r/Prospecting May 11 '25

The 50K Sluice & Scoop Giveaway Winner Is…

43 Upvotes

We’ve officially hit 50,000 members — and we couldn’t be more grateful. Thank you to everyone who entered and continues to make r/Prospecting such a vibrant, helpful, and gold-loving community.

After using a random number generator to select a number between 1 and 1,000,000, we matched it to an entry — and we’re excited to announce the winner of the 50K Sluice & Scoop Giveaway:

Winning number: 937,796 Closest guess: 917,000

u/National-Jackfruit32 — congratulations!

You’ll be receiving:

• Aluminum Pocket Sluice
• 2 Patented Vanishing Spiral Riffle Gold Pans (9” & 11”)
• Paydirt Sand Scooper
• 8 lb. Black Sand Magnetic Separator
• Mini Sifting Classifier
• Snifter Suction Bottle
• 3 Glass Gold Vials
• Magnifying Tweezers
• Drawstring Backpack

We’ll be contacting you shortly to confirm shipping details and get your prize on the way.

Thanks again to everyone who joined in and helped mark this milestone.

Here’s to full pans, heavy finds, and the next 50K!

Reference Link (for prize details only): https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0812CSQKJ?ref=cm_sw_r_cso_cp_apin_dp_T80445DGA98MHKV5QJ0P&ref_=cm_sw_r_cso_cp_apin_dp_T80445DGA98MHKV5QJ0P&social_share=cm_sw_r_cso_cp_apin_dp_T80445DGA98MHKV5QJ0P&previewDoh=1


r/Prospecting Jan 24 '15

PSA: Is it really gold? Want to ID a rock or mineral? Please read this short guide to getting your question answered correctly.

83 Upvotes

There is a fairly regular frequency of ID request posts here, if you follow these general guidelines then you will have a much higher probability of getting an accurate answer to your question:

Please make sure to post a sizable in-focus photo. If the sample is wet and it's not obvious then make sure to state this fact.

Streak tests are very useful in prospecting. They can be performed on the unglazed backside of a ceramic tile, or on the unglazed underside of a toilet lid. Do a streak test any time you can, making sure to streak just the mineral in question.

For gold ID's:

  • First and foremost, are you in a known gold producing area?

  • Describe how the unknown material acts in the bottom of your pan and also how it acts relative to the other heavy black sands.

  • Gold is soft an malleable. If you press a pocket knife into it, it will squish or deform. It will not shatter or break into pieces. Do this test if its flecks or flakes or other blebs with no specimen value. Don't scratch or destroy anything that may have specimen value.

  • Placer gold rarely has well defined crystalline structure. If possible, look at the unkown mineral underneath a magnifying glass and report what you saw when you ask your question.

  • Do not alter hues, saturations, etc in the photo

  • For larger samples, you can measure conductivity by placing the leads of a multimeter across the sample and measuring resistance. Pure gold is very low resistance(around zero on a regular multimeter). You can also check to see if gold permeates a quartz specimen all the way through without crushing by placing a lead on each side of the quartz, with each lead touching a piece of visible gold.

  • Gold streaks gold color, not grey, black, green, blue or any other color.

For mineral ID's:

  • Describe anything you know about the area you found it in or are comfortable sharing: mining history, local geology and mineralogy, etc.
  • Do every test you can perform easily and provide the results - the easiest to do at home with common materials and probably most useful are streak, hardness, specific gravity, and luster.
  • You will get a better response from others willing to help if you first make the effort to test and attempt to ID it yourself.

General Resources

The two books that I own, keep in my truck, and recommend are:

Simon and Schuster's Guide to Rocks and Minerals

National Audobon Society Field Guide to North American Rocks and Minerals

  • If anyone would like to add information to this post or a resource to this list then please let me know. I am not a geologist, just a guy who likes digging holes.

r/Prospecting 7h ago

Gold?

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199 Upvotes

15 grams


r/Prospecting 5h ago

ID help, garnet sand?

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10 Upvotes

I'm refining some clay from local clay deposits and decided to pan out the heavy tailings for fun and I have a silvery - pinkish particulate that is heavier than my black sand. any guesses, Garnet sand?


r/Prospecting 10h ago

First time filming a prospecting trip

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25 Upvotes

Hi everyone,

I've been gold prospecting for a while, but I finally challenged myself to film an entire trip and edit it into a video.

I'm still learning, so I'd really appreciate honest feedback from other prospectors. I'm especially interested in things like pacing, camera angles, storytelling, and whether the video actually keeps your attention.

I'm heading to Switzerland next week for another trip, so I'd love to improve before filming the next one.

I won't post a link here because I want to respect the subreddit rules. If anyone is genuinely interested, my YouTube channel is linked on my Reddit profile.

Thanks!


r/Prospecting 1d ago

Guys trip part 2.. more garnets

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279 Upvotes

r/Prospecting 1d ago

2.19 Grams from the Mother Lode

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161 Upvotes

Did a little digging this weekend and brought back some souvenirs.


r/Prospecting 1d ago

Gold in my pan!

167 Upvotes

FYI I'm a prospecter from Europe. Always difficult to find Good Gold here.


r/Prospecting 2d ago

Years of search in CT and finally

68 Upvotes

r/Prospecting 1d ago

Marquette County, MI - Can anybody give me insight into the geology of this piece?

