock sources were identified, too. One is coming out of a black hematite type rock and the other quartz. We have several small pieces that are wrapped around quartz, and several wrapped around a black rock that is non magnetic. Metal detectorists have taken a few pieces out in either black rock or iron stained bull quartz as well.

Have you been watching gold this week? It is down to $732.20 right now after topping above $745.00 yesterday. Gold producers are now saying that if gold does not break out soon, they will be having a harder time producing it as their expenses rise faster than the price of gold. The dollar is up this morning causing the fall in the price of gold today.

Gold Season in the High Country Winds Down

ASPENS at TWIN LAKES just north of Cache Creek



Oh my gosh! Where do I begin? Our last five days in high country gold placers has been GREAT! The Aspens cooperated by turning that lovely buttery color that gold is, and matched the yellow stripes down the middle of the highways. Most of the color above 10,000 feet is gone. Frost was abundant at the 9,000 foot level, and those camping this past weekend at Cache Creek broke ice from their equipment before they could begin highbanking.

Groups from GPOC and GPR joined others out for a great weekend, with several people coming in for just a Saturday or Sunday's fun in the creek. The weather was cool, cloudy, and spit drizzle both days, but all in all it was a great weekend with friends, and making new friends. Gold was found by all, and some more than others. The "glory hole" is not showing any color like it was a couple of weeks ago, but still much small gold is coming out of all of the holes. Oh, one word about Cache Creek....when you get to the white/greyish sand, don't go on. Several have dug 3 feet of it and still not run out of it.

This next week I should have time to add to calendars. We have taken a ton of prospecting pictures that I will have up on the site later this week. Also, many very nice fall pictures will get added. During this summer season we have come across several nice prospecting ideas for Christmas, and Cafe Press will give us an opportunity to get t-shirts, calendars, mousepads, and what not to you for the holidays. I have been thinking about the calendar for some time now, and hopefully have enough pictures to fill one for you. I could go on, but let's save it for another day.

Gold Prospecting cont.

Caught walking through camp!


WOW! Tomorrow for the report on our metal detecting trip ended up being over a week! Needless to say, things got a bit hairy just before the Denver Gem and Mineral Show last Thursday.

We spent two days metal detecting in a new area and found a piece each day in the same area. The pyrite here is just beautiful, as it is colored with copper from the area. Larry came across a chunk of azurite that popped out of a hole. It is about 2 1/2 inches by 1 1/2. Deep blue with some greenish turquoise and chrysicolla in it. Both days were warm with a crisp breeze that told us fall was just around the corner. Leaves were turning quickly as well.

GPOC had their panning troughs up at the Denver Gem and Mineral show in their usual place, the north east corner of the Merchandise Mart exhibit hall. Larry was busy in the troughs for the three days, and I was kept busy in the T.L.E. International booth showing some of the most fantastic Colombian emeralds you ever saw. We also had a house full of guests staying to do the show from GPOC, and we all enjoyed the weekend with friends, except Eric who had to drive back to Pueblo and ride back up with Woody so that someone was available to get the truck back to Colorado Springs. Seriously, GPOC, was there no one who would inconvenience themselves less than this to get the truck back? SOMEONE who lives in the Springs should have had this duty!

This week has been "crash" week. The rest has been good so that we can hit the hills again this weekend. We had a group going to Cache Creek on Saturday when we attended the GPR meeting Wednesday and found out the Hawleys were also headed up there. Several others from that group decided to join everyone, so it looks like the creek will be very busy this weekend. We will be running the metal detector over the rocks already thrown out to see if we can run across any gold still in the rock. The next week we will be highbanking some of the area as well as metal detecting. Looks like a good weather week, too, to end our mountain prospecting days for another year. October will give me time to work on pages and get a new template started. Get out and see the fall colors...they are promising to be fantastic. But, don't wait. The gold color won't last long.

Gold Prospecting Labor Day Week with Hooked on Gold

Twin Lakes, Colorado




Wow! What a golden week! We have been back about a day and a half, and you can imagine all that needs to be done with the Denver Gem and Mineral Show starting tomorrow. Where to begin! What to tell you! Since it has been almost two weeks since my last blog, I will need to put on my thinking cap to remember everything you will want to know.

