Man Mines Midtown New York Sidewalks

43-year-old Raffi Stepanian makes money searching New York City streets, but it's not loose change or soda cans he's looking for, it's gold. Stepanian says he can make almost $1000 a week scouring the diamond district's streets for bits of gold, platinum, and precious gems. "Material falls off clothes, on the bottom of shoes, it drops off jewelry, and it falls in the dirt and sticks to the gum on the street. The percentage of gold out here on the street is greater than the amount of gold you would find in a mine . . . It comes close to a mother lode because in the street, you're picking up gold left by the industry," he says.

Comments

Re:And now that it's all over the internet

[jollyreaper]

Everyone else will start doing it too, and he'll have to go back to his day job.

You're missing the plan, man. He's going to sell people the tools to do street mining. After that, he sits back in fat city.

Re:And now that it's all over the internet

[ackthpt]

Everyone else will start doing it too, and he'll have to go back to his day job.

You're missing the plan, man. He's going to sell people the tools to do street mining. After that, he sits back in fat city.

Then comes the book.

Then comes the TV show.

Yep, he's on Easy Street, in more ways than one.

just be careful of claim jumpers.

Re:Mining is dangerous.

[Chris Mattern]

Mining gold and other precious metals is a filthy job dripping with toxic chemicals: arsenic, cyanide, lead, mercury, etc.

Correction: "*Refining gold ore and other precious metal ores* is a filthy job dripping with toxic chemicals: arsenic, cyanide, lead, mercury, etc." He's not doing any of that. He's literally just picking already refined metal up off the street. While he might be at hazard to whatever filth he has to brush off the metal, he's not not dealing with a large amount of toxic chemicals.

Rule 1 about find a gold vein

[geekoid]

Shut 'ur trap.