My first gold strike.

Seen here is my first gold strike! My uncle bought me a one years entry to the GPAA - the Gold Prospectors Association of America. And, the new membership kit included a pan, a bag of dirt, a couple of videos, a book of claims across the U.S., and emblem displaying swag.

Well anyway, in my bag of dirt, I panned down, and found what you see to the right. Looking at the picture I see two interesting things.

1. My pan is green, and in the picture it looks blue, so my camera on my phone has some issues with auto white balance.
2. there is no reference as to the size of the gold pieces.

To the second point, I can tell you they are small. I put them on the old triple beam balance and found they massed out to .15 grams of gold.. which when translated to troy ounces and compared to todays current price of gold (~$78X) it works out to about $3.80. Which while not much is an amazing amount considering how small a volume of gold it is. I'd say maybe less than 1/10 of a thimble full.

Well to that end, I am going panning for real next week, and I am very excited to see what happens.. Now that I have an idea what $4 worth of gold looks like, I can certainly get excited if I find anything pea sized...

Wish me luck!!

-AllenKll