Jan. 21, 22 - Pomona Fairgrounds GPAA


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Reno Chris... Yep I do... I first saw the plague in the 1940's... Hope it is still there? ...

I will add... The January GPAA gold & treasure show will be at the Pomona Fairplex ~~ 1101 W. McKinley Ave. ~~ Building 6. Pomona CA 91768. Same place as last year...

I plan to be there on Saturday only. Jerry Hobbs of the PLP will be my ride... I have never missed a local Southern California GPAA Gold Show... I hope I do not miss this one...

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Very good. I will look forward to visiting with you on Saturday.

While about 75% of the old Mackay building has been greatly changed through remodeling, the plaque and doorway are just as they were decades ago. If you are ever up to Reno, I'd be happy to give you a tour.

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Chris... If the front door is one piece it is not the original one piece door. The original was cut in half back about 1951 or 1952... I was there when it happened... The first of many changes that started after Prof Carpenter retired. Your Mackay and mine are different. Mine was the days of sliderule and log. tables; yours was small efficent hand held computers... Also, your Mackay and the one today are even more different... The Mackay school of mines is gone.

Hey everone reading this tread... come to the Pomona Show and

look me up... I'm a living(?) 82 year old deaf and gimpy relic; so please put up with me as I'm friendly, so shake my hand and ask me questons... but keep in mind I have forgot the answers (if'en I once ever knew them). But I try to offer

comraderie and old time friendship. However, if you feel I'm ignoring you, I ain't!!!, as I'm pretty deaf even with expensive hearing aids...

Now Reno Chris...Whatcha givin away at the show? Don't be bashful, let us know.

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Jim is right, if you are in the area, come to the Pomona show. It will be worth your while.

Hand held computers? Nah, that was well after me. We had electronic calculators instead of slide rules, but I used trig and log tables. If you wrote a computer program, you had to go to a card machine and make one card for each line of the program. You bundled up the cards and turned in at the computer center. After 20 minutes to several hours, they would put the results of your program and your cards in a little box where you could pick it up. There were no disks, CDs or thumb drives to carry your program, it was cards in a shoe box, and no direct communication with the mainframe computer. If only one card was out of order, your program wouldn't run. Them was the good old days of computing.

I do remember when they merged away the Mackay School of Mines to become the Mackay School of Earth Sciences. I remember seeing Vic Kral on TV protesting. It wasn't that many years ago.

Isn't this photo the door that was there when you were? It looks mighty old.

What will I be giving away?

I'll be giving away free copies of the mining journal (lots of them).

I have little yellow miner's hat flashlight key chains. I have a limited number and wont be giving them away to everyone, so ask if you want one.

If you have any Minerals, ores or rocks you want identified, bring them and I'll give it a go. (had a guy last year bring in a big chunk of copper ore with loads of Chalcopyrite. He was very disappointed when I told him it wasn't gold).

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Chris you are right about the IBM cards... My Bad, I meant to say the Slide Rules were replaced by hand held Caculators.

The door shown is not the original one... Back about 1951-52 on a windy morning the decision was made Mr. Scheide to cut it off... As I remember about the third section down... Gosh I believe it may have been in two pieces when you were still there? I do not remember when the split door was replaced by a replica (shown) one piece door...

Was the old seismograph still in use in the basement of Mackay? Old memories die hard. I still remember the old quansit hut (spelling)that was just about the main library. It was the still used when I was there in 1948-49 as an office...

Mr. Kral (Mackay 1938) was a driving force in getting me the Jones Hoover scholorship for the Spring semester of 1954. Just a couple of years before he past away, he married one of his old U. of Nevada classmates.

Okay everyone: Now be sure to come to the gold show and listen to Reno Chris and me tell of the earlier times when Mackay was one of the leading school of mines. (I will be there Saturday only)... and be sure to go to the PLP booth and listen to Jerry Hobbs give the lastest regarding dredging in California. More later...

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You are friendly indeed my friend Jim, I wish my ride up there wasn't working Saturday cause I'd sure like to stop by and shake your hand. But it looks like Sunday will be the day for me, I was very much looking forward to that, we will meet up in the future though, take care,yer pal...Bucket

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Gosh my Pal Bucket... Thank You! I wish I could go both days, but lucky if I can make on Saturday... One of our daughters will be with Gloria... "So 'jimmie gets out to play.'" But there are rumors that it might rain...

Now to give Chris Ralph a bad time :lol: ... Hey I got one of those cute little miners hat flashlight key chains from Scott himself at a goldshow years ago. (It still works. They are really nice to have.)