Our first weekend was a BLAST with a total of 10 participants gathering to do some panning and sluicing on the Arkansas to teach the newest member of the group the basics. Everyone found gold who looked for it, and those who came from lower altitudes got a day to acclimated to the altitude. Our "Chuck Wagon Cook", Elkhorn Jack, put on a feed for us that night of a wonderful chili, cowboy bread, and peach cobbler. You can watch for him next year on Cable T.V. putting on his Chuck Wagon cooking show. YEEEEHAAA!

Sunday found us up Flume Creek, west of Cache Creek and south of Twin Lakes, checking out a possible placer claim. Fabulous views were in store for the group, along with a placer mining site worked as late as the depression. The area is overgrown with willows and dificult to navigate, so we will pass on the claim. Access is by foot trail up about 500 feet above the parking area at about 11,000 feet. The old cabin is caved in, but has a marker nearby with an explaination of its' use and last rebuild. After the hike a look about, we headed back down to the BLM Cache Creek open area for an afternoon of finding gold, talking with those mining there, and deciding where to dig. We set up sluices and panned the pleasant afternoon away and decided where to set up the highbanking equipment when we got back. We all pulled out some nice course gold from the area, along with somne nice flakes. All for now. I'll tell you about the metal detecting we did the next day, tomorrow. Good prospecting? You bet cha! Pictures coming, too.

Gold Prospecting Labor Day Week

Well, it is almost time to go and spend some very quality time with friends for a fun filled week of prospecting before we close up camp until next May. We keep adding people to our group, and it looks to be a VERY enjoyable Labor Day weekend and week. Breakfast will be served to participants Saturday moring at camp and then all will depart on their particular prospecting adventures while the rest wait for those still coming in. We have FANTASTIC weather predicted until next Thursday, when we are supposed to get some rain, which should clear up in time for the next weekend. Will we ALL find gold. If everyone is searching for it we certainly will. We have a new person joining us this year from Oklahoma, and we have learning activities lined up for him that should give him plenty of stories to take. (Bryan and Brenda and the Boys are jealous) Several GPOC friends will be up to do some shoveling, highbanking, panning and eating. Several metal detectorists will be covering ground looking for nuggets and we may even get the dredge in the water. The NEWSLETTER will not be delivered the next two weeks due to time constraints for vacation and our VERY short week before the Denver Gem and Mineral Show. (We have two days before we must be at the show and work. Then there is the GPOC meeting in Colorado Springs to attend.) Hopefully all of you are going to be out finding gold this weekend, as well as bidding a fond farewell to summer until next year. That also ,eans new pictures will be on the website after the 15th, so watch for some great times recorded on film. For those of you who are wondering, gold closed today at $673.20 Good Prospecting to You.

Prospecting Labor Day Weekend

Prospecting the Arkansas River with friends


This past week went by triple fast! I was able to make connections with a wholesaler we saw in Tuscon that has a line of super gold nugget and gold in quartz jewelry. www.orocal.com (They are wholesalers only, but you can look at the catalog and e-mail me so I can gt a price for you) They also carry those figures and diaramas of miners and goldpanners. I picked up a VERY nice sampling of what they offer and we will be including it in the new catalog that we are working on now. Gold nuggets will also be offered as well as the corrugated mini sluice for black sand separation and Madam Queen Shirley's Magic Black Sand panning concentrates.

Labor Day weekend is upon us, and the summer has flown by at super sonic speed! We cannot believe our last week at camp will be here in 4 days and we have several prospecting buddies who we will be running around with picking up gold here, there, everywhere! NEW NEWS! Leadville has just recently put city wide WiFi in, so we have a second option for blogging and answering e-mail. Hopefully all of you are enjoying the DIY and panning tips form. We have a lot of scammers who are using it to find out if the e-mail address is valid and then sending us a TON of spam e-mail. HATE it. Really wish these people would get a real life. I hope I will not need to put the blocking html codes in, but it may come to that. WAY too many undeliverable requests are coming in.

The weather is shaping up nicely for this weekend, and hopefully all of next week as well. We will be looking at an old claim site as well as revisiting Cache Creek, Prospector #3, and some of our old haunts. Then will come the sad job of closing up camp for the winter and leaving the Arkansas valley soon until the next season begins again. We will have a few more days there at the end of September, but camp will not have running water available, and the sunroom will probably be packed away. But for now, the sun is warm and the gold awaits our finding it and taking it home with us. To golden adventures: CHEERS!

