History of the gold pan

Though the first recorded instances of placer mining are from ancient Rome, the first gold pan (that we know of) was the Batea. Traditionally made of a solid piece of wood, the Batea originated from Spain and was later introduced to the Mayans in Mexico and South America. In the hands of a skilled prospector the Batea worked well in those areas, since it could operate well where there is less water available for use than with traditional gold pans.

  In the early days of prospecting one would call his pan a gold dish. Back then many a prospector would carve his (or her) pan from a block of wood. It wouldn’t take much to make a wooden pan–just a pocket knife to do the rough carving, which could then be sanded smooth with gravel from a stream bed. Not only wood but also cow horns could be used to make gold pans. If you would slit it lengthwise and steam it until its soft enough to be worked, then you could open the horn outwards and shape it into a shallow dish suitable for panning. The most popular pan to evolve in those times was the steel pan. It was (and still can be) manufactured by a metal spinning process. Now in this day and age most of us use the more common plastic pans. Designed with riffles, the plastic pans can easily trap the gold, thus considerably speeding up the panning process.

 The most common sizes of pans today are the 8 to 12 inch pan, which are used primarily for sampling, or clean up. The 14 inch pan is the most popular, multi size use. I personally prefer a 12 inch green pan.

What about you? What size pan do you like to use? And what color do you think allows the gold to be more easily seen?  Leave your answers in the comments below. Thanks for reading this article and make sure you stop by again.

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