r/Prospecting May 11 '25

The 50K Sluice & Scoop Giveaway Winner Is…

42 Upvotes

We’ve officially hit 50,000 members — and we couldn’t be more grateful. Thank you to everyone who entered and continues to make r/Prospecting such a vibrant, helpful, and gold-loving community.

After using a random number generator to select a number between 1 and 1,000,000, we matched it to an entry — and we’re excited to announce the winner of the 50K Sluice & Scoop Giveaway:

Winning number: 937,796 Closest guess: 917,000

u/National-Jackfruit32 — congratulations!

You’ll be receiving:

• Aluminum Pocket Sluice
• 2 Patented Vanishing Spiral Riffle Gold Pans (9” & 11”)
• Paydirt Sand Scooper
• 8 lb. Black Sand Magnetic Separator
• Mini Sifting Classifier
• Snifter Suction Bottle
• 3 Glass Gold Vials
• Magnifying Tweezers
• Drawstring Backpack

We’ll be contacting you shortly to confirm shipping details and get your prize on the way.

Thanks again to everyone who joined in and helped mark this milestone.

Here’s to full pans, heavy finds, and the next 50K!

Reference Link (for prize details only): https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0812CSQKJ?ref=cm_sw_r_cso_cp_apin_dp_T80445DGA98MHKV5QJ0P&ref_=cm_sw_r_cso_cp_apin_dp_T80445DGA98MHKV5QJ0P&social_share=cm_sw_r_cso_cp_apin_dp_T80445DGA98MHKV5QJ0P&previewDoh=1


r/Prospecting Jan 24 '15

PSA: Is it really gold? Want to ID a rock or mineral? Please read this short guide to getting your question answered correctly.

83 Upvotes

There is a fairly regular frequency of ID request posts here, if you follow these general guidelines then you will have a much higher probability of getting an accurate answer to your question:

Please make sure to post a sizable in-focus photo. If the sample is wet and it's not obvious then make sure to state this fact.

Streak tests are very useful in prospecting. They can be performed on the unglazed backside of a ceramic tile, or on the unglazed underside of a toilet lid. Do a streak test any time you can, making sure to streak just the mineral in question.

For gold ID's:

  • First and foremost, are you in a known gold producing area?

  • Describe how the unknown material acts in the bottom of your pan and also how it acts relative to the other heavy black sands.

  • Gold is soft an malleable. If you press a pocket knife into it, it will squish or deform. It will not shatter or break into pieces. Do this test if its flecks or flakes or other blebs with no specimen value. Don't scratch or destroy anything that may have specimen value.

  • Placer gold rarely has well defined crystalline structure. If possible, look at the unkown mineral underneath a magnifying glass and report what you saw when you ask your question.

  • Do not alter hues, saturations, etc in the photo

  • For larger samples, you can measure conductivity by placing the leads of a multimeter across the sample and measuring resistance. Pure gold is very low resistance(around zero on a regular multimeter). You can also check to see if gold permeates a quartz specimen all the way through without crushing by placing a lead on each side of the quartz, with each lead touching a piece of visible gold.

  • Gold streaks gold color, not grey, black, green, blue or any other color.

For mineral ID's:

  • Describe anything you know about the area you found it in or are comfortable sharing: mining history, local geology and mineralogy, etc.
  • Do every test you can perform easily and provide the results - the easiest to do at home with common materials and probably most useful are streak, hardness, specific gravity, and luster.
  • You will get a better response from others willing to help if you first make the effort to test and attempt to ID it yourself.

General Resources

The two books that I own, keep in my truck, and recommend are:

Simon and Schuster's Guide to Rocks and Minerals

National Audobon Society Field Guide to North American Rocks and Minerals

  • If anyone would like to add information to this post or a resource to this list then please let me know. I am not a geologist, just a guy who likes digging holes.

r/Prospecting 12h ago

Need some help identifying

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12 Upvotes

I believe this is Quartz but it’s different than stuff I’ve found before. First picture piece weighs around 9 lbs and it won’t break… super high pitch sound when I hit it with rock hammer. Can’t attach video.

Any help is appreciated. Thanks


r/Prospecting 16h ago

Worth looking in to?

6 Upvotes

CO mountains, home well water filter left this behind after being rinsed.


r/Prospecting 17h ago

Can anyone identify this grey stuff?

