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First Class Miner Videos -    Newest to oldest

The FCM Campout on the weekend of April 26-28, 2024 at Ord Mountain, This Campout was shared with Valley Prospectors of San Bernardino, Hi Desert Gold Diggers, and The Prospectors Club of Southern California. This slide show is of the Coin Hunt on Saturday, 4-27-2024 followed by the Pot Luck Dinner.  There were 25 participants in the coin hunt on April 27th at Ord Mountain. Two of which were youngsters including Wade age 13.  The hunt had 20 U.S. Antique Coins listed as prize tokens. The first 5 on that list were designated as Grand Prizes. Next, there were 20 Lincoln cents from 100+ years ago that were buried 3 to 4" deep. Then, there were two tiny Sim Cards from a cell phone at surface level. (The Bounty Hunter wouldn’t find these). There were also 500 common Dime coins. The token coins and dimes were hidden to be found at surface level. Not too difficult. The Lincolns were more difficult as they were deeper.

First Class Gold Miners Prospecting Club's annual Middlecamp, Eagle Mountain Gold Claim campout the weekend of Feb 17th. Photos were provided by FCM Members: Ron, Tony and Yvonne.

The campout at the Humbug claim  November 10th- 12th, 2023 was a successful couple of days.  Perfect weather, found gold, and Saturday's potluck made for a great weekend camping adventure.

The First Class Miners Gold Prospecting Club joined Valley Prospectors who hosted a Joint Campout at Ord Mountain the weekend of Oct 28th 2023. Vaqlled Prospectors Hosted a Coin Hunt which was followed by the First Class Miners hosting a Gold Panning Competition. Numerous other events ran during the day which was followed by a Chili Cook Off and pot luck dinner.

Each year the First Class Miners sets up a gold panning booth and Historical mining museum at the 29 Palms Pioneer Days Festival....October 21, 2023

The First Class Miners hosted a Gold Panning Tent and Mining Museum at the Skys the Limit Observatory grounds in 29 Palms, CA on 10-14-2023.

Ranger Steve's Holcomb Valley Campout

Ord Mountain Campout, what a Blast! Once again, we invited a few other clubs to join us, not sure how many folks attended over the weekend, but we all had a great time.  We had about 30 folks at our pot luck Saturday night and everyone was talking about the coin hunt and panning for gold with the Quartermaster – thank you to Greg & Susan for graciously hosting the pot luck.!  Once again, the bubblegum machine was a huge hit; thanks to Jim & Yvonne Mack for coming up with the idea for our Eagle Mountain event.

The 2023 President's Weekend campout was incredibly successful.  Perfect weather and several gold finds.  Yvonne and Jim Mack sponsored a treasure hunt with quarters being used in a gumball machine with a one in ten chance of getting a trinket with gold inside

Mojave Desert Heritage & Culture Association (MDHCA) panning booth trip, April 23, 2022: This was the first time we set up a Panning Booth at this location. I want to thank all the volunteers that made this happen! Jim and Woody arrived at the MDHCA site Friday and the rest of us showed up at Saturday morning.  We had the museum and the Panning Booth set up and had our first future miners panning around 11:15. We also had some time to enjoy demonstrations on most of the old mining equipment and at the blacksmith shop. Throughout the afternoon we had folks stopping by, panning and enjoying Tom’s Museum and great conversation.

Pioneer Days Panning Booth; once again was a great success, and fun!  All our great volunteers started setup around 08:30 and was completed by 10:00. We had a great spot under the trees and we decided to set up one of our canopies this year due to the possibility of rain --and yes, we had rain and thunderstorms! After the parade, kids with parents in tow started showing up.  Many remembered us from last year and just couldn’t wait to get more gold, and some still remembered how to pan for gold! We were not disappointed with the turn out.  We had over 100 future miners panning with us! Tom’s Miner’s Museum was a big hit with parents and kids, especially all the gold on display that he has personally dug out of the ground!  We had kids panning for gold in the wind and rain until around 3:45

On 2-19-2022 we drove out to the "New Dale City" site which was a Gold Mining Settlement that was active from 1984 to about 1917. This is near 29 Palms, California in the Historic Dale Gold Mining District.