H. Alvin Sharpe
1910 - 1982

Although he is most remembered for his contribution to Carnival history as the inventor of the first doubloon, H. Alvin Sharpe was also a painter, author and jeweler.

According to the Mardi Gras Digest, Sharpe was born in Corbin, Ky., and moved in 1931 to New Orleans, where he worked on the docks and later became a deck hand. Self-educated after the seventh grade, Sharpe was a creative soul who sought an outlet for his talent and interest in painting.

Despite his lack of formal training, he successfully completed a commission to paint several ceiling murals at the New Orleans Board of Trade Building (also known as the Cotton Exchange).

At the onset of World War II, Sharpe became a Merchant Marine and quickly rose to first mate on the U.S.S. Algiers. He is credited with having helped smuggle Jews out of Nazi Germany and, before leaving the Merchant Marine, he was made a ship's captain.

After the war, Sharpe traveled to Paris, where he planned to attend art school, but after only a short time as a student, decided to forgo a formal European education in art and returned to New Orleans.

Making a living locally as a painter, Sharpe also had dabbled in the art of intaglio -- inscribing metal -- and fashioned the first Mardi Gras doubloon for the Rex organization in 1959. As the now-famous story goes, he presented the prototype by throwing the aluminum coins at the Rex captain to prove that they were safe, and the rest, as they say, is history.

In addition to the many paintings and etchings -- mostly depicting local scenes such as courtyards, homes and landscapes, as well as sailing ships -- Sharpe also produced a collection of his writings and poetry titled "Collective Meditations," published in 1979.

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Prospecting is the first stage of the territory geological analysis (second - exploration): physical search for minerals, fossils, precious metals or mineral specimens, and is also known as fossicking.

Prospecting is a small-scale form of mineral exploration which is an organised, large scale effort undertaken by commercial mineral companies to find commercially viable ore deposits.

Prospecting is physical labour, involving traversing (traditionally on foot or on horseback), panning, sifting and outcrop investigation, looking for signs of mineralisation. In some areas a prospector must also make claims, meaning they must erect posts with the appropriate placards on all four corners of a desired land they wish to prospect and register this claim before they may take samples. In other areas publicly held lands are open to prospecting without staking a mining claim.

The traditional methods of prospecting involved combing through the countryside, often through creek beds and along ridgelines and hilltops, often on hands and knees looking for signs of mineralisation in the outcrop. In the case of gold, all streams in an area would be panned at the appropriate trap sites looking for a show of 'colour' or gold in the river trail.

Once a small occurrence or show was found, it was then necessary to intensively work the area with pick and shovel, and often via the addition of some simple machinery such as a sluice box, races and winnows, to work the loose soil and rock looking for the appropriate materials (in this case, gold). For most base metal shows, the rock would have been mined by hand and crushed on site, the ore separated from the gangue by hand.

Often, these shows were short-lived, exhausted and abandoned quite soon, requiring the prospector to move onwards to the next and hopefully bigger and better show. Occasionally, though, the prospector would strike it rich and be joined by other prospectors and larger-scale mining would take place. Although these are thought of as "old" prospecting methods, these techniques are still used today but usually coupled with more advanced techniques such as geophysical magnetic or gravity surveys.

In most countries in the 19th and early 20th century, it was very unlikely that a prospector would retire rich even if he was the one who found the greatest of lodes. For instance Patrick (Paddy) Hannan, who discovered the Golden Mile, Kalgoorlie, died without receiving anywhere near a fraction of the value of the gold contained in the lodes. The same story repeated at Bendigo, Ballarat, Klondike and California.

The gold rushes
In the United States and Canada prospectors were lured by the promise of gold, silver, and other precious metals. They traveled across the mountains of the American West, carrying picks, shovels and gold pans. The majority of early prospectors had no training and relied mainly on luck to discover deposits.

Other gold rushes occurred in Papua New Guinea, Australia at least four times, and in South Africa and South America. In all cases, the gold rush was sparked by idle prospecting for gold and minerals which, when the prospector was successful, generated 'gold fever' and saw a wave of prospectors comb the countryside.

Modern prospectors today rely on training, the study of geology, and prospecting technology.
Knowledge of previous prospecting in an area helps in determining location of new prospective areas. Prospecting includes geological mapping, rock assay analysis, and sometimes the intuition of the prospector.