Come catch the rock bug in Wallace!

WALLACE — A new Wallace attraction may just give you a bit of gold fever, or at the very least cultivate a new hobby.

Local man Royce Tucker is the owner of Tucker’s Natural Treasures — a business that teaches the historical art of gold panning.

Tucker himself caught rock fever when he worked as a granite worker in California.

“I’ve been doing this for years and years and years,” Tucker said with a laugh. “I started out doing tombstones and monuments in California. I was sitting there cutting these tombstones and monuments out of granite and I got the rock bug. I started seeing gold veins running through them and quartz and it got me pretty excited.”

When Tucker arrived in the Silver Valley, he noticed that people would routinely throw away core samples. So with his interest in rocks, he began looking for a way to use them.

Tucker then began working on them to create waterfall scenes, but he still hadn’t fully delved into his rock-oriented talents.

“Once I had sold enough of the core sample artwork, I was able to start teaching the gold panning classes,” he said.

Tucker’s classes are all-inclusive too, which allows people to feel very comfortable about doing them.

Each class comes with a kit, but it’s also the inside knowledge that he teaches that makes this class so much fun.

Each one of these kits contains a pan, some simple panning tools, a vial and a bag of paydirt that Tucker has put together, along with various gems and precious metals.

“I collect paydirt from not just the Shoshone County area, but from everywhere,” Tucker said. “And people will get 70-80 percent of their investment from the gems and precious metals that they find in their bag of paydirt when they pan it. We guarantee that there is gold in each bag. So people aren’t throwing their money away, which is very important for me.”

That much of a return on the initial investment, plus the ability to have the tools and knowledge to go out and pursue gold panning as a new (possibly lucrative) hobby makes Tucker’s class almost too good to pass up.

Tucker has set up shop outside the Eureka Sally Gallery of Art & Chocolate located at 416 Fifth St. in Wallace and is open regularly from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

However, Tucker also will do house calls and other special tutorials if given enough of a heads up.

To contact Tucker to schedule a class, you can reach him at 208-819-4352 or via email at tntartstudio@gmail.com.