Magnifiers

One of the easiest ways of being able to identify gold is by looking and studying it. When people do panning, and even more so in the case when prospecting the sand that is relatively close to the surface is done, you will most likely not be able to see a lot of color. On some instances it is possible to see some grains of gold with the bare eye but in some cases they are so small that the best is to get a magnifying glass, as this will make it a lot easier.

There are many different kinds of magnifying glasses, however any good quality one will work just fine. The important thing to keep in mind is that the more the magnification, the closer the lens needs to be to the object so that it can be looked in focus. A ten power for example, can only be around half an inch from the object so that it can be looked at clearly, and this is obviously difficult to use in a gold pan. The four to six power is sufficient for field work because it can be focused much further back making it more suitable. There are some prospectors that are interested also in observing if a grain of gold has smooth or rough edges on it. In order to be able to determine this, you can use a ten to twenty power glass, as any will work fine. If the grains you find are very small in size, you can consider using the fifty power hand microscope.

Another very good magnifying glass that can be used is the comparator. The good thing about these is that they are a glass that has their own stands. The bottoms of these have a piece of glass with measurements imprinted on the surface. These are only around six power, but they can be used to measure distances that are less than a sixty fourth of an inch. Evidently this should provide the prospector with quite an accurate indication of how fine the gold he has found is and will help him to be able to determine whether or not an undercurrent is needed, of if another type of riffle could be more useful.

Do not get concerned about buying a whole array of different magnifiers when you start out. Besides the four to six power glass used to pick out little colors in the pan, the other ones are just more luxurious. This does not mean you should not buy them but when starting out we suggest you go with the basic and start increasing your tools to fancier ones little by little.