New Update on Point Bar Recreational and Gold Prospecting Area

GOOD NEWS! The BLM has successfully had the road to Point Bar repaired and have reopened it to traffic. They were able to get one of their best contractors up to the area Saturday, and the area reopened very quickly. Reports from the work area indicated that some of the holes left from last Thursday nights downpour were 20 feet deep. That's a lot of mud to wash into the Arkansas. You don't suppose that just downstream from that you might find a nice little pocket of GOLD, now, would you? Somebody ought to go and find out! 20 feet of classified material? I don't think we could move that much in a day with a dredge. Maybe a week, but not a day. That gold had to get classified somewhere downstream. The question is where. Don't think there is anything in that dirt? Well, then, you have never prospected at Point Bar. The upper benches can have larger and more gold than the river. What are you waiting for?! I just told you where to find gold in colorado.

HookedonGold additions

It is amazing how much you can get done in three days! The first attempt to rework the home page resulted in a home page that had to be deleted.....again! you will find HOME2 is the home page, now, and if I can figure out how to rename it without redoing it again, I will change it back. Three new pages have been added today that I have been working on the last couple of days, so you should have some new copy to read. At least one of the pages is a copy and paste from the old site. (Yes, I saved it all before I could no longer get in to change anything). Starting the catalog again is now at the top of the list, so stay tuned for that new page as well. PayPal will be my method of payment this time, and you should, hopefully,find the new catalog pages easier to navigate. The old one gave me no options for making it easier to use, and I am sure there were more problems with it than were reported. Hopefully, not 10 times as many. This is a long process, but we are here to stay, so time is on our side!

Still hearing of good gold coming out of Cache Creek, even though there is no water to work it with. Seems many are taking as many buckets as they can out of there and down to where there is public water to use.

How is blogger working for you as the blog page. I am finding it easy to use and don't seem to forget to log in and blog every few days. It has a nicer format, I think, than just blogging on a template page. Later this fall I will try to change website templates as the one I am using does not allow for many of the things I use to help with the expenses of the website. I love its' format, though, and it will be hard to be able to make it better, but there just is too much information that Adsense provides you to let that go.

The gold spot price right now is $656.50. Not bad for how low it went late last week.

Hooked on Gold's home page

Hey! Have you been wondering what happened to the HOME page here at Hooked on Gold? Well, I finally have time to devote some quality time to reworking the home page, and it has morfed into something really awful! To boot, the edit page is gorfed somehow and I can't get anything new to save. SO, in the mean time, you get to muddle through a mess while I try and figure out what went wrong. Gold has closed Friday up a bit at $656.30. This week should be interesting what with the Fed getting involved with the subprime stuff. Anywho, Watch this week while I try and fix the mess or find a template that works better. It I can do the latter, we will be looking at a format that will allow innerlinking better befroe we leave for Labor Day week and the closing of camp. Boy, did the summer go FAST!!!!! We had time to highbank, dredge, metal detect, and pan. We think we used almost every piece of mining and prospecting equipment we own.

New information of filing claims will show up this week on the website and some information on the blog as well. I have two weeks to get some serious work done. I amy even get the store back up.....if there is time! LOL! Good Prospecting to You.

Point Bar temporary closure

POINT BAR RECREATIONAL AND GOLD PROSPECTING AREA


ANNOUNCEMENT

Popular recreational and gold prospecting area near Salida, Colorado, Point Bar was temporarily closed today by the BLM due to heavy rains in the area that have washed out the road near the railroad tunnel. Several R.V.'s are trapped there, and the BLM has sent in emergency crews and equipment to fix the road long enough to get those folks out. More permanent repairs will be made at a later date.

Woody's claim, to the north of the bridge, will be used as a place for the stranded RV's to stay. Woody has generously allowed them to camp there as well as pan, sluice, fish and enjoy any of the other outdoor activities allowed in the area.

Also, the road at Badger Creek is under water at the sand bar, so passage in and out of the south end is also closed at the moment. Stay tuned and we will bring you the latest on the closure as information is available.

