The standard
The paperwork is the product.
Most claim sellers hand a buyer a serial number and a hand sketch. I hand over the complete recorded archive, so you can verify every fact independently — before money changes hands, and long after.
You are not buying a mystery.
With any claim
Six things every buyer receives.
The original county-recorded notice of location
With the general course and dimensions the state requires — the founding document of the claim, as recorded, not a retyped summary.
A notarized deed and a clean chain
Every annual county filing, and the BLM transfer on the federal record. You can trace ownership from location to your own name without a gap.
BLM maintenance receipts
Showing fees paid current and the claim in good standing — with your first deadline stated in plain dates, not left for you to work out.
GPS boundary corners, verified
Checked against the official BLM digital plat and delivered as a Google Earth file you can open on your phone and walk with.
District history, cited
Sourced from the state geologist and the federal minerals database. Sources named in full in the buyer packet. Nothing invented.
Transfer handled with you
The notarized claim deed and the BLM filing done together, so you start in clean standing rather than discovering a problem a year later.
Plain English
What an unpatented claim actually is.
If you have not bought one before, this is the part worth reading twice. It is also the part most likely to surprise a buyer later, which is why it is on the website and not buried in a packet.
What you get
- The exclusive right to the locatable minerals on the claim.
- The right to work them on federal land — prospecting and mining.
- The right to camp on the claim while you are working it.
What you do not get
- Deeded homesite land. This is not real estate you own outright.
- The right to build a cabin.
- The right to live on it.
What it costs to keep
About $200 a year, paid to BLM each September — or the small-miner fee waiver, if you qualify for it. Miss the deadline and the claim can go void, which is exactly why the first deadline is written into every packet I hand over in plain dates.
The legal shape of it
An unpatented mining claim is a possessory mineral interest on federal land. It is not fee-simple real estate. Anyone who describes it to you as “buying land” is either confused or hoping you are.
“I’d rather answer twenty questions than have one surprised buyer.” Northern General
This is a one-person operation, not a large company. That is the reason the documentation standard exists: I am the person who has to stand behind every claim I sell, and I would rather do it with recorded documents than with a sales pitch.
See the standard applied.
Pennyweight Placer is listed with its full documentation manifest — serial, legal description, chain of title, fees, and what ships at sale.