Mother Load

[hvacker]

I just got home from a time in FLA. Thanks to T'Net I had some information on gold leases with sunken ships. What I wondered, as placer gold usually has a mother load somewhere unless played out, has an Inca or Aztec mother ever been found? By the amount of Spanish loot coming from somewhere I'd think some would be looking.
Maybe this is a ?? already answered.

 

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[bcfromfl]

If you're talking about sunken ships and gold leases in Florida, most likely you're talking about the 1715 Plate Fleet off the Treasure Coast. These ships were carrying Incan gold by way of Havana, some of it still in the Incan form, and others remelted into bullion, jewelry, etc.

There are a couple of rumored/legend Incan repositories being actively searched for in the Andes, but the original placer was mined off the backs of slaves and servants, flake by flake, from Andean rivers. As I understand, as is usually the case elsewhere, the easy stuff has been mined, and all that's left is low-grade placer. In a land of little government regulation and lack of enforcement, the locations where the gold is present in greater quantities is being torn apart, rain forest burned down, etc., and it looks like a moonscape.

My memory is a little fuzzy with the details of Mayan gold, but if I remember correctly, there wasn't a comparable amount of it available for plunder. Montezuma was pretty crafty, and when he realized that the Spanish were probably going to be successful in stealing it, he loaded much of it into a mule train that was taken north into the present-day U.S. (It's theorized that the gold "mine" Brigham Young used to smelt the Mormon gold was actually a cave where Montezuma's gold was hidden.) Both the Incas and Mayans also dumped it into ceremonial sinkholes.

There is some placer gold in Mexico, but again, the deposits may have been locally good but regionally spotty. It's also possible that some was stolen from the Incas.

 

[Aufisher]

Lode

 

[XtreasureX]

The gold placers in Sonora are world class. They rival anything in California or Alaska. The golden triangle near Caborca has lode deposits that are still untapped. Most old lodes have flooded and sit untouched. All parts of Mexico have legendary treasure stories about Mayan, Aztec, Spanish, revolutionary, cartel and modern treasures. Most of the good legends are kept by locals and are oral. Very few are well documented like English speaking Americans would like. Even less on the internet. As a matter of fact, some of the best documentation of modern treasure is on treasurnet. The other information that is priceless is the stories of the old folks south of the border.

 

[Goldwasher]

My ex father in law spent decent time in Sinaloa. One of the guys on his construction crew was from there. They had to get the federalis to chase locals off after a mini rush was started. The mines on the land were Spanish and hadn't been worked in modern times.

This was back in 2001 when we were drywashing. He and Martin' told me the stories about soap bar nuggets and how there was a wash that was used by a thoroughfare by the cartel. It was basically not worth trying to mine because the cartel didn't like you even seeing them in their travels. But, when a rumor was started after gold was found digging a ditch a bunch of locals came and were digging on the Rancho.

Most countries with vast resources are amazingly corrupt and underdeveloped.

BTW you haul a load

And mine a lode