Gold is Down

ARASTRA near Alma, Colorado




Gold is taking a nose dive this morning along with the stock market. I haven't watched silver for a while, but I see it is also down at around $11.27, while gold is bouncing around $645. Everyone is saying the "Fed" should have given interest rates a nudge downward on the last meeting, and that stocks are reacting to the "misstep". I am sure gold prospecting, dredging, panning, and highbanking are going on somewhere while I am at home doing laundry and cleaning house. Believe me, I would rather have a #2 shovel in my hand than a vacuum cleaner! Climbing mountains looking for gold and gemstones is much more interesting that climbing stairs and putting away clothes and sheets. Painting is up there with mountain climbing, but only when I can't get away. We are looking forward to Labor Day week when we have our last big week of prospecting for this year, and must, once again, be content with weekend excursions to nearby places. GPOC has an outing planned for the weekend of Aug. 25th at Prospector #3. Don't know if we will make that as our last week will begin the next weekend and diesel and gas probably should be saved for that. You never know, though. We might decide at the last minute to skeedaddle. GPR has a demo this weekend at the Golden History Museum during the Arts Festival. Lots still going on, but I need a nap! LOL! Have fun out there finding gold.

Gold Panning Championships

Colorado State Gold Panning Champions: Center 1st place - Sue Drewes, Right 2nd place - Isaac Beaty, Left 3rd place - Patricia Vesterby.



Ah, home and rest! What a week. The Colorado State Gold Panning Championships went very well, with many new contestants, and many new winners. We had people from all over the U.S., and a great time was had by all. Many thanks to Breckenridge for being so generous in their efforts to make the championships happen each year the first weekend in August.

After the championships were over, we headed for camp and four days of semi rest and prospecting. We met up with friends from Oklahoma and spent several days dredging and prospecting. A very nice restful and enjoyable week. We did not have our grandsons this week, as we usually do, as the oldest one starts high school and had to be back home to register the 9th. We sure did miss them!!!!! The baby is now 5 months old, and after two days of wearing a GPOC tie, he actually tried to put it on over his head when we gave it to him. Adorable! Except for the projectile vomiting he produced the last morning we were in Breckenridge, he took to the outdoors and all the people like a duck to water.

Buena Vista's Gold Rush Days were very nice, with the GPOC troughs filled both days until the wind came up of Sunday afternoon so hard we were chasing t-shirts, and fliers, and magazines. Needless to say, we shut down about an hour early when it didn't stop. We were on the edge of a pretty big thundercloud to the south of us, that produced all the wind. The Cotin Tail gem and mineral show at the fairgrounds was well attended, but many complained that there was too much jewelry, petrified wood, rough for cutting, and not enough specimen material. We bought aquamarine, petrified dinosaur bone, and pieces that are formed when lightening hits sand. There is some very exciting news about one of the big claim owners on Mt. Antero who is looking to open an area of his claim for public searching. Hooked on Gold will be involved with this in a minor capacity and we will let you know about what is happening this next year. That should wrap up the report on this past week. Catch yo in the funny papers later.

P.S. There is scuttle in the markets that the selling of gold by some countries to deflate the price of gold is about to end. Watch for gold to spike when that happens.

End of the 2007 Colorado State Gold Panning Championships

August 6, 2007.

2007 Colorado State Gold Panning Championships are in the record books and posted on the GPOC Temp Pages, so go and have a look at this year’s winners. Pictures will be up as soon as we can get them transferred to the laptop. If we can do it with the equipment we have with us this week, it won’t be too long. If not, it will be next week. We are out in the wilds again this week looking for gold between the Championships and Gold Rush Days in Buena Vista. Man, holding the championships at 9,500 feet elevation takes its toll on everyone who works the championships and the troughs. We are lucky as we take the next week off and sleep all morning on Monday. Most of the group will to go to work on Monday after the long weekend. Kudos to all the volunteers who showed up, competed, and work the one to three days they were there. Thanks to the city of Breckenridge for helping us bring the championships to everyone each year. Without their generous donations of condos and gold for the public troughs it would be a lot more difficult to put on. We are gearing up to go out and challenge the gold gods to give up some more of their yellow treasure this week. With a day’s semi-rest, we should be up to hiking around for the search. We will keep you posted as to chat we find. Oh, in case I did not tell you the weight of the Cache Creek gold, it was 2.06 Grams out of the top carpet. We have not processed the bottom carpet yet; have to be home to do that, and we haven’t spent too much time there lately. Breckenridge has a lot of “open space” on the upper Swan and upper French Creek that we would like to find out if it is open to prospecting with small hand equipment. We haven’t found the right person to ask, yet, but we will continue to try to find out.

