The Gold Pan as a
Production Tool

The most important thing one has to remember is about the use of a gold pan is that while it is an effective tool to recover gold, it can only process a limited amount of material of the bed. It is for this reason that the gold pan is not commonly used as a production tool by the most sober gold seekers, it is only in more distant locations where it would be very difficult to take bigger pieces of equipment, and where there will only be a limited amount of material that will be profitable only by washing it in a gold pan.

Gold pans are most commonly used to locate -by sampling- rich deposits so that later one can set the production equipment in locations that are more profitable.

There are some stories -dated since 1849 during the gold rush- about old mining records on lands so rich that one could recover over 90 ounces of gold in a single pan. Today that would be about $43,200, and to say the truth, it must have been a mighty rich ground. Stories like this are rare and grounds like that are not found very often, although it is not uncommon to listen to nowadays gold-seekers that they are able to constantly produce more than an ounce a week using only their pan to recover gold in the highlands., and to have the gold to demonstrate it.

For some of them, things go well, but other people have been in this field for many years, and have located very hot locations in the past. Personally, I know two guys who support themselves with a gold pan, and one of them lives very well.

As we have mentioned before, gold pans provide an unlimited access and the people gather in the cavities exposed in the bedrock near the borders of the riverbeds of the area, picking some pieces from here and there and every once in a while in smaller cavities. This gives good results and for them it is better than checking in and out a card at work.

There are still many lands rich in gold to be found in auriferous areas if you are willing to carry out the job that means finding them.