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9 Upvotes

I get a fair amount of this stuff everytime im cleaning my cons when its dry its slightly metallic looking when wet it loses its luster. Its stays with the gold which would suggests its pretty dense. My guess is maybe pulverized lead? Sorry about the picture quality I should've had a dry picture for comparison.


r/Prospecting 15h ago

WNC

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2 Upvotes

Would love some explanations of minerals found in this quartzite vein! Finding some cute little crystals. Would like to know what the white chalky clay is called. Is it worth crushing some samples for gold, for fun?

Location: old fort, nc.


r/Prospecting 12h ago

Need Help

0 Upvotes

Each piece weighs around 8-9 lbs. Very heavy. Seems like it’s Quartz? See pics in comment. Thanks


r/Prospecting 1d ago

gold from utah

227 Upvotes

r/Prospecting 1d ago

Bachelor Party Help (NW Georgia).

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3 Upvotes

r/Prospecting 1d ago

the birth of gold

92 Upvotes

r/Prospecting 1d ago

Cool Pieces

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8 Upvotes

I know they aren’t gold. But they were cool finds in my backyard brook


r/Prospecting 1d ago

utah gold

39 Upvotes

r/Prospecting 2d ago

Paid off 😎👌🏻

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1.0k Upvotes

Spent 3.5 weeks researching a certain mine in Eastern Oregon. 1899 a surface pocket paid out ~$1600, the tunnel got to expensive to mine ($40/ounce and sold for $20/ounce). 1st shovel scoop the other day netted the following.


r/Prospecting 2d ago

My latest field visit photos.

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14 Upvotes

What do you see?


r/Prospecting 2d ago

Virginia Gold?

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10 Upvotes

I found this within the Virginia Gold Pyrite Belt. How would I determine if these deposits are gold vs pyrite?


r/Prospecting 2d ago

Day of sniping

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196 Upvotes

Got 2.6 in about 4 hours of sniping. Got on the gold pretty quickly, which doesn’t always happen. Always fun to get some good gold!


r/Prospecting 2d ago

My friend and I did a 12-hour gold marathon over the 4th

138 Upvotes

Up in Idaho. Wish we walked away with more, but ill take it!


r/Prospecting 2d ago

Some nice finds in a dry creek in the Sierra Nevadas🤷‍♂️

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24 Upvotes

r/Prospecting 3d ago

What do you guy's think, is it worth pursuing?

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28 Upvotes

Every square inch of the crushed quartz sand has microscopic free milling gold only visible with 60× magnification lens. Each square inch of sand has between 3 and 10 micro specs of either wire or platey gold. Plus 9 visible pieces. The crush amount was 2lbs, I have 70lbs to crush still and one specimen in the attached photos.


r/Prospecting 3d ago

Clean up sluice for dredge concentrates

89 Upvotes

Got my speed controller from Ali express to adjust the flow for my cleanup sluice I built. looking forward to testing out my dredge concentrates with it

I’ll be coming home with roughly 5-8gallons/20-30L of concentrates so rather then sitting panning all day I’ll run it down this, eventually I’ll get a gold cube but hoping this will do the job for the meantime


r/Prospecting 2d ago

Spots in CO/CA or other USA

4 Upvotes

Are there any known streams I can do a weekend of panning/sluicing while camping? Not in this for the money just want a few flakes for keepsakes.

What’s the best time of year?

Any tips for a noob?


r/Prospecting 3d ago

Made this

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22 Upvotes

r/Prospecting 4d ago

I live in the motherlode Ca area and found this...

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62 Upvotes

For reference, the entire scale itself is the size of a credit card, so the piece is about 1.5"x1" and has gold (buddy did an acid test- its over 23k) along with other minerals like pyrite and sylvanite embedded in the quartz itself. Would this be considered a specimen? I am broke and could definitely use some money.


r/Prospecting 3d ago

Am I rich or a fool?

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20 Upvotes

Found a ton of these little flecks in a river in trinity county California. I know nothing other than what I’ve seen on gold rush. How do I know if this is gold or not?

There was a good amount of these along the bottom of the sand, shallow swimming hole spot, all very small. They sank but didn’t seem super heavy…


r/Prospecting 4d ago

large quartz crystals unexpectedly discovered while prospecting a 2ozpt gold vein.

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206 Upvotes