Gold Panning Championships and other musings

National/World Style Panning Competition 2006, Breckenridge, Colorado-Colorado State Gold Panning Championships


Gold is back at around $665 today. Minneapolis is in a tizzy today what with the collapse of a major bridge! WOW! Can you imagine riding that down to the river? Our condolences to all who were involved and their families. Fortunately, the number of people lost to this tragedy is not large, and could certainly have been a lot worse. What a mess.

Since the State Championships are this weekend and Gold Rush Days next weekend, we will be in B.V. for the week in between. Newsletter recipients can expect a newsletter next Friday, unless things get crazy. If so, I will que up a short version. Good luck to all who participate in the Gold Panning Championships this weekend! We are also looking forward to meeting folks at the troughs and teaching them the ins and outs of speed paning. Larry will have his highbanker combo cleaning up sand for the competitions.

Cache Creek, Panning Championships, and Gold Rush Days

Pack burro statue in Breckenridge, Co. by Robin Laws titled "Friends"


Wow! The Colorado Gold Panning championships in Breckenridge are coming up FAST! I am drying the Cache Creek gold so I can weigh it and tell you how much we found, along with a picture. Are you finding gold this summer? We have been finding gold with every piece of equipment we have used, and taught a thing or two as well. Next week will be another week in B.V. with new friends and old ones, too. We'll finally get to do some gem hunting in between the gold hunting. After the championships we will be with GPOC in Buena Vista for Gold Rush Days burro races and the Cotin Tail Gem show at the Fairgrounds. Summer is going by faster than usual, but the water levels are a little less. However, with all the rain we have had this year, they are still higher than normal. 4 days between weeks in the mountains has us hopping to get everything done and ready for the next week off. See you in Beckenridge this weekend!

Cache Creek regulations

July 24, 2007.

We visited the Cache Creek area yesterday and found a lot of confusion about the requirements and regulations for the area. First, you need an additional bond from the BLM to work a highbanker in this area. DREDGING IS NOT ALLOWED! Panning, sluicing, and metal detecting can be done anywhere on the BLM portion of Cache Creek. Watch for private property and the working claims in the area. We also found that the BLM requirements did not allow prospectors to reuse limited water sources with their requirement that highbanking be 20 feet off a water source. We assume they are talking about the actual digging. There was a report that a dredge was in Cache Creek well out of the boundaries and downstream a bit. Those of you who choose to disobey the BLM regulations and requirements jeopardize the continued use of this area. The BLM can, and will, close this area to everyone if violations continue to happen. Since GPOC has been working with the BLM to open this area to the public, I have had the information on it on the GPOC Temp page at hookedongold.com. You can find the new info that was posted today at the bottom of that page for now.

Finding Mountain Gold

Speed Panning-loading the pan prior to a competitors run


July 17, 2007.
July is going by in a blur! We are getting ready for guests and getting away for another week of fun in the mountains finding gold. The July 27th newsletter will not go out due to time and internet connections. E-mail will be answered every couple of days as we find time to go to town and download it. Are you finding gold? We will be highbanking and metal detecting this trip along with meeting with friends and other prospectors. The Colorado State Gold Panning Championships are coming up quick! They will be held the first weekend in August in Breckenridge, Colorado. Come out and see some of the fastest panning in the state, or the country, for that matter. The Team competition is a blast with each person drawing for their place on each three man team. Three days of fun! Gold is holding this week in the $665 range. Watch the rivers in Colorado. They are still running pretty high.

Gold Trip to B.V.

June 29, 2007.

Well, I have downloaded two more specialty page scripts for the website, but have run out of time to work on them this week. One is a blog and the other the new shopping cart. The gold we found last weekend weighed in at around 4.5 grains of very chunky gold. Not too bad for goldpans. Spot closed today for the weekend at $647.50. Better go out and buy some before it heads back up! We are off to camp for the July Fourth week and will be busy with many activities. B.V. has a wonderful fireworks display each fourth, and we enjoy it most years. We will be checking e-mail and reporting here every day or two, so keep those cards and letters coming. Have a terrific Fourth of July Celebration wherever you are.

Breckenridge gold

June 26, 2007.

We spent a very warm day yesterday with friends in the Breckenridge area and came home with some VERY nice gold nuggets. Everyone there was successful in picking up the "pickers", with the largest one being around a quarter of an inch long, thick and chunky. Not bad for using the bucket classifier and pans. Friday evening will find us on our way to B.V. and a week off. The demo on the weekend was enjoyable and we all found a few treasures at the show to bring home with us. Have you been watching gold drop like a stone this morning? Right now it is sitting at around $640.00.

