Tired of thinking about the Australian dollar, the looming carbon tax, what to tell the shareholders if the next drilling program doesn't turn up something, or what you will do about the margin loan if this market goes belly-up?

Relax, take a load off, zone out with some stories that I stumbled over back in the 1909 editions of the Los Angeles Times.

Oh, for those carefree days before JORC codes, disgruntled shareholders getting hold of your mobile number, quarterly reports and audit standards.

But, on the other hand, we now have boards of directors beyond reproach, watertight control of market-sensitive news and insiders who hold their trade orders until the rest of the market is informed.

Yeah, right. But at least these days it wouldn’t require anxious stockholders to dash by special train from Chicago to Nevada to gain control of their mine.

Back in 1909, thousands of shareholders in the Little Florence Gold Mining Company of Goldfield, Nevada – most of whom lived in Chicago – became nervous over seeming irregularities being perpetrated by the managing director, one James E Keelyn.

It was discovered that $US34,467.77 of Little Florence’s money had been transferred to Keelyn’s own bank account.

The company president and his deputy hired a special train to make the 2900km dash to Nevada.

On arrival, the disgruntled shareholders managed to get the company’s books only after a physical fight with the office clerks.

Sounds more fun than calling a special shareholder meeting, doesn't it?

But perhaps the local press could take up an idea from the LA Times back then.

The newspaper offered an advice column. It was pretty much along the lines of today’s columns that advise people what to do with their super or whether to buy an investment property with high gearing, only then readers mailed in mineral specimens.

In submitting samples, there were strict rules – full name and address, where the sample came from and the warning that the samples would not be returned.

Nevertheless, it was all very handy for the lone prospector and far cheaper than an assay lab.

A reader from Winkleman, Arizona, sent in a sample of what he termed ruby sand taken from placer and wanted to know if it had any commercial value.

The newspaper’s anonymous expert replied that the concentrates were garnet only and that the reader should consult dealers in abrasive materials, adding that the garnet should bring $US25-30 a tonne.

A reader from Oregon posted in some concentrates from panning a creek in that state.

The answer: “Two Josephenite pebbles (nickel and iron native alloy) carrying over 50 per cent nickel are in the pannings, as also grain platinum, with native gold. The mass of the concentrates in chiefly magnetite (magnetic iron ore) with, probably, other platinum values combined. Ilmenite, hermanite and a very low percentage of monazite are also present.”

Not up the JORC standard, it is true, but you can see that the column was probably closely read and valued.

And JD Ferris of Caliente Canyon, California, should probably have availed himself of the newspaper’s service.

Under the headline “New riches in his old mine”, the LA paper said Ferris, as part of his gold mining operation, had for three years been throwing another coloured ore away in the scrap heap. Turned out it was tungsten.

But the happy ending was that he was still sitting on about $US20 million worth of the stuff.

The people of Seattle, meanwhile, were looking forward to the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exhibition.

About $US1 million worth of gold was going to be on show and would be stored at night by means of its steel enclosure sinking into the floor.

The gold, then worth $US18.96 an ounce, would, the newspaper said, be “piled in glittering heaps of dust, nuggets and bricks .... Each night at the closing hour the two tons of gold will disappear and the steel and concrete top will slide into place, leaving nothing in view but the smooth surface of the floor”

There’s an idea for the Perth Mint. Two tonnes of gold at Sydney’s Royal Easter Show would certainly be a change from the showbags.

Outcrop is a weekly column on ILN’s sister publication MiningNews.net.