Searching for gold!

[stairman]

I was out in a very remote part of nevada called manhattan....which is ironic since there are about ten people living there full time...
looking for gold.The place had some over ounce sized nuggets in it hey day back in the 1900-1905 time frame.
After several hours and freezing my but off on a very cold day in early march I finally got a good hit that wasn't iron...or at least that what the machine said.Excitedly I dug til I found what was an old tabacco can.The outside said OLd English curved cut tabacco and inside was what appeared at first glance to be rolling papers.
I peeled back some of the paper and saw the words claim form.I stopped right there and this will only be the fourth time I have opened the box.It looks to be an on site claim form!!!
I had found a claim form that had been buried for over 100 years!!!!It wasn't in a pile of rocks like you might expect.
It wasn't gold but I was thrilled....I can't recall how many times I said ...cool!

Attachments:

[stevebarr]

That, stairman, is an AWESOME find. Very cool. Is the claim form still inside it, or do you have that framed somewhere?

[stairman]

Here is another pic of the form inside.

I haven't even considered opening up the paper as that will surely destroy it.
Do I own the claim now?

Attachments:

[stevebarr]

I can barely make out the writing on the paper, but I think you now own one-quarter of the state of Nevada. If you need help digging it, let us know.

[Ryan]

That is so cool! I did some quick research and found these old gold claim deeds. Any similarities to your piece of paper that jump out at you?







Only thing cooler than digging up awesome rocks? Digging up a 100 year old map or deed to a whole bunch of awesome rocks. Thats so "wild west". He kept it in his toback-ee tin. The historical significance is apparent. What a cool find.

[Ryan]

I also researched the product itself. The earliest reference I found was c. 1895-1900, then the magazine ad is from 1914. So it appears this could be over 100 years old. Id need to do more digging.


Here's the original tin:


Theres a few of those tins for sale on Ebay.

This ad dates to the year 1900 and features a jaunty sailor who clearly smokes a MAN'S tobacco. None of that Virginia Slims stuff:


There was a reference to a cache of artifacts found in a Virginia home's attic that included an Old English Tobacco tin with associated items dating as far back as 1885. Though the article lacked clarity. The oldest confirmed instance of that particular brand and tin that I could find was 1895-1900.

[stairman]

I looked over the mining deeds you provided and it isn't exactly like any of the three.I think each district or at least state back in those days had their own forms.
I would love to see what the rest of the form looks like but the paper is very very brittle.Short of having an expert at document restoration prepare it I'll keep it just as is.
Funny that it was found right next to a section that has been worked all the way to bed rock and it sat ontop of the only undisturbed portion of the alluvial gravels there.There are some very old mine entraces nearby and the remains of the rock walled shacks that the miners lived in.
If anyone knows someone that restores old documents in this condition let me know.
I'm going back there to dig as soon as I buy a dry washer and the gravels dry out.....april?

[Ryan]

Yeah, I once examined a book from 1825 that I found in the attic of my uncles farmhouse. We wore dustmasks, safety goggles, and used tweezers and q-tips to examine the thing. It crumbled like dead leaves. My uncle had a laminating device he used to make ID cards and Access Passes for people at his work, and we laminated the best pieces to preserve them. That worked quite well. Once laminated, we could cut the plastic to most closely resemble the original pages and then reconstruct the documents without fear of sneezing and blowing the pieces everywhere. If you are brave, and decide to read the enclosed document, please let us all know what it says! You have the best of two amazing hobbies in that piece, rockhounding and archaeology / anthropology. Very cool stuff.

Just for kicks, here's an "artifact" from the Uncle George's Farmhouse renovation. The house was built in 1848 but things found in the attic were older. Must have been keepsakes they either forgot about or left for posterity:

[susie q]

From what I learned over the yrs from reading metal detecting magazines.. Lost Treasures, West & East, etc... it was commonplace back then to bury the claim papers on the claim property where they would be safe from theft. They usually buried them in tin's such as you found or fruit tin cans. It's awesome you recovered one such claim!!

[chromite]

I would definitely have it restored by an archivist! That is a great find. Also with the provenance of your story (along with the tin it came in) the claim document could be valuable just by itself.

[DigDug]

That is more exciting a find that the gold itself....lol