Mining claims apprasils for probate

Goldwasher

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a claim is only worth the minerals that are proven to be in reserve.

If you can't prove what is there why would it be worth more than filing fee's?

The answer is no one does appraisals.

You can pay a lot of money for a mineral survey...most miners do that when they have done a lot of their own sampling and are pretty sure the official survey is worth it.

Now that we can't patent claims that process is very rare

Larger ops drill, test and sample still to map resources and reserves.

The average claim not so much.


All your questions make it seem you are think about flipping claims...not the most ethical or legal practice.


Leasing a claim is legal.
 

OP
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D

Dig em all

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I'm not flipping anything trying to find what people would consider to be "Expert" advise. someone with more knowledge then I or the average person ..would a assay report be sufficient to determine and where would one find the records of said assay report? Mining Journal? What is the Californian mining journal ? I know ...stupid questions???...
 

Clay Diggins

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Open up your claim folder and look through the exploration documentation. That should give you a very good idea of just what the proven resources are. Proven resources are what give a mining claim value.

If your claim folder contains no exploration information or proven reserves your claim is worth the filing fee or less.

If you have no proven reserves start doing the exploration work needed to prove the claim. Each bit more of the mineralization puzzle you solve will get you closer to the true value of the claim. That value may be much higher or much lower than the filing fee but there is only one way to find out.

I know hundreds of people who have gone to the effort to prove the value of their claim. Many of those people now enjoy a nice income from leasing their proven ground. Others are mining the minerals themselves. It's entirely possible for a dedicated knowledgeable prospector to turn their discoveries into good money. If you think your inherited claim has value prove it and reap the benefits. :thumbsup:

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Goldwasher

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to clarify ...I'm not saying no one does it

Just that if you have a claim that doesn't have that info already, it wasn't treated as a source of income or potential income.

The only way to have a serious claim..is to take it seriously and prove it has a valuable resource.
 

OP
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Dig em all

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There is literature that dates back and its active and up to date on all BLM paperwork
 

ecmjamsit

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Placer mine or hard rock mine? Just curious!
 

Bejay

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I'll offer some input that may be of help. I deal with valuation yearly on claims that I hold but have not "proven up on" in the real technical sense of the term. My annual financial statements I give my banks lists what I believe the value is for each claim. Most often things are worth only what you can get for them. This forum has historically shown that people want to own a unpatented mining claim. So what is a claim worth. Of course having a claim that produces gold is worthy of sale. Being able to show the gold that comes off the claim in a given day or week or ? can give value. How nice is the access and staging area gives value. What improvements have been made on the land in accordance with assessment work gives value. What kind of claim it is gives value. In Oregon the dredge ban and no motorized mining methods within the water and riparian area has diminished values. There are quite a number of things that bring forth value.

Proving the mineral worth is a complicated process but by no means limits the value determination. Remember there are many who want to own an unpatented mining claim and extract gold and prospect further. To argue differently goes against what we see happening all over the gold country. Those of us who know how to prospect/locate/mine/extract mineral wealth really don't have to go buy a claim: as there are lots of open areas to acquire via locating claims. But the value is what people are willing to pay for the spot.

Some of us who hold quite a few claims want to stay under the 10 claim maintenance requirement rule. If we were to find a richer deposit we may want to sell a claim that we have. Thus we have to fix a value and go for it. So some miners sell claims: not to merely "flip them" but to get a fair dollar amount for many years of work we have done on the claim. Thus we can show what we have taken off the claim and allow any prospective buyer the opportunity to check it out. One thing is certain for those of us who have worked ground....we can offer knowledge about what we have learned to any prospective buyer...and that has value as well.

So if you acquire a claim via inheritance and you want to assign a value to it you might want to do some boots on the ground (check it out logistically). You may want to see how long the claim was held and worked by the locator(s)....and what improvements were done etc. What claims are adjacent to the ones you have now? How much activity and to what degree is the mining activity happening adjacent to those you have. If you are clueless on such matters and need someone to help you you might talk to some adjacent claim owners and get their opinion as well....maybe one of them purchased a claim next to yours....etc


Bejay
 

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winners58

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you can get a lot of information, including links to claim registry info here; My Land matters Mining Claims Maps
for historic info, turn on the MRDS map layer will give a dot that shows information of some mines in or around your area.
select the 'I' information toggle box then click on the location will have USGS page or pages, at the bottom
of the USGS page find the Bibliographic references and do a search of USGS or google search to find those papers.
 

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Clay Diggins

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Land Matters also has a Library with a lot of California mining documents. I just typed in "ca mining" in the search box and got back stuff like the annual reports of the State Mineralogist starting in 1883.

If you really want to dig deep consider the California Treasures DVD. It has more than 40,000 pages of California Mining History - all searchable.

Not sure what the "USGA California mining journal record" is but if you mean the old ICMJ issues they are available with a current subscription.

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Reed Lukens

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In the beginning, back in the late 1930's, there was a California mining journal, a mining magazine. Later the name was changed to "The International California Mining Journal" or the ICMJ - https://www.icmj.com
Are you inheriting? Or trying to help someone?
 

Bonaro

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All of the above is sage advice
I dont know where you are located but quite often there are a lot of people who just want their own claim and dont care that it isnt a big producer or located in the motherload. If it has reasonable access with water and even a thin showing of gold then it's usually worth about $1500
 

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