Flash in the Pan Blog

Not too long ago, I was working in our Goldbar store, when an older gentleman sallied in through the door to take a gander at some of our new sluices. As he poked and prodded the new gear, I took the chance to strike up a conversation. A note to all you younger prospectors: take every opportunity you can to listen to older prospectors. While they might bend the truth a bit (what prospector doesn’t), they are often full of prospecting experience and often willing to share it with a with up and comers. This old timer was no exception.

During episode 9 of the Ore Dump Podcast, ol’ Uno started spouting off about China’s rare earth monopoly and the impact of their ongoing embargo to the rest of the world. Not wanting to look like a complete hillbilly for not having a clue as to what he was talking about, I chose to simply nod my head knowingly and threw out a couple of affirmations as if I knew enough to either agree or disagree with what he was saying. Well, I thought it was about time to dig around a bit and figure it out and of course share my findings with you so you don't sound like a hillbilly at your next fancy cocktail party).

This week’s prospecting term is drift mine.

This week’s prospecting term is winze.

Once the gang had left my house after recording episode 4 of the Prospectors Plus Ore Dump podcast, my good buddy and prospecting partner ol’ Uno and I sat back nursing a cup of coffee as he reported on a recent trip to Olney Creek he had taken with one of his friends from work. As Uno recounted the common traps he observed his friend fall into (in fact, we all fall into when first starting out prospecting for gold), it dawned on both of us that of all the misconceptions we had embraced when first learning and is seldom enumerated in prospecting literature, was the chasm of thinking between ‘prospecting’ and ‘mining’. By our estimation, our failure in realizing the difference between the two concepts and a clear lack of application of said thinking to our own outings had led to needless frustration, wasted time and energy and in the end, less gold for our efforts in our earliest endeavors.