Have you ever lost your gold?

Prospecting Australia

Help Support Prospecting Australia:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

Hawkear

Geoff Mostyn
Supporting Member
Joined
Mar 12, 2015
Messages
1,059
Reaction score
3,300
Location
Highton, VIC
Solid Luck said in the show and tell thread “ I estimate I have dropped about a gram of gold around the house never to be seen again lol, two specis disappeared from the mantle, must be the gold ghosts”
I can relate to that. A very long time ago my kids got to my little jar of sparkly sand and spilled it on the carpet. My wife unknowingly vacuumed over the area and later told me she felt gritty stuff going up the vacuum hose but had thought it not unusual.
I was reduced to a pathetic figure panning out the incinerator ashes where the vacuumings had been burnt.
Only this year have lost two small phials of nuggets. Totally mystified as to why the results of two consecutive prospecting events should both go missing. My mind was racing with possibilities but then again I am getting older.
Only two days ago almost as a Christmas present, I finally found one of the phials with about a gram in it. It was in a very secret compartment in my car that I had forgotten about. I live in hope that I have other secret compartments to refind as the other phial had about 3 to 4 grams in it.image.jpg
 
Yes it's a horrible feeling when you reach for your bottle and it's gone. On one occasion we'd had a mediocre day and I had a few grams. I'd taken the son's father-in-law out to a favorite spot and after returning to camp I reached for my bottle, the magnetic one, to show off my finds. It was gone so I headed back trying to retrace my steps to the last find. It was right up the side of a steep slope on rocky ground and a half hour later I was back without the bottle. Then there was four of us searching but still nothing but after giving up I returned to the boot of the bus to find my bottle firmly attached to the boot lid latch where I'd removed my harness earlier.

On another occasion I'd dug a 20g piece. I videoed the search.....



Sometime you just get lucky :)
 
Easily done, shovel ya dogs bussiness into a bucket...blast away with the hose (make sure there's a peg on your nose). 😂
 
This is a true story!
Believe it or not!
So I was up at the Palmer and it rained, real big rain.
We thought about going out on the Northern track, but that had been done before and always fraught with danger.
We decided to wait for the River to come down a bit and try to cross at Maytown.
Well days passed and even though there was no rain around us, further up the catchment it was bucketing down.
The river refused to go in the same direction..
So we called up a close by Station to Palmerville and asked the owner when he was due to fly out?
He said in a day or two, not sure, but be ready for a quick drop and go.

We decided the best spot for a quick touchdown would be the Fitzy's dam wall.
So wait around I did, the rest were all out and about working, but I had to stay close to that 'DAMN' wall!
Good for me because close to the wall I hit a little patch and snagged maybe 8-10 gms.

Finally the radio call came and I fairly quickly heard the chopper coming, I made my way up onto the wall and ducked low...
Ol'mate is a Cattle mustering, helicopter flying station owner and I really don't think I ducked low enough as he put this thing on it's arse, turned around and landed on the dam as gently as on a babies bum.
So I duck and run, open the door, say g'day and lift the seat to chuck in my small bag of gear coming home with me.

In a few days, the folks left behind would drive my Toyota out to the Roadhouse, where I would pick it up next week.

I jump in and put my seat belt on, Boss man had hardly lowered the revs on the R22 at all and yells 'put ya head set on and close the door will ya, you ready to go??'

Head set on, comms confirmed, I reach for the door and do one last pat down of my pockets and NOOOO, my bottle is GOOONE!

With the door nearly shut, him rolling up the revs and the whirly thing above my head getting real quick now, I look down on the ground and there is my bottle, right there next to the skid!

I'm not sure what the pilot though when I screamed 'STOP" and threw the door and seatbelt open and jumped out of the rattling bird??!!

So I grabbed my bottle and jumped back in and as we lift off he says, 'WTF was that??'

'Your fee for the flight today bud, I dropped half an ounce out of my pocket....'
 
Just saved my finds jar this morning. Still had the 4 bits in it from yesterday.
The dog decided it was better to chew on than the half dozen chew toys lying around.
Little ratbag lol
Almost turned into brown nuggets, a sort of reverse alchemy 😅 "put your gold in here and the **** comes out here" 🤣
 
Lost my finds container with a nugget in it at Western Creek Station, Georgetown back in July, grass was long, never did find it - at least it was only a small nugget - phew!
 
Lost my finds container with a nugget in it at Western Creek Station, Georgetown back in July, grass was long, never did find it - at least it was only a small nugget - phew!
Might just know who found that perhaps ? Maybe? 🤔 🤣🤣🤣🤣
 
Have never seen it, just told a bloke found some pre packaged. 🤣 🤣 🤣 Judging on the flow of folks thru Western Creek you would want to be quick to jag it if it's still there :rolleyes: Nice 28 degree day currently, ideal temp for picking up the nuggies 👍
 
Another loss has just come to mind. Out the back of Laverton some years back with three mates. They had all had success except me. It was a warm day and my mates decided to drive back to Laverton for lunch and to refresh. I had my supplies and told them I was staying as I had nothing to show and just wanted something for the day.
Toiled in the heat the next few hours and found a bit, maybe 0.1g.
Saw the mates return after about three hours and wandered up to where our cars were parked to tell them of my “success”. When I reached into my pocket my heart fell as I realised that my pod was lost.
Determined to find it, I went back out with them again to try and retrace my movements in the hope of finding it. After an unsuccessful hour of that I found the group and told them that I was hot and tired and had enough and was going back to camp, with my tail between my legs, goldless for the first time in a while.
Detecting my way back in a straight line to the car and only having moved about 30 meters, ping ping, a 5 and an 8 grammer!
Went back to show the guys and then left. That was enough for an adventurous day.
Have been back there since on another trip, still haven’t found the pod with the 0.1 nor any other bits near where I found the multi grammers.
 
Most of the pieces I have lost have been after photographing them then forgetting to put them in the bottle before picking up the detector and walking off flinging the gold who knows where. One piece the property owner dropped on me right next to the fence. No point trying to find that. All of those have been tiny pieces so no great loss.

The biggest loss was with the Minelab 15000 back in ‘86. I wanted to test it in the back yard and buried a 3.6 gram piece in a plastic bag. All was good but when I dug the bag up I had cut the corner of it and the gold was in there. Never did find it no matter where I dug. It was my very first piece of gold too so that hurt even more.

Regards Axtyr.
 

Latest posts

Top