Magnetic devices are gimmicks. They're junk. The 49'ers used gravity and wind to seperate black sand from gold in a process called winnowing. They'd throw the black sand on a blankey and two guys would flip the material up into the wind. The sand blew away and the gold fell back on the blanket. Same thing would probably work today. You could even improve on the technique. I saw a guy at Point Bar, Colorado using a variable speed Wet Vac and clear plastic hose to seperate very fine gold from black sand. The hose was duct taped to the Wet Vac and coiled into several loops as big around as a beach ball. The black sand was sucked over the top of the loops and the fine particles of gold fell back to the bottom of the loops and collected there. I asked to pan the sand in the Wet Vac and was surprised to find not even one speck of gold in it. I carry a small portable automobile hand held Wet Vac whenever i go to an area where lots of "Week-End" Gorrilla miners are digging. These guys almost never sweep their holes clean when they leave. Saves me a ton of digging and prospecting. I just go in on Monday and vaccum up the dirt and run it through my sluice. Remenber, "Time is Money". Any process, technique or strategy that is too time consuming, is wasting time you could be spending "getting more gold".
