I once had a friend tell me he would never buy gold. When I asked him why? He responded that he could just go out and pick it up off the ground for free. Why should I pay for something I can find for free? I have to admit that I found it hard to argue with him on that point, because he was absolutely correct. Gold is out there laying on or just under the ground for those willing to put the effort into finding it!
Throughout my life I have always been an amateur treasure hunter. Maybe it was the Indiana Jones movies or The Goonies that inspired me back in the the 1980's, but I've had the bug ever since. I have scuba dived all around the Caribbean exploring reefs and once even found an old cannon resting on the seabed just off of Miami. However, those Spanish gold escudos and silver pieces of eight have always eluded me.
I have had the most success in my treasure hunting over the years with a metal detector. I have searched along the beaches of Florida's treasure coast, but never found anything than an 18 carat gold necklace once. Gold is gold! My best luck has been in the deserts of Arizona and in the mountains of California. There are gold nuggets that litter the ground in the desert if you know where to look, and canyons in California can have gold in and around the rivers washed down over the eons.
I have found many gold nuggets over the years, and still have most of them in secure storage. Some nuggets in my collection I've picked up through trade, mostly if a colleague has a nice nugget that really catches my eye. Today's nugget is one of those I traded another nugget to obtain. This was found in northern California and has a few interesting crystal inclusions. Those are what really caught my eye!


Here you can see the back side as well, it's a pretty smooth nugget meaning it has been eroded over a very long time. It likely was washed down a river for a very long time before finally being recovered by a friend of mine. This nugget weighs just about 1.3 grams and is composed of most likely 22 carat gold, as are most California nuggets.
These can be found by panning for gold near rivers or in the right spot in rivers. But the way I look now is using a metal detector, it saves a lot of hours panning through dirt looking for that needle in a haystack! Now, with the spike in gold prices, there is a new mini gold rush going on here in California, more and more people are heading out looking to find their fortune in gold. I wish them luck, but most of the time you end up with a few nuggets if you are really lucky. Many days you come home empty handed!

Gold has been climbing those charts again quickly with all of the uncertainty in the world. The potential for war in Iran, the never ending war in Ukraine, atrocities in Africa, it's a never ending list. All horrible things that shouldn't ever happen anywhere, but we live in a world full of greedy people who don't mind hurting others to get money and power. The net result, governments and people horde gold supplies and the prices continue to soar.
Here's gold over the last five days:

Kitco.com
Will this gold rally be sustainable long term? Who knows? There are so many new unknowns going on in the world that it's becoming harder and harder to predict market futures on almost a daily basis. I do believe that having a nest egg of gold and silver is very important though. When all else fails in the world, they will always have value. If you haven't started your own silver/gold stack there is no time like the present. Start small and invest consistently. Over time you will amass a nice nest egg to protect yourself and your family!

That will do it for me this Monday. It's been ages since I shared a gold nugget so it's long overdue! If anyone is interested I could put together more treasure hunting posts, so far I've found pretty limited interest sadly. Please feel free to leave any comments or questions below, and thanks for all of your support. It really is greatly appreciated! Have a great week everyone!


References:
https://www.kitco.com/charts/gold

Disclaimer
I am not a financial planner and this isn't financial advice. Please always do your own research before investing your money. You worked hard enough to earn it!
Gold prospecting and treasure hunting can be dangerous. Never put yourself in a situation that is risky to life or limb, you can't spend the treasure if you're dead.
All pictures are mine unless otherwise indicated.


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That's a pretty cool nugget! I used to have a hunk of copper that was pulled out of mine, but I don't know what ever happened to that.
Those natural copper chunks can be pretty cool, and some are valuable!
Yeah, I remember it was pretty neat. It was like they had removed all the stone from around the copper. It was like those things you see where they dump molten aluminum into a ant hill, but not that big!
Nice nugget. I need to find some good places to detect. They are hard to find around here.
There are a lot of good places here but require a couple hours of driving to get there. I have one spot I can drive right up to my secret spot, hop out and get busy! Most require some serious hikes which I don't do anymore!
Out in your neck of the woods you need permission from the land owner usually. I understand it's a pain!
Thats pretty sweet. Ive never found a nugget with the detector, but I have found gold. Mostly I dig up garbage though!
That's the life of a metal detectorist, dig up 99% garbage for every 1% of something valuable! Even up in remote canyons in California there is trash left from the old timers who mined for gold back in the 1800's. They didn't care much about the environment back then!
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Searching for gold is not only interesting, it’s very profitable now!👍😊
A friend of mine tells me that even if he doesn’t find anything on a particular day he’s still having a wonderful time searching!👍😊