Claim it!

We want to discuss obtaining a claim… something that seems relatively simple if you know the process but is a lot more involved than you might think!

It seems a simple process to pick a creek, pan out some color and decide to stake a claim. It would be simple… if everyone else hadn’t had the same idea!

We started prospecting in the late 80’s… the price of gold was good and some of the previous generation of prospectors were letting loose of claims due to advancing age. They were still tough to find, but they did exist. To be honest, it was part luck, part diligence and mostly persistence that got us the claim we are now in the process of permitting.

That venture helped establish much of our prospecting procedure. Since then we’ve prospected probably 200+ claims with a few thin years when personal situations didn’t allow us out much. We’ve settled on five filed placer claims at least for the moment, and have another four we are seriously considering personally. We have also obtained about 10 filed claims for friends and family, another 20+ found but never staked. All of the claims, staked or not, have returned varying degrees of gold from “show” in the pan to some nice-sized nuggets.

How do we find these claims and why? First off, we love prospecting! Secondly, through the same luck, diligence and persistence with a good dose of experience, Bob can sit down with a map, a wealth of mining history, and LR2000 and find gaps between existing claims for us to prospect. He loves that almost as much as the actual prospecting, which is my favorite part of the experience. His expertise, backed by mining history, points us to the pay zone! So, depending on availability of water, we have found gold on about every claim we’ve ever prospected! It’s amazing what’s out there!

Now we’ll get back to finding claims for people. You can go on the internet and find them for sale or ask any prospector to help you find a claim. The internet claims are an interesting study in “what are you getting?” There seems to be a lot of photos of luscious creek terrain on reputable gold-bearing creeks. I’ll re-state what I commented back to one inquiry… Every part of a gold-bearing stream is not a gold producer and/or maybe it’s not accessible due to terrain, closed gates, blocked by private property… there’s a lot of inaccessible gold out there!

Asking any prospector to find a claim is comparable to asking anyone dressed as a cowboy to teach you to ride a horse! They may talk the talk, but do they walk the walk? Do they have a claim and have gone through the claim staking process? Can they tell you, other than generic prospecting procedure, where to look for and find gold? The first good indicator would be if, in any part of the Black Hills and its infinite variety of geology, they could point out the probable pay zone in an exposed cutbank and you could pan out at least some black sands!

The price of a claim advertised could very well be a reflection of its potential. Gold is hovering around $1500 an ounce. With a due amount of diligence (and you’re talking about two people in their 50s, one with a bad back), a pennyweight of gold can be recovered most days we get out. We’re looking at $60+ worth of gold each day. If they’re selling a claim for a couple hundred dollars you can bet it would take a lot more time than that, even at better than geriatric speed, to pay off your investment!


So a good investment is going to cost you a little more… but when you think about recovering the cost in as little as one or two weeks’ time, you’ve got a good claim!


Lode opportunities, we believe, have not been this good since the 1876 gold rush! We have acquired five lode claims, with a couple more we’re looking at this spring. There are some patented mines out there (off limits); there are a few companies that are blanketing sections at a time, but in general there are a lot of good lode opportunities just waiting to be claimed!

A final reminder, and we want to make this very clear. Owning a claim grants you mineral rights and protects you from mineral trespass, but you do not own the real estate! This is a common misconception, and even with our stressing this loud and clear, people find the concept hard to grasp. The same land can be leased by livestock owners, can host camping, 4-wheeler trails, snowmobiling and a variety of other multi-use activities. Your claim secures only the minerals!

Happy prospecting, stay off claimed and private property and if you want a claim, we’re here to help! Email us at hillshistory1876@gmail.com for more info.