Greetings!  I had written an earlier guide and feel obligated to follow up with a few more notes.  I staked my own claim!  I staked it in an area near Lynx Lake, AZ, where I had already discovered some small nuggets before.  I'm pretty happy with it.  What did it take to do?  First, I had to erect a monument (a sign) at one corner and put markers at the other three corners.  It doesn't sound like a big deal, but this area is a bit rough due to vegetation.  Thank God for GPS!  I went to the BLM, paid about $170 and registered it.  I went to Yavapai County recorder and recorded it for about $15.   Basically I spent ~$200 and got some good exercise by beating through some rough terrain.

I can't tell you how much it sickens me to see so many claims up for sale at ridiculous prices.  From what I have seen, most of these claims have been staked within the past couple months.  It doesn't take a rocket scientist to stake out an area where a prior claim has lapsed, spend the $200 to get it registered and recorded, and then list it on eBay for thousands of dollars.  Amazingly, you will read many boasts in most of these listings.  Here are a few examples with comments...

1. We were the first to list gold claims on eBay.  (Does that mean that they were the first to come up with this scam?)
2. Close to <insert town name here>.  (Check a map - "close" must mean 10-20 miles of rough terrain)
3. Gold Prices are going up!  (So is inflation - if the claim is SO valuable, why are they unloading it?)
4. Mail contact information first.  (Maybe when people figure out they were scammed, they want to reneg on the deal?)
5. Park your RV - camp!  (You can do this on just about any public BLM land in the county - check local laws first)
6. Get yours now!  Hurry!  Act fast!  (Exactly - act quickly before you can come to your senses)

If you are interested in purchasing a claim, I suggest you ask the seller a few simple questions...

1. When did you stake/record the claim?
2. How many claims have you sold before?
3. How much gold have you personally recovered from the claim?
4. Why are you selling this particular claim?

I think these questions will be enough to make them squirm.  Verifying some of their answers is simple enough.  Check the online web page for county recorder where the claim is located to verify #1.  Click on the user name in eBay and see what they have sold before to answer #2.  Ask for photos of results for #3 - ask the seller to take pictures of the digging areas where they found these nuggets - remember, that unless the prospector dug all the way to bedrock, it's unlikely they were "really" trying to unearth the available gold.  Yeah, this can be faked, but if they do fake it and you do purchase the claim, you might have recourse if you can show that it was staged.  Anyone that answers #4 differently than "To make money" is probably being dishonest - still I would ask the question to gauge the level of BS...

Remember, the easiest way to make money on a claim is to stake it and sell it.  Doing the actual prospecting is damn hard work!  You want to stake your own claim?  Easy!  Go on the geocommunicator website, identify areas that are BLM domain where claims had once existed but are now lapsed - then make a trip and do some good old fashioned prospecting.  Remember that the BLM website lags by about three months - if you see fresh claim markers in the area you are checking out, by all means respect them.  You might discover things that I have...   ...just because it looks accessable on a topo map does not mean that you will be able to get your vehicle anywhere near there!  I went to about a dozen different locations before I settled on the one I staked out.  It's hard work, but well worth it!

Cheers!

Mark