Tomah Wisconsin GPAA Chapter – April, 2015

Welcome

Welcome to the 2015 GOLD FEVER Newsletter.  Another year, another gold prospecting opportunity.   

Do not forget the Newsletter and pictures can always be found at:

President’s Message

Gayle said it was a good meeting wish I could have been there to hear to hear Bob Mandoli's talk. She said he was very interesting and brought in big chunks of copper. Bowling didn't go as I had hoped one low 600 and two mid to low 500's. Better keep my day job.

After two nice weeks it has again turned cold and snowed twice this week. Three inches Tuesday night. Before this I was getting the itch to get out into the streams or metal detect. I know several people got out to metal detect as I am linked on Facebook to the Wisconsin treasure seekers. They had lots of people get out already. I also got a call from Larry Bender he was out and had some luck two weeks ago.

The gold show in Coon Rapid was a success. The Club raffled off a 2.92 gram nugget. I got a picture of the winner but not her name. We were able to pay for the nugget and all our nuggets for the upcoming year from the proceeds of the raffle. I also got to meet Steve Pomrenke form the Bering Sea Gold Show. I liked him he didn't seem as grouchy of he is on the show. He had a good talk and took lots of questions from the audience. If you are planning to go to Alaska to mine he says you have to be a mechanic a carpenter and an electrician if you want to work on a dredge, as everything will break and you had better know how to fix it.

Dean Race won't be able to make any of our meetings this year. His back is better but he is leaving for Alaska before our next meeting. He is trying to get some of his pay dirt to us before he leaves.

Gayle and I are going to be going to his claim on the forty mile this summer so I will have some stories when I get back it just so happens that it is the same time as the South Dakota outing, so I will miss that I hope all of you that go have a good time. And find some gold.                                                     See you in April Mike Fait

Upcoming Events

April 4, 2015 – Wausau Prospector Meeting – Program:  Gold Panning & Rock Collecting in South Dakota

April 18, 2015 - Tomah Club Meeting at Town of LaGrange Town Hall – at 1:00 pm

April 24, 25, & 26,2015 – Wausau Prospector’s  - Springtime in the Parrish Outing

May 16, 2015– Tomah Club Spring Outing – Metal Detecting – metal detecting hunt no meeting in Tomah.

June 5, 6, 7, 2015 – South Dakota Husker #1 GPAA Claim Outing by Wausau GPAA Chapter.

June 20, 2015 – Tomah Club Meeting – NO MEETING

July 18, 2015 - Tomah Club Meeting at Town of LaGrange Town Hall – at 1:00 pm

August 15, 2015 – Nugget Lake County Park Outing.

Officers  

President – Michael Fait (mgfait@charter.net) 715-384-9265

Vice-President – Gary Morrison 715-316-2160

Secretary – Jeanne Morrison 715-316-2160

Newsletter Editor - Diane North (dbnorth@centurytel.net) 608-635-7031

Treasure – Gayle Fait (mgfait@charter.net) 715-384-9265

Outing Chairman – Richard Niemyjski (richnski@frontiernet.net) 608-637-3295

Claims Director – Richard Niemyjski (richnski@frontiernet.net) 608-637-3295

State Director – Open

Tomah Wisconsin GPAA Chapter Minutes March, 2015

Old Business:        

The February meeting was held at the Town Hall at the Town of Lagrange, 22731 Flint Ave. on Route #21 west of Tomah Wisconsin on March 21^st , 31 members and guests attended the March meeting.

Speaker was Bob Mandoli will be in to talk about copper hunting in the U.P.  He had many informational stories about upper Michigan Copper.  Copper crystals are harder to find and sometimes copper and silver can be found together.  Bob told stories of the black flies around Copper Harbor while looking for copper, you do NOT want to go copper hunting when the black flies are out.  Call ahead.  Thank you, Bob.

Most copper found is called ‘float copper’.  That is copper that was left by the Glaciers.  "Copper is dense - how can it float or drift? What is it floating on?" Drift refers to glacial drift, which is any sediment deposited as a direct or indirect result of glaciation. Copper nuggets carried by glaciers and melt water rivers is drift copper. Float is a geological term used to denote any material that has been carried by erosion away from its spot of formation.

New Business:

March’s meeting will be on the 3^rd Saturday of April on the 18^th at 1:00 pm at the Town Hall at the Town of Lagrange, 22731 Flint Ave. on Route #21 west of Tomah Wisconsin.   Please bring a dish to pass for lunch.    

