OT -Speaking of Gold

[jleves]

Does anyone else watch Gold Rush and Bering Sea Gold? I'm totally hooked on both of them. Wish I knew how to run a backhoe or dozer - I'd spend the summer in Alaska.

It's amazing how much dirt they have to move to get a few ounces of gold.

And do you ever think - 'Hey, check the big waste rock pile - maybe theres a hugeass nugget that you accidently screened out'?

The one 17 year old kid is amazing. Can't imagine doing something like that when I was 17. And yet again, an entire season and he's got a brick of gold that fits in the palm of his hand - worth over 50 grand. He moved football fields of dirt for a handful of gold.

And on Bering Sea Gold, that backhoe on a boat is too cool - and they pull in the gold furiously. They are getting in 24 hours what everyone else is getting in a season.

 

[joober jones]

My grandfather was a prospector in the Yukon and brought my brothers and I along with him on a trip when I was about 6. Had we been a little older perhaps it'd have been a more profitable outing for all involved.

 

[UCweCONN]

Does anyone else watch Gold Rush and Bering Sea Gold? I'm totally hooked on both of them. Wish I knew how to run a backhoe or dozer - I'd spend the summer in Alaska.

It's amazing how much dirt they have to move to get a few ounces of gold.

And do you ever think - 'Hey, check the big waste rock pile - maybe theres a hugeass nugget that you accidently screened out'?

The one 17 year old kid is amazing. Can't imagine doing something like that when I was 17. And yet again, an entire season and he's got a brick of gold that fits in the palm of his hand - worth over 50 grand. He moved football fields of dirt for a handful of gold.

And on Bering Sea Gold, that backhoe on a boat is too cool - and they pull in the gold furiously. They are getting in 24 hours what everyone else is getting in a season.

Funny that you posted this, I was talking to a co-worker about that 17 year-old kid the other day. He used a bull dozer to clear a six mile road through the woods, can operate a backhoe etc. It's amazing the maturity that kid has.

I love the logging shows Ax Men and American Loggers.

On another subject, Redneck chique is big these days. Turn on cable and you have your choice of 'Swamp People', 'Bayou Billionaires', 'American Pawn', 'American Pickers', 'Moonshine', 'Billy the Exterminator', and at least a dozen others. My personal favorite is "American Stuffers'. The premier episode's storyline, 'Keep your dead animals out of my kitchen: Daniel dries animal parts in the family's oven....'

 

[Da_Aisijimo_Gou]

Does anyone else watch Gold Rush and Bering Sea Gold? I'm totally hooked on both of them.

Secretly, harkening back to a Solid Gold infatuation?

 

[uconndoit]

This has always amazed me.

"if you could somehow gather every scrap of gold that man has ever mined into one place, you could only build about one-third of the Washington Monument."

http://money.howstuffworks.com/question213.htm

 

[jleves]

This has always amazed me.

"if you could somehow gather every scrap of gold that man has ever mined into one place, you could only build about one-third of the Washington Monument."

http://money.howstuffworks.com/question213.htm[/quote]

Funny - I was going to put that in my post and decided not to. There's not a lot of gold out there - assuming the link is accurate.

 

[uconndoit]

Funny - I was going to put that in my post and decided not to. There's not a lot of gold out there - assuming the link is accurate.

I've heard that from several different sources - doesn't sound right but...

 

[SubbaBub]

Got hooked on Gold Rush after stumbling on a weekend marathon. Other than the wacky looking guy who runs the big industrial mine, all these guys seem like idiots who couldn't be bothered to learn anything about gold mining. What I don't get is that their goal is about $100k in profit for the 6 month season. So from the show I gather they have about 200k in expenses (~$1000/day). Each crew is around 4 people, so at best each man could earn is $25k. For that they are risking everything?

The one thing I remember when studying the 1849 Gold Rush in school is that very few struck it rich and the ones who did where mostly the merchants selling provisions and equipment to the prospectors.

It is very entertaining to watch them stumble around, though.

 

[UCweCONN]

This has always amazed me.

"if you could somehow gather every scrap of gold that man has ever mined into one place, you could only build about one-third of the Washington Monument."

http://money.howstuffworks.com/question213.htm

And with the exception of what was lost in shipwreck or buried in undiscovered tombs or with the dead, nearly all of the gold ever mined is still in use today. Most has been recycled many times so the gold ring or necklace you have could contain gold from the Inca Empire or ancient Egypt. I was watching one of those shows and they showed a factoid that the nearest asteroid to earth is believed to contain 10,000 times more gold than was ever mined on Earth.