"The market is heating up," said David Treadwell, a real estate agent based in Hemet. "I get 2-3 leads per month on buyers looking for patented mine claims. If you can get the gold out of the ground, there's money to be made."
Treadwell has sold mines to amateurs and professionals alike. Small claims sell for less than $50,000, while bigger properties with more potential bring in a few hundred thousand dollars or more.
Last year, he sold the St. Elmo mine - a historic mining property in Atolia with 11 mining shafts on it, some of them hundreds of feet deep - to entrepreneur Sean Tucker.
On a cold November Tuesday, a mile outside of town, Tucker's bright yellow Diedrich D-120 drill rig pierces the desert silence. His two-man team is drilling holes and gathering samples, boring into the earth two feet at a time to see which spot has the most gold to set up larger mining operations next year.
Collection
[
|
...
]