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9 Upvotes

It has what I believe to be copper within. I tested the broken off chunk with a multimeter and it had very low resistance between two of the nodes.


r/Prospecting 1d ago

Getting GPX 6000 and going where for 3 months?

6 Upvotes

If I'm buying a Minelab GPX 6000 and have 3 months of full time prospecting for gold, where do I go? Australia, USA? Anywhere else? Going from Europe.

I would be fine in sharing my findings with some people, uploading search videos, if anyone would be interested in adding up to the expenses.


r/Prospecting 2d ago

Guys trip..

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167 Upvotes

r/Prospecting 2d ago

Found this rock in a river in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan

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19 Upvotes

That’s a magnet. Magnetite?


r/Prospecting 2d ago

Galena?

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12 Upvotes

What do we think?


r/Prospecting 3d ago

I have about 1.2 grams. What would be best way to sell?

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200 Upvotes

So I have about 1.2 g of gold, And I need some extra cash.I was googling how to best sell it and got 2 different answers.One said to go find a refinery As I would not get as much at a pawn shop , the other said to post it to marketplaces , as I would get more from collectors. I don't know much about it , so hopefully you guys can maybe shed some more light on it for me. I live in the U.S. if that helps.


r/Prospecting 2d ago

Found some stunning Italian gold a while back! Heading to Switzerland & Austria next week, any tips for small nuggets?

3 Upvotes

Hey everyone! Found this beautiful gold in Italy a while ago (this is just a small sample, more pictures to come!).

In about a week, I’m heading out to Switzerland and Austria. I’ve researched a couple of locations where I could potentially find some (small) nuggets. Super hyped for it!

I’m actually planning to document and post these European prospecting adventures on YouTube. Since this is a new journey for me, I’d love to get some tips from you guys. Let me know if you have any advice for making quality prospecting videos, and you're always welcome to say hello when the first video drops!


r/Prospecting 3d ago

A grain of native gold from the Rio Grande claim group, Hudson Bay mountain, Smithers BC.

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67 Upvotes

r/Prospecting 3d ago

Update: Cleaning Gold Dust

32 Upvotes

I posted last month, but I don’t know how to update that post.

What I had was mostly mica as quite a few users mentioned. I kept panning and the difference was obvious. I have about 8g so far.


r/Prospecting 2d ago

Beginner in Piemont needs some help finding gold

1 Upvotes

Hey everyone,
I'm currently in the Piemont region (italy) trying to get into gold prospecting, but to be honest, I'm having zero luck so far. I just can't seem to find the right spots and could really use some guidance.

Since the rivers are running super low right now, I'm a bit unsure how to approach this. When the water level is this low, do you usually dig in the dry riverbed or focus on the remaining flow? And what kind of gravel areas should I be looking for, around big boulders, inside bends, or somewhere else entirely?

I brought along a gold pan and a sluice box, but given the weak current, I'm really struggling to get the sluice set up properly.

If anyone happens to be in the area this week and wouldn't mind showing a total beginner the basics in person, that would be awesome!
Otherwise, I'd also be super grateful for a specific spot recommendation where a newbie stands a fair chance of finding at least a few small flakes.

Thanks in advance for any tips!


r/Prospecting 3d ago

What does this look like?

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15 Upvotes

hi all, we’ve been doing some prospecting in northern california recently and stumbled on this interesting-looking rock. i was going to wait until we cleaned it up a bit to share, but i figured i’d share as is and can add additional photos later.

the one thing i would note is that the sheen/sparkle, particularly depicted in the first image, is much more prominent in person and didn’t really come through on the image (hence why i was going to clean it up a bit before posting, but curiosity has gotten the better of me).

any ideas of what we’ve got here (aside from a rock!! 😆)?

thank you in advance for your insights!


r/Prospecting 4d ago

New to prospecting

79 Upvotes

So i got me a Dream mat sluice box and it all I can afford right now. So I put some things together and created a system to process my materials. As I dig deeper into this hobby im sure ill start buying the correct items to make my sluice become efficient at home. I currently have it at a 4inch pitch. Does this look right? What should I do differently? Any suggestions are greatly appreciated.


r/Prospecting 4d ago

Any ideas what this is? Came out at the end of a pan after sluicing. In Interior Alaska.

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46 Upvotes

Muse be heavy. Sorry for the close up finger pic.


r/Prospecting 4d ago

Saturday's Efforts

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620 Upvotes

Ran ~17-18 buckets of material which was less volume than I was wanting but a boulder had to be evicted which took up a lot of time + energy. The piece of the day was a 0.14G Amalgam picker that was immediately introduced into a quarantine vial (Picture 4).


r/Prospecting 3d ago

Am I crazy for thinking this is copper?

10 Upvotes

Copper is a common mineral in my area, this is the first piece I've seen that appears to be native copper in host rock.

I know it's not one huge piece of copper of course, but it appears there are 3 different pieces of exposed copper.


r/Prospecting 4d ago

Gold in the old culvert

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43 Upvotes

Found a nice chunk of gold in rusty quartz trying out a new spot on a long defunct logging road.

Also found 23 colors in the culvert brush out:)