smash or not to smash
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mungass
gollstar
buck06
7 posters
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smash or not to smash
over the weekend i thought i had found my super. one rock 1/2 the size of a football the 4500 was screeming when i dug it out .but as i keeped breaking it up i ended up with a rock about the size of a pc mouse with a little nugget pressed into it and another edge of gold 10 mm beside it now the question is do i smash it up or not or just leave it on the bar. its a real different piece of rock looked like a big piece of ironstone till i broke it up it has white quarts/ironstone and redish quorts all mixed up in one i will try to get some pic up tomorrow cheers buck
buck06- Seasoned Contributor
- Number of posts : 168
Registration date : 2009-01-14
Re: smash or not to smash
I would keep it as found, theres no point smashing it to pieces unless your going to melt down the gold, its up to you
gollstar- Contributor Plus
- Number of posts : 697
Registration date : 2009-04-15
Re: smash or not to smash
leave it on the bar Bourkey,next time frogs over it will end up on the deck and ya won,t have to make the decision, super ??? WHAT PLUMBER NEEDS THAT !!!!! how much an hour ?
mungass- Contributor Plus
- Number of posts : 209
Age : 58
Registration date : 2008-10-23
Re: smash or not to smash
Of interest, a 2-handed specimen recently found in California:
http://www.findmall.com/read.php?27,1178530
Yank-Aussie Prospecting Forum
Big Rock!
Posted by: Digger Bob
Date: March 23, 2010 03:38PM
A recent find in Northern California. No details yet as to how it was found or how much gold is in it. It could have been eyeballed sunbaking on a gravel bank!
But it shows they are still out there!
Digger Bob
http://www.nuggethunting.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=7062
These ones were found in that same area years ago:
http://www.californiahistory.com/dogtown.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recreational_gold_mining
The largest true California gold nugget, known as the "Dogtown nugget," weighed 54 troy pounds (20 kg), and was found in Magalia, California. A 195 pound troy (73 kg) mass of gold mixed with quartz was also found....In April 1859 a gigantic 54(Troy)pound(648 ounces) gold nugget was discovered on the slopes of Sawmill Peak just across the canyon of the West Branch of the Feather River from Dogtown. Up to that time it was the largest gold nugget ever discovered in the world...A 195 pound troy (2340 ounces) mass of gold mixed with quartz was also found.
http://www.goldnuggetmuseum.com/gold_nugget_days.php
Day of Big Nuggets
http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1915&dat=18900801&id=WvEgAAAAIBAJ&sjid=F3QFAAAAIBAJ&pg=4545,928891
http://www.findmall.com/read.php?27,1178530
Yank-Aussie Prospecting Forum
Big Rock!
Posted by: Digger Bob
Date: March 23, 2010 03:38PM
A recent find in Northern California. No details yet as to how it was found or how much gold is in it. It could have been eyeballed sunbaking on a gravel bank!
But it shows they are still out there!
Digger Bob
http://www.nuggethunting.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=7062
These ones were found in that same area years ago:
http://www.californiahistory.com/dogtown.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recreational_gold_mining
The largest true California gold nugget, known as the "Dogtown nugget," weighed 54 troy pounds (20 kg), and was found in Magalia, California. A 195 pound troy (73 kg) mass of gold mixed with quartz was also found....In April 1859 a gigantic 54(Troy)pound(648 ounces) gold nugget was discovered on the slopes of Sawmill Peak just across the canyon of the West Branch of the Feather River from Dogtown. Up to that time it was the largest gold nugget ever discovered in the world...A 195 pound troy (2340 ounces) mass of gold mixed with quartz was also found.
http://www.goldnuggetmuseum.com/gold_nugget_days.php
Day of Big Nuggets
http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1915&dat=18900801&id=WvEgAAAAIBAJ&sjid=F3QFAAAAIBAJ&pg=4545,928891
Beer Beeper- Contributor Plus
- Number of posts : 252
Registration date : 2008-12-15
Re: smash or not to smash
I found a piece of quartz about 2 inches long with gold through it. It had broken into 2 pieces. Smash it they said. so I broke one piece and ended up with basically tiny pieces of gold that you wouldnt waste your time looking at.