Speaker has not been chosen yet, let Mike know if you or someone you know would like to speak.

Raffles: 

Donations to the raffle were from:   Bev and Dave Bender, Larry Bender, Gary & Jeanne Morrison, Gayle Fait, Diane & Bill North, Larry Bender, John Schwingle, Ted Ehrhardt, Diane & Larry Kollins, Valerie Thompson, Ken Romell - hope I didn't miss anyone.

Raffles: 

50/50 raffle winner – Dan Koehler

Gold raffle winners: Rich Powell - gold nugget, John Thaler - gold bag, & John Schwingle -  

Gold Price on 3/29/15 was $1,199.40                Silver Price on 3/29/15 was $17.07

 Respectfully submitted by Diane North – Newsletter Editor

Wisconsin Area Clubs

Greenbush Wisconsin GPAA Chapter – holds their meetings on the 2^nd Saturday of each month at 3:00 pm in the Greenbush Town Hall, N644 Sugarbush Rd, Greenbush Wi. – Contact: Ron Smith 920-207-4092

Midstate Metal Detecting Club – meets every 3^rd Wednesday at 7:00 pm at Shooters Bar and Restaurant at the intersection of Hwy 39 and 54, next to the Shell Station.  Contact: Steve Miller 715-572-1845

Wausau Prospectors – meets the 1^st Saturday of the month at 11:00 am in the community room at Cedar Creek Mall next to I-39 just north of Gander Mountain.  Take I-39 exit 185.  Contact:  Kurt Bublitz 715-340-2831 or e-mail lizzy101@charter.net

 Wisconsin Northwoods Adventures GPAA Chapter – holds their meetings on the 2 nd Saturday of every month at 11:00 am, at the Cameron Community Center, 512 W. Main Street, Cameron, WI. Contact Dave “Wire” Heinsohn (715) 353-2261

Australian man unearths 2.7 kg gold nugget worth $135k - 12 MAR 2015

Not bad for a stroll in the bush.

 Mick Brown from the rural town of Kerang in northern Victoria struck literal gold this week when his wife told him to go outside and get some air, because his bad mood was bringing everyone down. Having recently quit smoking, Brown took his frustrations and metal detector out into the bush surrounding the neighboring town of Wedderburn, and pretty soon picked up a huge signal.

Just 15 centimeters under the soil sat a 2.7 kilogram nugget of solid gold, which Brown told 9News is valued at around $135,000. He's not parting with it for less than $200,000 though, saying that the beauty of the specimen might just convince a collector to pay that much.

As jealous as we can be about the find, it's not like this is the first time Brown took his metal detector out of a stroll. He's a seasoned prospector, and knows the signs of something special when he hears them. "It's a hobby, not just a hobby, it's a skill to read the ground, to distinguish targets and to listen," he told 9News.

It's hard to believe, after all the time, effort, and billions of dollars we humans put into extracting everything of value out of the planet, it's still holding onto a few precious morsels. And when it comes to gold, we still don't really know how much is left on Earth.

Investor Warren Buffett famously said that the total amount of gold left in the world - that we've mined, anyway - could fit inside a cube with sides measuring just 20 meters. And in 2013, Ed Prior from BBC News reported that this is actually pretty accurate, with the GFMS team at Thomson Reuters estimating that there's 171,300 tons in circulation, which would fit very nicely into Buffett's imaginary box. But this figure is up for serious debate. "Estimates range from 155,244 tons, marginally less than the GFMS figure, to about 16 times that amount - 2.5 million tons," says Prior.

And that's just the gold we've already dug up. According to the BBC, the US Geological Survey estimates there are 52,000 tons of mineable gold still hidden in the ground, and that's a conservative estimate. Which sounds like a lot, until you think about how it's being used. "All the gold that has been mined throughout history is still in existence in the above-ground stock," James Turk, the founder of the Gold Money Foundation, which conducts reports on the value and availability of precious metals, told Prior. "That means that if you have a gold watch, some of the gold in that watch could have been mined by the Romans 2,000 years ago."

But the way we're currently using gold is getting more and more wasteful, because we're using it in amounts too small to recycle. For example, if you collect 41 smartphones, you've got about 1 gram of gold. When you think about how many smartphones are being produced and thrown out around the world every year, that's a whole lot of gold that will never go back into circulation. One day, we might actually run out of gold altogether, and suddenly $135k seems like a real bargain for that nice big Australian chunk of the stuff.

MAY THERE BE GOLD IN EVERY PAN !!!!