Finding Auburn Gold with PRO-GOLD

Recently Steve Herschbach and I had the chance to give these pans a full field test and film two short videos about the kit and the basics of gold panning. The pans worked very well, so well in fact, that I even found gold with them when I wasn’t expecting to see any – but more on that in a bit…

The PRO-GOLD kit comes with two pans and a sturdy screen to catch those bigger rocks and pebbles.  It’s so much easier to pan through material that has been screened, as it saves the time of picking those larger pieces of rock out by hand later on in the panning process. The larger pan features dual riffles molded into the side of the pan, with both a larger coarse sized set and a finer set for panning out the finer gold. The blue color of the pans works well to maximize the contrast with the gold in your pan and this enhances the visibility of the smaller pieces.  Minelab has spent some time fully thinking through this kit and has included all the right accessories for processing gold bearing material all the way from gravel, through to clean gold in your vial. In addition to the pans and screen, the kit includes a suction bottle, a suction dropper / pipette, two gold storage vials, a magnet, a magnification glass and a carry pack. The included carry pack is just right to hike in to those remote spots for sniping out the better gold bearing crevices, as everything you need fits neatly right into the carry bag. Experienced snipers and new prospectors alike will be very interested with this kit.

So, now back to the videos - the locale was Auburn, California, right in the heart of the California gold country. We carefully planned out everything we would need for our visit, but when it came to demonstrating how to use these excellent pans and the included magnet to separate gold from black sands, we realized we had forgotten to bring some black sand! It was not big problem however as the stream on which we were filming had back sand, and I just figured that there was no need to worry as we would just use the pans to separate out a little black sand from the stream gravels, and then we would have exactly what we needed. So I grabbed one of the pans and shoveled in a bit of river gravel and began the normal procedure of panning out gravel just as I have done for decades. After a minute or two, everyone was asking me if I’d produced the black sand we needed. “I’ve got enough black sand to meet our needs”, I answered, “but I’ve got something else too – GOLD!” Sure enough, in with the black sand in my pan was a nice little picker nugget, a few small flakes and some dust.

You have to love the California gold country – even though it’s been more than 165 years since gold was discovered in the Sierra Nevada. The rivers still have good gold, even in places that are fairly easily accessible and open to the public. It was a real treat to find gold that I had not expected to see and everyone involved with the video project got a real kick out of it.  Anyway, here’s the first of the two PRO-GOLD videos we made, showing you some of the gold history of Auburn. Enjoy!

For more information, visit the PRO-GOLD Accessory page here.