The other piece I left intact and cleaned with Alibrite. The quartz and the gold came up a treat and certainly worth stopping to look at.
The moral of the story - think about what you want to achieve with your gold. If you feel there is a large intact nugget that is worth looking at then smash it, but if you are only left with dust or small nuggets then from a visual perspective leave it as it, give it a good clean and then you will have something to show. Cleaning it may show other veins of interest
Jeff
The other piece I left intact and cleaned with Alibrite. The quartz and the gold came up a treat and certainly worth stopping to look at.
The moral of the story - think about what you want to achieve with your gold. If you feel there is a large intact nugget that is worth looking at then smash it, but if you are only left with dust or small nuggets then from a visual perspective leave it as it, give it a good clean and then you will have something to show. Cleaning it may show other veins of interest
Jeff
dont smash it
smashed one of my specimens still regret it check it out in my gallery photos only got about 8grms of gold out of it wish i could have left it alone thats what u get for rushing into things .I would do what Jeff said clean it with pickling paste or similar and see how much gold u can see Goinbush
goinbush- Good Contributor
- Number of posts : 124
Age : 67
Registration date : 2009-01-31
Re: smash or not to smash
GB...just took a look, that's one I would not have smashed!
trouble is, Buck has already smashed his somewhat...may aswell put it out of its misery
trouble is, Buck has already smashed his somewhat...may aswell put it out of its misery
Guest- Guest
Re: smash or not to smash
yep.......................
goinbush- Good Contributor
- Number of posts : 124
Age : 67
Registration date : 2009-01-31
Re: smash or not to smash
Gday
The decision whether to crush a specimen or keep it intact really depends on what you want to do with it, if you have a nice looking piece that a mineral/specimen collector would like for display then they are quite commercial and often can demand higher prices than plain nuggets so you would want to keep it intact if you want to sell it, once you crack it open then you may as well finish the job.
If you want to just keep it yourself to look at from time to time then thats up to you, if its butt ugly and you think that you would rather sell it then you are better off crushing it and reducing it to fines, I would do this on regular basis and just bag the fines up until I had an amount that was worth selling maybe an oz or two, then whack it on ebay at gold price, there are a few people who like to buy this sort of stuff to mess about with, melt it down when they have enough or make miners bars from it and on sell it etc.
The biggest problem with selling specimen nuggets on somewhere like ebay is almost all buyers want to know how much gold is in it, in that case you have to do a specific gravity test so that they have some idea, when I have had a lot of specimens that I wanted to get rid of I would usually just make an educated guess and start the sale at a low price, some you could get a little more for than the gold content and others you would get less, but one time I had a buyer complain that I had ripped him off as all my weights were wrong and that they didnt contain the amount of gold that I said, I answered back that no worries I will give him a full refund including his postage, and explained that on small specimens I make an educated guess and sell them more for collectors for their intrinsic value rather than gold content, and he paid way less for them than I wanted to get anyway so I thought he had done ok, and also didnt mind if he sent them back.
Of course he didnt send them back for a refund as he had more than likely crushed them, and then left me crappy feedback over it, so lesson learnt, from then on I just crushed them it was far easier and you get less grief, some people also get the hump because it looked much bigger in the photo and they are dissapointed when it turns up and it hasnt grown from the half gram piece in the photo to the ten ounce slug that they percieved it to be.
At the end of the day it is really far less grief if you just collect up your finds for the season and then ship it off to the refiners, if you have good friends or prospect with a mate then you can put in the gold together and share the costs of refining and then divvy the cash when you get it.
If you feel that the specimen you have may contain a large solid mass of gold inside it because it seems way heavier than it looks or you have done a specific gravity test and you know this to be the case, then you can always put it in acid to dissolve the stone/quartz or whatever, if you are wrong about it being a solid mass and I would have to say from experience, more often than not you will just end up with lots of fines and bits and pieces so you are no better off than if you crushed it, you still have the gold and it is still saleable one way or the other.
