Admin nuggethunting Posted July 27, 2009 Admin Report Share Posted July 27, 2009 Hello All, Over the years I've seen ads for people that purchase black sands. Was curious if anyone knows the value of average "run of the mill" black sands from a placer operation or such? What would be the value of a 55 gallon full of black sands with all the visible pickers and fines removed? Just curious if anyone knows. Talk with you later,Rob Allison Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
grubstake Posted July 27, 2009 Report Share Posted July 27, 2009 When working at Bagby on the Merced River, back in the 90's, my boss had an 8 inch keene dredge, and had a 55 gal drum assayed, it came back around 10% iron, 75% managnee's, 3% gold, and 2% silver, 2% copper, and 1% silca 2 % titanium. I awways joke with them the gold was a byproduct, meaning they could have all the gold they could BUY! Ha! Ha! They had the assay done at twinning labs in Fresno, and he personally trucked the fines down, But he as so ran them through a hydro jig, to get most of the heavey gold out first. GrubstakeRob, I don't think they assayed the whole 55 gal drum, I think the assayer, picked random sapples from it in order to get a fair sample or the run, which was a months worthy, Bill had a hydromatic jig, wich removed most of the gold and heavy metals. He alos had a shaker table he ran stuff over tooo. so it was mainly just lefty overs. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gold Seeker Posted July 27, 2009 Report Share Posted July 27, 2009 I have never weight a gallon of black sand, but I have read that a 5 gal bucket of black sand weights 50-60 lbs, so even if you conservatively say that 1 gal of black sand weights 6 lbs... 6 X 55 =330 lbs...330 X .03 = 9.9 lbs of gold , so if you have some black sands that assays even close to the 3% in Grubstake's post, it would be very profitable!!! Skip Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
grubstake Posted July 27, 2009 Report Share Posted July 27, 2009 Yeh seeker, Bill was selling his black sand to some guy up north, that was the reason he paid for an assay, he was just dumping it back into the river, this guy from I think sacromento came down and wanted to buy high amounts of it, not sure exectly how much he was paying Bill. But it must have been a good price as Bill was not the kind of guy to fool around wasting his time cheaply. At the time he had an 8 inch tripple sluce keene and it ran all day ever day in the summer. him and his boy ran it along with a guy named Gary Becker. They got some nice gold, and big gold. It had a voltwagon engine and a keene pump, and air for 4 divers, 45 ft of hose. When he sold Bagby back to Merced Irrigation District, he sold that dredge trailer and all for $1500.0 and when he bought it he paid $8000.00 but ran it for 4 years. Grubstake Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bandana Don Posted July 30, 2009 Report Share Posted July 30, 2009 Rob are thinking about some 55 gallon drums near Rich Hill? The bbl's of stuff I've seen do not appear to have been run over a shaker table...just too much sand. If the bottoms of the barrels aren't rusted out it'd take a fork lift or loader to move the barrels I've seen. No, I never took any samples to have assayed!Don Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nuggetslayer Posted July 31, 2009 Report Share Posted July 31, 2009 If there is a little gold still left in them you should be able to get about $26.00 a bag and then you shit them flat rate for $4.95 as 5lb bags. There are a lot of people that like to pan them out at there own house. I have a pretty good customer base but have not been doing it in the last few months. Send me a pm Rob and I can tell you more of how to go about it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Admin nuggethunting Posted August 1, 2009 Author Admin Report Share Posted August 1, 2009 Hey Guys, Don - I didn't know there was still barrels of Black Sand at Rich Hill. Most of the old barrels I've seen have been crushed. I was just curious since I'm part of another project that might eventually collect a bunch of black sands. Nuggetslayer - You probably have a good idea. The black sands will still have values, just some of the larger pickers and flakes will be removed. I was just curious if someone actually collected entire barrels of black sands? Talk with you later,Rob Allison Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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