Hotmuck:

The miners favorite way of High grading was the old bullet cigarette lighters were hollowed out and filled with free gold and then inserted in the rectum of the miner and as there was no metal detectors in use back in the thirties they usually got away with it. In later years they started to use x-rays to catch the miners as they came out from underground.

As I recall a lighter filled with gold would bring about $35.00 from the ilicit buyer which was a lotmore than a days pay of 4 to 6 dollars of those days.

sc