A specimen that is showing a lot of surface gold and is nice to look at in the quartz or ironstone is worth keeping, I have had specimens that have contained several types of rock attached to them and they are very sought after by collectors, but if you are not sure what to do with it just ask about for advice as you may have something that is worth way more than you think, I have heard many stories of people smashing up crystalline gold specimens too, as a lot of you would have heard this type of gold is highly collectable and can fetch many times the gold price, so if you are not sure what you have just ask about or post some photos and someone will be able to help you with it.
cheers
stayyerAU
The decision whether to crush a specimen or keep it intact really depends on what you want to do with it, if you have a nice looking piece that a mineral/specimen collector would like for display then they are quite commercial and often can demand higher prices than plain nuggets so you would want to keep it intact if you want to sell it, once you crack it open then you may as well finish the job.
If you want to just keep it yourself to look at from time to time then thats up to you, if its butt ugly and you think that you would rather sell it then you are better off crushing it and reducing it to fines, I would do this on regular basis and just bag the fines up until I had an amount that was worth selling maybe an oz or two, then whack it on ebay at gold price, there are a few people who like to buy this sort of stuff to mess about with, melt it down when they have enough or make miners bars from it and on sell it etc.
The biggest problem with selling specimen nuggets on somewhere like ebay is almost all buyers want to know how much gold is in it, in that case you have to do a specific gravity test so that they have some idea, when I have had a lot of specimens that I wanted to get rid of I would usually just make an educated guess and start the sale at a low price, some you could get a little more for than the gold content and others you would get less, but one time I had a buyer complain that I had ripped him off as all my weights were wrong and that they didnt contain the amount of gold that I said, I answered back that no worries I will give him a full refund including his postage, and explained that on small specimens I make an educated guess and sell them more for collectors for their intrinsic value rather than gold content, and he paid way less for them than I wanted to get anyway so I thought he had done ok, and also didnt mind if he sent them back.
Of course he didnt send them back for a refund as he had more than likely crushed them, and then left me crappy feedback over it, so lesson learnt, from then on I just crushed them it was far easier and you get less grief, some people also get the hump because it looked much bigger in the photo and they are dissapointed when it turns up and it hasnt grown from the half gram piece in the photo to the ten ounce slug that they percieved it to be.
At the end of the day it is really far less grief if you just collect up your finds for the season and then ship it off to the refiners, if you have good friends or prospect with a mate then you can put in the gold together and share the costs of refining and then divvy the cash when you get it.
If you feel that the specimen you have may contain a large solid mass of gold inside it because it seems way heavier than it looks or you have done a specific gravity test and you know this to be the case, then you can always put it in acid to dissolve the stone/quartz or whatever, if you are wrong about it being a solid mass and I would have to say from experience, more often than not you will just end up with lots of fines and bits and pieces so you are no better off than if you crushed it, you still have the gold and it is still saleable one way or the other.
A specimen that is showing a lot of surface gold and is nice to look at in the quartz or ironstone is worth keeping, I have had specimens that have contained several types of rock attached to them and they are very sought after by collectors, but if you are not sure what to do with it just ask about for advice as you may have something that is worth way more than you think, I have heard many stories of people smashing up crystalline gold specimens too, as a lot of you would have heard this type of gold is highly collectable and can fetch many times the gold price, so if you are not sure what you have just ask about or post some photos and someone will be able to help you with it.
cheers
stayyerAU
Guest- Guest
Re: smash or not to smash
Very good post stayyerAU. I made the terrible mistake with fuzzy thinking at the time by crushing and melting many ounces of reef(vein) gold I hand chiseled out that was in a type of calcrete-caliche-kaolin hard chalk material with quartz. It looked like some crystals and I ruined about 1/2 of its numistic value by crushing.
The making of a new Gold Specimen Ring(with small inlaid nuggets), a stunning beaut:
Posted March 25, 2010, 02:37 PM Another hunting partner of Lucky's and mine wanted a ring from a stone that was supplied by Gus in Idaho. I must say, his specimen gold is absolutely top notch, as good as there is! Pictures are from the start to finish of this ring. I also used a bit of this for the side inlay. Enjoy and thanks for looking
New ring with Gold from Gus-For another good hunting buddy
http://arizonaoutback.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=8509
The making of a new Gold Specimen Ring(with small inlaid nuggets), a stunning beaut:
Posted March 25, 2010, 02:37 PM Another hunting partner of Lucky's and mine wanted a ring from a stone that was supplied by Gus in Idaho. I must say, his specimen gold is absolutely top notch, as good as there is! Pictures are from the start to finish of this ring. I also used a bit of this for the side inlay. Enjoy and thanks for looking
New ring with Gold from Gus-For another good hunting buddy
http://arizonaoutback.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=8509
Beer Beeper- Contributor Plus
- Number of posts : 252
Registration date : 2008-12-15
Re: smash or not to smash
Gday Beer Beeper
Im not much of a jewellery man myself but that I like! , there are some very clever and skilled people about thats for sure, I enjoy looking at things that are intricate and I have an appreciation for the effort and skill that goes into them.
