Flash in the Pan Blog

The Daily News of Van Nuys, California is celebrating their 100th anniversary by reprinting excerpts of some of their more interesting and colorful articles that graced their pages over the years. Today, they focused on the period of 1937-1938 when America was smack dab in the middle of the Great Depression, Germany was but a year from invading Poland in the September Campaign and the classic Gone with the Wind was still only being enjoyed in book form. An interesting aside is that just one year prior, Jesse Owens kicked the Nazi notion of Aryan supremacy square in the keister in the 1936 Berlin Olympics. The late thirties were an amazing time in our countries history, the period when the iron spines of the greatest generation began to be forged.

Ok. Have I ever found a great article for you today! It’s not your everyday mamby-pamby gold prospecting article talking about how I waddled out into the boonies and came back with some shinny stuff. No. Today's blog post is in fact, a deep look into a long dark grizzly chain of events that happened some 133 years ago in the shady gold-laden history of the Black Hills Dakota Territory. It is in fact, the story of Big Nose George and a stage coach robbery that netted some 700 pounds of gold dust and nuggets from the famous Homestake Mine, roughly 6500 ounces of which (or 406 pounds) was never recovered. Today, that unrecovered gold would be worth nearly $8,800,000.

Watching episode 5 of Discovery Channel’s hit Gold Rush Alaska, “The Pain Barrier” had the phrase “poor ol’ James Harness” running through my head over and over and over. While I am obviously sympathetic to James’ body breaking down working 24/7 for weeks out in the boonies (and going through prescription morphine withdrawl at the same time), I am much more sympathetic that he seems to be the only one there with his head screwed on straight and the skills and dedication to make a real go of professional mining. More than anything, I feel bad that ol’ James has been stuck in the middle of a poorly planned endeavor with a bunch of knucklheads that lack the ability to capitalize on their dream.

I’m a finance nerd and looking back, I believe that passion for numbers, markets and research fueled my pure lust for gold prospecting. Precious metals have always been a store of value – a historical hedge against inflation and for a number of years I had invested in precious metals as a portion of my overall portfolio. I can almost remember the day when it dawned on me that while I could certainly continue to purchase my precious metals, how much cooler would it be to get out there into the wilds of Washington State and find some of my own? Oh, yeah – you can see where my mind was going. While I realize I will most likely never strike it rich, behind the scenes I keep a close eye on the markets and the internet has been a great educator in both passions.

No matter your political bent, Sarah Palin’s Alaska television show on TLC has hit TV like wildfire, capturing nearly 5 million viewers across the country. Each week, Mrs. Palin travels with her family the width and breadth of Alaska, highlighting its breathtaking natural splendor, hardy (and unique) citizens and their hard work (and play) ethic. Over the eight episode run, viewers have seen the Palin’s hike, climb, fish, hunt, camp, shoot and log – with each show highlighting portions of Alaska’s thriving economy and the people that make it happen. If you love the outdoors, you’d be jealous for sure.

With hopes of gold’s continued rally beyond the sweet 26% appreciation 2010 brought, many investors were startled to the see the new year of trading open with the price of our favorite precious metal falling 3.1%. What the hell happened? Well, as Alix Steel described in the TheStreet article, “Gold Prices: Correction or Time to Buy?” gold’s rally stumbled due to a string of events, chiefly: the morning opened with aggressive short-term profit sharing, which triggering forced sell stops which then in turn scared away bargain hunting gold bugs not wanting to enter a falling market.

I had an interesting morning reading through one of my favorite gold-related blogs, not necessarily a gold prospecting read, but more centered on owning gold as a hedge. With gold breaking above $1400/oz this morning, dhkenrick of OwningGold.com espoused a common quandary of many gold owners when prices soar to new levels – will gold prices continue to climb, or is this the top?

I guess with all the rush getting ready for my families vacation to Florida, I missed forwarding on a great story about a record-breaking gold find from the historic Black Hills of South Dakota. On September 13th, the Holly Meyer of the Rapid City Journal reported that a find made by two recreational gold prospectors, turned out to be largest gold nugget recovered in the last 120 years from the Black Hills area.

I watched several hours of coverage last night of the rescue of the 33 Chilean miners trapped more than a half mile below the earth for the past 69 days and sat in amazement at the ingenuity and engineering that made the rescue possible. Every hour, the 21-inch wide rescue capsule would make the 2,041 foot, 25 minute trip down to the trapped miners, unloading volunteer medical staff and loading up the next miner to be freed. What an absolutely amazing feat.

Science is an amazing discipline. Science puts numbers and theorems to measurable formulas that are proven and repeatable. Science can be pure as the driven snow. Sometimes science can also find itself behind the curve attempting to label and classify practices and outcomes that the average Joe would just say “duh” too. Fox News had a pretty hilarious listing of science innovations that left people shaking their heads entitled, “No Duh! The Most Obvious Scientific Discoveries of 2009” that will give you a sense of what I am talking about. These brilliant discoveries included:

• High heels lead to foot pain
• Men much more interested than women in casual sex
• Children are affected when a parent suffers from depression
• Coed dorms fuel sex and drinking
• Sweets taste better when you are high

>Updated 3/4/2011

I made a serious mistake when originally posting this article that has unintentionally offended several members of the Yakima Prospectors Association. By choosing to write this article in such a glib manner, calling out specific members cited in the source Seattle Times article to emphasize my points and in general, poking fun at everyone and everything I upset people that I respect.

It's always great to get recognized by the local community. Today's issue of The Monroe Monitor and Valley News featured a great article written by Polly Keary on Prospector's Plus and our great members. You can link directly to the article, here.