In 1990 I met a man at bar in northern Cal. He was of thin build and hairy face,wild eyes and a dirty baseball hat. We happened to be pushed close together in a crowded room that was normally nearly empty, due to a batch of bad beer that had to be disposed of properly. As we drank he asked me if I had ever seen gold in quartz before. I had not but said yes. He then asked me if I had ever found any, again I lied. After another hour of drinking and drooling over the local women I ran into him again.

I asked him if he has ever found gold in quartz. He said he would take me to a place with his metal detector and we would find gold in quartz. The conditions were that we split anything over 400 dollars worth and that I don't tell anyone were we went.

So away we go with a gold master 2, two small rakes and a back pack. After a brutal 2-3 mile hike we arrive at a slide of what appears to be tailings. He tells me to dig through and make a pile of white rocks and he will be back later.

After an hour I have about 4 wheelbarrows full in a pile, teetering on the small ledge that is my work platform. The man kneels besides me and flips his goldmaster upside down and begins passing the baseball size and smaller pieces of dirty and partially crystallized quartz over the loop. Most get tossed down the steep hill, some that beep get put in a backpack. One piece about the size and shape of a large carrot makes the gold master howl and is accidental tossed.After retrieving it I notice that it is almost a full crystal.

Cleaning up the rock in a small creek on the way out reveals that the loud piece is a broken crystal with a slug like a 12 gauge in the center with gold strands spidering through it. The other pieces are nice and we had them cut into slabs and sold them to jewelers or used them for Christmas gifts. As for the carrot-like piece, it disappeared! So much for the 50-50 deal but this should be encouraging for California prospectors. Places like this are real and its a shame I was to drunk to find it again.