Hooked on Gold has moved

OMG!!! What a morning! I have changed servers,and everything went so fast that I didn't get my new home page up on the new server before everything went dark! If you were on the site about 11:00 this morning, it got yanked out from under you. Also, the old site is not redirected yet, and you get a blank page for that as well. What a mess. SOOOO sorry, but the pages will be much better in a month or so. Are you watching gold drop like a stone to around $645? I hear that Spain is dumping gold like mad. They have also started a lawsuit to get part of the new treasure found off the coast of England. The last time they did that, they WON! I hear they are desperate for money and part of the gold and silver haul from the wreck would really help. path to the old site will be www.hookedongold.clicksitebuilder.com We will be helping in the panning booth with GPR this weekend at the Arvada Gold Strike Festival in ole towne Arvada. Along with the fair will be the buffalo soldiers, mountain men, and President Teddy Roosevelt. Have a GREAT weekend.

Gold in Ghana

Thanks to T.L.E. International for allowing us to photograph their extensive cases of gold jewelry and exceptional emeralds.

Ghana, in medieval times, was known as "The City of Gold". Even today 2/3 of the population own gold and buy 18 - 21K gold at least once a year.

14K gold that is common in the U.S., is not even considered acceptable for jewelry in most of the rest of the world. Try to sell your 14K gold jewelry anywhere but here and you will be offered a small fraction of what you think it is worth. While I am in jewelry booths selling jewelry at fairs and gemshows, those who buy and collect gold seriously always ask the karat of the gold in the jewelry, and will hesitate to buy a piece that is even 18K. Design and quality of stones is not as important to them as the quality of the gold. In the Souk gold marketplace you can find tons of gold jewelry for sale on any given day with very little offered below 18K, and some of that can be bought below spot. Haggling is expected, and you may come away with a very good deal from someone who mines, refines, and fashions the gold themselves. A ticker on the price of gold runs continuously at the entrance to the multi leveled marketplace so that patrons are aware of today's price of gold. I don't know about you, but I'm sure I would be on overload at the mere sight of so much gold jewelry. Can you imagine a market half a mile square filled with gold jewelry? Would the sun be brighter in that place or the glow of gold? What a sight it must be! Find your own gold by visiting us to learn how, where, and what to use.

Gold Question of the week, May 16, Summer Edition

Get your panning cons for some panning fun! Find them on the site HERE

GOLD QUESTION OF THE WEEK SUMMER EDITION

I picked up an interesting tid bit this past week concerning small miners and how much mercury they take out of the streams and rivers. In Washington, there has been an ongoing struggle with the state and prospectors over how much damage they do or do not do to the environment. Well, the small miners in Washington have been saving all of the mercury they have been collecting and in late February the Washington Dept. of Ecology was invited to attend the Washington Gold, Gem, and Mineral Show. The collected mercury was turned over to their representative at the show and the total amount presented to the Ecology Department was 73 lbs. The Ecology Dept. was said to be "impressed that small-scale miners were actively removing mercury from state rivers and streams." To date, small miners have presented the department with over 150 lbs. of mercury. What they don't understand is how much we all enjoy taking heavy metals out of the waterways. When YOU find mercury in the rivers and streams, no matter where you are, please put into a vial or jar filled with water, cap it, and save it until you find someone who can take care of it. DO NOT put it back into the water. Ask any prospector on the river you come in contact with what to do with it when you encounter them. Some of us identify areas that contain mercury and collect it at the end of a season, as it will foul carpets when you get into a bunch of it. The first silver bead of mercury I ever saw was outside of Silverton, Co. on Cement Creek. Like gold, the first time you see it, you WILL know what it is. It will look similar to a shiny, liquid, silver sinker. If it is chunky looking, it has gold in it.

Gold in Pre-Columbian South America

To your left is a modern day example of the excellent work still coming out of Colombia in gold and emeralds brought to you by T.L.E. International.

South American, pre-Columbian gold placers made it possible to produce incredibly intricate gold objects created and formed by many cultures in the region. Placer mining was done by ground sluicing, and diverting streams using stone riffles that could be built during dry seasons. Material was dug from dry riverbeds, stockpiled and "washed" through the stone riffles during the flooding season trapping the concentrates in the stone riffles. The gold was then separated from the concentrates by hand using a large cone shaped wooden pan called a "batea" by the Spaniards who found the natives using them much later.