Thanks for sharing that with us.
cheers
stayyerAU
Im not much of a jewellery man myself but that I like! , there are some very clever and skilled people about thats for sure, I enjoy looking at things that are intricate and I have an appreciation for the effort and skill that goes into them.
Thanks for sharing that with us.
cheers
stayyerAU
Guest- Guest
Re: smash or not to smash
where is the photo ol cock !!!!!!! hassa booked a cabin in your province, commin to steal your gold........................
mungass- Contributor Plus
- Number of posts : 209
Age : 58
Registration date : 2008-10-23
Re: smash or not to smash
G'day buck06.
No gold specimen we find should be smashed to extract its gold content.You've heard the saying;Some ones so called trash,ends up being someone else s treasure.Specimens containing gold are,as we all know,rarer than gold nuggets.To a collector,a nice looking gold specimen could fetch twice that of its gold content+.
cheers kon61
No gold specimen we find should be smashed to extract its gold content.You've heard the saying;Some ones so called trash,ends up being someone else s treasure.Specimens containing gold are,as we all know,rarer than gold nuggets.To a collector,a nice looking gold specimen could fetch twice that of its gold content+.
cheers kon61
Last edited by kon61 on Sun Mar 28, 2010 7:21 pm; edited 1 time in total
kon61- Management
- Number of posts : 4993
Registration date : 2010-02-19
Re: smash or not to smash
Yes and no Kon, it depends on what the specimen looks like and probably to a degree gold content.
I had a heap of small bits of quartz and iron stone with absolutely no visible gold at all. Worthless to a specimen collector and worthless to me. But smashed, panned off and melted I have a 1/2 oz button of gold that has value and while not a nugget is quite spiffy to look at!
I had a heap of small bits of quartz and iron stone with absolutely no visible gold at all. Worthless to a specimen collector and worthless to me. But smashed, panned off and melted I have a 1/2 oz button of gold that has value and while not a nugget is quite spiffy to look at!
Guest- Guest
Re: smash or not to smash
Hi there Madtuna.
Yep,spot on.You got me on that one.I should have frased it as,'Nice looking,visible,gold specimen'.
Cheers kon61
Yep,spot on.You got me on that one.I should have frased it as,'Nice looking,visible,gold specimen'.
Cheers kon61
kon61- Management
- Number of posts : 4993
Registration date : 2010-02-19
Re: smash or not to smash
Gday
If a specimen does not have any visible gold then its just a rock and I tend to lose interest in them fairly quickly unless the said rock is quartz and makes a squark when I run the coil over it, then of course my attention is turned to what may be in the rock, you guessed it bash the said rock to reveal its contents.
Ever tried to sell a lump of rock to anyone?
Further to this I am in the habit of collecting heavy and noisy hot rocks too, and the reason for this is sometimes they are ironstone specimens that contain gold, and can also be meteorites which are valuable too so give it a clean with water and have a good look before you bash it.
cheers
stayyerAU
If a specimen does not have any visible gold then its just a rock and I tend to lose interest in them fairly quickly unless the said rock is quartz and makes a squark when I run the coil over it, then of course my attention is turned to what may be in the rock, you guessed it bash the said rock to reveal its contents.
Ever tried to sell a lump of rock to anyone?
Further to this I am in the habit of collecting heavy and noisy hot rocks too, and the reason for this is sometimes they are ironstone specimens that contain gold, and can also be meteorites which are valuable too so give it a clean with water and have a good look before you bash it.
cheers
stayyerAU
Guest- Guest
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