A Golden Opportunity — Or Not
George Deden in Alaska | Photo from George Deden
“A thousand men go searchin’ for gold. After six months, one of them’s lucky. His find represents not only his own labor, but that of nine hundred and ninety-nine others to boot. That’s six thousand months, five hundred years, scramblin’ over a mountain, goin’ hungry and thirsty.” – Walter Huston in Treasure of the Sierra Madre.
George Deden of Honolulu thinks not only he but the other 999 (if they invest in his venture) can strike gold in his 675,000 tons of placer-deposit dirt in west central Alaska.
No scrambling over a mountain or going hungry and thirsty. Plus, you get a hefty tax shelter courtesy of the Internal Revenue Service.
Deden says this is no pipe dream by a wildcatter.
He’s a non-degreed geologist and a certified field gemologist, and says he has a 2005 executive MBA from Duke University. He’s set up Glacier Valley Mining & Metals headquarters in Palmer, Alaska. The gold-mining site is a long plane ride away, inland from Nome, so you don’t want to be there in winter.
He’s leased land likely to have washed-down gold ranging from 0.76 to 0.92 in fineness.
“We are offering an IRS-approved investment that is tax deductible with an approximate 3-to-1 write-off,” his website says. “We must lease property rather than purchase to qualify this program under the IRS Code. We sublease to the investor in order to maximize the tax advantages.”
Then he brings up the dirt. He deducts a development and processing fee. You get the rest, depending on the number of tons of dirt you invest in – one unit for $105,000 is 1,500 tons of dirt.
“For example, if your tonnage were to average two-tenths of an ounce of gold per ton, the gold having a fineness of 0.92, estimating gold at $1,000 per troy ounce, the potential gross return on investment before royalty deduction or deductions for any remaining amount on the mining unit would be $276,000.”
I’m not a gold nut or a high-flying investor, so Deden won’t be seeing any of my money. But the idea of living in Honolulu and prospecting in Alaska does tickle my fantasy bone.
Deden’s not only a gold digger, he’s very outspoken on politics and taxes and the guy in the White House.
Here’s one of his Facebook postings:
“Our Commander in Chief is not a leader. He cannot run our country, but he can sure ruin it … He will hang for his illegal activities, and I believe that we will have a conservative Senate and House next time around.”
Will he make a fortune in gold? “We cannot and will not guarantee any specific recovery.”
But, hey, Homer said gold was the glory of the immortals and the Incas called it the tears of the sun. Who can resist hunting it?
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