Basically what Goldwasher wrote.
If you don't have the knowledge and experience to make your own claim you don't know enough to buy and maintain a claim.
Thanks for sending some details in private. From that information I found out more than the current claim owner is sharing with you.
The claim is a little more than a year old. The reason for that is when the current owner made a claim in the same place a few years ago he sold it to a newbie like you. Predictably the newbie didn't understand what was required to maintain the claim and lost the claim after the first year. The former owner reclaimed the location the day after it was closed and now is offering the same location to you.
In the business this is known as a rinse and repeat operation. There are several dozen claim flippers in the west who do this for a living. They know the odds of the newbie actually hanging on to the claim are slim. They can resell these claims every year or two. This claim is on it's second round. The seller is not a known claim flipper but his MO is the same.
It costs about $270 to locate a 20 acre claim. The value of the claim remains there until there is proof of a valuable mineral deposit established with testing and documentation. The value of the claim is then based of the actual known gold deposit. If the deposit is good the value can rise above that $270 and if the deposit is poor the value goes down from the $270.
There are several open areas along the creek you have an interest in. In the immediate area of the claim for sale there appears to be about 20 acres of open land right on the creek. The private property there will have to be checked for the actual boundaries to avoid overclaiming private land. The area is in a power withdrawal so you will need to add the required notice to your location documents and wait 30 days before you begin mining. I learned about the power withdrawal from the Master Title Plat for that Township. If you haven't reviewed the Master Title Plat you haven't even started the basics of due diligence required to make an informed purchase.
I doubt the person selling the claim gave the power withdrawal notice on the location. It doesn't appear so from the Serial Register page. The BLM will eventually get around to reviewing the location for status compliance, in California that could be a few years. If the location didn't comply with the power withdrawal requirements the claim will be closed. Your big bucks claim will go to zero value.
Take the time to learn how to prospect open ground, find a promising area and make a valid location and you will have an actual mining claim with full knowledge of it's potential value to you. Mining claims are real estate but there are no laws backing your purchase. The quit claim that the claim is transferred with is only a transfer of the sellers
interest in the claim. It is not a full title transfer. There may be other interests, owners, restrictions or clouds on the title that the seller isn't telling you about. I mentioned two above, there may be more.
The "shortcut" of buying a claim actually requires more groundwork to ensure your title is good than just locating your own claim. It's not really a shortcut at all. I suggest you start by figuring out where the open land is near the claim for sale and testing it. You can prospect all you want on that open land and if you find there is good gold there you can locate a claim - for about $270.
Heavy Pans
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