The Waywakans of the south central Andes Mountains are accredited with being first to mine and work gold, with gold artifacts found and dated at around 1500 B.C. Annealing was devised to hammer the metal into thin sheets to use for breastplates, masks, and many other types of large objects. Considering they used stone tools to work the gold, the ability they had to make intricate adornments is, at the least, amazing.

Etching, casting, and embossing were developed by Peruvians around 200 B.C., as well as alloying and the use of mercury in gilding. Colombians perfected working with gold, refining, alloying, casting, gilding, and all other aspects of gold work. Tumbaga was their special alloy of copper and gold. It was strong, easily worked, had a low melting point, and casted very well. Its reddish color was pleasing and the surface was easily washed with acid to reveal a beautiful yellow color. As gold was not a status of wealth, but religion, some villages sacrificed gold to their deities by throwing it into nearby deep lakes.

By the time Christopher Columbus reached the New World, gold had been worked in South America for some 3,000 years. The natives of San Salvador were wearing simple crude gold ornaments made of gold from Hispaniola when he arrived there. When he reached Central America, he named the area "Costa Rica", or Rich Coast, due to the finely crafted gold the natives wore. As all know, the Spanish went on to steal all the gold they could find from the natives in South America, looting even graves in their thirst for the yellow metal.

Today, South American governments do all they can to preserve the pieces that remain. More of the intricate gold is found every year in lost and forgotten burial sites and other hiding places. Several museums in South America hold thousands of these pieces as a testament to the skills of these artisans of long ago.

For more information on gold and prospecting spend a few minutes with Hooked on Gold

Hooked on Gold was lost in space

If you missed hooked on gold yesterday, the server was once again down. Didn't find out in time to post much yesterday, but we will be switching servers this week with at least a home page to direct and redirect you until we can get the whole gold site back up and running. Gold is headed higher this morning above $670. Did all of you have a golden Mother's Day? We are ready to go to Salida this weekend for Let's Go Gold Panning Day's. Camping, prospecting, and jawing with like minded folks for a whole weekend. A FANTASTIC way to start the summer season! For more information on Let's Go Gold panning Days visit the GPOC Temp. Page See you there.

Gold Question fo the Week for May 2, 2007.

The Gold question for May 2, 2007 is:

In what century was large scale gold mining begun in India and where?

ANSWER: According to minelinks.com, "Large scale mining in India began with the Mauryan colonization of the Deccan about the end of the fourth century B.C." "Large scale" mining does not necessaruliy mean large gold mining equipment, but can include the scope of the area mined and the number of people who did the mining as well as consider the undertaking of mining for gold with primitive tools. "Large scale" does not necessarily mean the number of cubic yards moved either. India was a known source of large amounts of gold even at the beginning of the Christian era. While modern machinery and industry can produce larger amounts of gold now than in ancient times, the amounts of gold recovered during those times should certainly be equated with "large scale" mining, as the technology produced as much gold as was possible with what was known at the time.

The pendant in the picture above is a lovely piece of California Crystal gold for sale in our catalog at hookondongold.com.

Gold Question of the Week for April 25, 2007.

Gold has taken a mighty dive! It has been flirting with $672 again, but it doesn't look like it's a serious "thang".

This week's gold question takes us to the Orient and along the trade routes to the middle east. Gold was long known for being abundant in the eastern countries, and our question is about North Korea. Spend a little time looking up this answer and reading the accounts of where gold was found in this country. For the next question visit hookedongold.com. You'll find some interesting information on gold and prospecting there, too. Copy and paste it into your browser if it isn't live for you, or click on the link in the links box.

WOOHOO! Take a look at these beauties! We have many very nice pieces of gold for sale in our catalog, as well as panning sand, corrugated mini sluice, and the ocassional piece of jewelry. http://hookedongold.com/catalog244888.html will give you an eye full of really nice gold.


CONGRATULATIONS TO: JOHN for being the first, qualified, correct answer to the gold question for the week of April 25.

Hooked On Gold's QUESTION OF THE WEEK: April 25, 2007.

In what century was gold first mentioned (or approximate date) as being abundant in North Korea, who wrote about it and what part of the world was he from?

ANSWER: Abundant gold in North Korea was first mentioned in the 9th century by Ibn Khordadzbeth. He was from the middle east.