"When I came here 25 years ago, I went three weeks without a find. But it's never like that, and it upsets me to see the ones who have quit their jobs and given up everything to move here, because some will go home with nothing. "Some think they can fly to California and shove a spade in the ground, and find a toaster-sized nugget. "I'd say there are already 30 per cent more people here than last year, and they come from all over," said Brent Shock, one of the most well-known prospectors in Jamestown, thanks to his knee-length leather coat, enormous gold nugget ring, and a fabled pedigree as a gold-miner. You only have to visit the eerie ghost towns around places such as Jamestown, unofficial capital of the 1849 rush, to appreciate the speculative nature of the trade, and to realise many of the "new 49ers" and their families will be left nursing broken dreams.
Since late May, when prospectors were allowed to hit the rivers (mining activity is banned earlier, to allow fish to spawn) scores of people have gambled everything to trek to gold country. Yet behind the giddy hopes that spurred the start of this year's gold-hunting season lies nagging fear.
New kingdom rush professional#
Even professional mining firms such as Almaco, a Canadian giant, are sniffing around the region. Mining rights to some individual patches of river (which cost buyers roughly $50 a year) change hands for tens of thousands of dollars. Mining claims registered in the state are up nearly 2,000 per cent in the past three years, from 132 in the first quarter of 2005 to 2,274 for the same period this year. Some forecasters believe gold could reach $1,500 by the year end, making it economically viable to mine areas with only moderate prospects.Īs a result, California's traditional mining country, in the Sierra Nevada hills north-east of San Francisco, is at the centre of a speculative property boom. The metal's spot value hit $1,000 an ounce this year, and now hovers between $800 and $900, almost three times the price it was trading at five years ago.
New kingdom rush Patch#
Even novices, who tend to use traditional gold pans to swirl soil and gravel shovelled from riverbeds, have a sporting chance of hitting a patch of pay-dirt, known as "a flash of colour". Today's prospectors see their chance to strike it rich because economic turbulence has pushed up the value of gold, traditionally seen globally as a "safe" investment, to a point where skilled diggers can expect to make thousands of dollars a day. I've just about paid for my trip already." "We've just hit a halo of gold, and this lot alone must be worth between $500 (£250) and $1,500. "It's like going to Vegas, except with this, we actually get to win something," said Mike Dunn, clutching almost an ounce of nuggets unearthed from the south fork of the Feather river last Sunday. But they share with them a timeless predisposition for what veterans call gold fever. The "new 49ers," as today's wave of fortune-seekers are known, are a breed apart from their historic predecessors, driving trucks and SUVs down the dusty tracks first created by trains of horse-drawn wagons nearly 160 years ago.
Today, record gold prices, widespread economic turmoil, and the enduring optimism of America's entrepreneurial classes have combined to entice fresh swarms of prospectors to head west in search of hidden riches beneath the picturesque hills and ravines of the Golden State.
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