Everyone... I hope you All can come to the Pomona Gold Show and enjoy the displays... I have not missed a single gold show that has been in the greater San Bernardino area. I'm really glad to make this one and I really appreciate Jerry Hobbs making the extra effort to be my ride...

Jerry is a member of the PLP and they have been giving their best over the last 20 years in support of us small miners to be able to get out and play in the dirt (or in the water again if'n dredging in California is allowed again.)

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:lol: Howdy All... I was at the Pomona gold show on Saturday only. A brief report: I was able to see many old friends. Glad I was able to go, thanks to Jerry Hobbs a well known and active PLP member.

I'm sure Reno Chris will add more detail about the show and maybe able to add more information regarding the status of

dredging in California... Chris was busy giviing out ICMJ magazines, getting new ICMJ subscribers, identifying rocks and answering questions asked... Best Yet... Reno Chris's dad was there in the ICMJ booth Father and Son enjoying comradeship.

Gosh my Dad has been "gone" about 55 years :(

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The gold show was fun, I missed ya Jim cause i could only make it on Sunday but I talked with Chris who was in pretty good spirits even after some gorilla managed to squash his hand. All in all a decent show though. Your dad has been gone for fifty years buddy but you've got a lot of folks that consider you and yours family my friend and we are all hoping for the best...yer Pal Bucket

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My Pal Bucket... I hoped Chris Ralph would close this thread with a summary of events... Now I will give you my version as seen on Saturday only... There were many vendors selling "fluff," and less old-time dealers selling the "goods." There was a nice crowd of "lookers." I hope they left the show happy with their "goodies."

Pete Pedersen was across from the ICM booth, and selling his gold. (After the show, and as he arrived home he was jumped and robbed of his gold; about $200,000 value... As you Know Pete is an old timer, several years older than I am... I understand he is okay...)

I was zipping along in my wheelchair so my view of the show was at a low level and my view of the booths was in a word... "low-down." I hung around the PLP booth and met many old friends who were there on Saturday.

I enjoyed the show... I came home a couple of hundred dollars richer and with a nice plaque giving me the honor of being a life member of one of the larger prospecing assocations...

So as I fade away, Humble I be as I first met George and Wilma Massie back when they formed the GPAA in the early 1970s. Back then I was moonlighting teaching adult education classes (1969-1994) and almost all of those in one of my classes were charter members of the GPAA...

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  • 2 weeks later...
I hoped Chris Ralph would close this thread with a summary of events...

Oh well, better late than never for a show report.

Yes Pete was robbed. He told me his story and it seemed like it was all over in a matter of seconds. The thieves were waiting for him. As he got out of his car they snunk over to his car grabbed the gold out of the passenger seat and ran to their get away car. He told me he had a gun on him but by the time he saw what was happening, they were driving away before he could draw it. I felt very sorry for him as he has some really, really nice gold. Those thieves knew what he had and knew he would be coming home with the gold at a certain time on a certain day, and they knew exactly where in the car he would have it sitting - they just reached in and grabbed it. All I can say is Jim's oft repeated saying to share your gold with no one and keep tight lipped about it. Where the thieves got their inside knowledge I dont know, but Jim is right to say nothing about your gold and keep it secure in a safety deposit box.

On a lighter note, I had a lady buy a copy of my book for her son. She, her husband, her son, and a friend of the son showed up at the show on Sunday to pick up the book. She had some shiny rocks they thought might be gold that they wanted to show me . I took a look and yup, it was Mica. they showed me a blob like silver thing they found with their metal detector. It was very light, I told them it was aluminum, probably a beer can tossed in a campfire that melted then was rolled around in the waves. Finally they hesitantly showed me an earring found with their detector that they thought was just junk. I could see from a distance it was nice workmanship on the gold, and you dont put good workmanship into costume jewelry. I took a close look with my loop and sure enough, on the gold it said .585 - and nothing more. For those who dont know, in the US, we mark gold jewelry 14K or 18K or whatever depending on purity. In Europe and in Asia, they dont use K - they just put the purity in a decimal. So .585 means the same as 14K. I took a close look at the stone as well, and I was pretty sure it was a real diamond. I told them to go see the jeweler that was there at the show as he could confirm it. They did and he confirmed it. It was a top quality diamond, I'd guess around 1/3 of a carat, worth a good $500 to $1000 dollars - I've found some good gold jewelry myself, but never anything that nice. The kid was ecstatic and went around telling every one in the show about his find. So it turned out that his gold rocks were junk, but his junk jewelry was real gold and real diamond. :D

In a few days I am off to Arizona for the show in Mesa, with a detour first to take in the Tucson Gem and mineral show. Quite a sight for anyone interested in that sort of thing as I am.

Chris

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