Help! Deep Creek at Gympie find…

Found this weekend at Deep Creek fossicking area, Gympie. Not the yellow I was hoping for, but a silver colour emerged? It’s heavy, natural shape, and a good shine despite being so lumpy. I found it covered in red/black tarnish, and it cleaned up ok with some elbow grease. Any ideas would be helpful! Thank you

Thanks Dave! Will have a go! Have heard about people finding silver there… Hopefully my first find isn’t lead lol!

Specific gravity of pure silver sits at 10.4  Specific gravity of pure lead is 11.34 meaning an identical in size/shape silver nugget to that of lead, would almost be of the same weight as that of lead (less a tenth or so lighter). Silvers melting point stands at 960 degrees centigrade, as compared to that of lead 327.5 degrees centigrade.
3 possibilities that give a silver shine when dug straight out of the ground, a nugget of Tin, Silver or Platinum.
If as you say it is quite heavy, see if you could match it with a similar in size piece of lead & if you find that your metallic piece is heavier than that of similar in size/shape piece of lead, then you most likely have a platinum nugget in your hands.
The reason I mentioned tin, is because it has a specific gravity of 7.2 to 7.5 (having reasonable weight to it, similar to that of pure iron) & almost always comes out bright silver in colour when found as a nugget in its natural state. Same can be said to that of a nugget of platinum.
If you find that your nugget weight is of same or close to that of a similar in size/shape piece of lead, then your nugget most likely consists of it being of silver content.
Tin is also found to be slightly magnetic in composition, whereas silver exhibits very weak magnetic effects, with pure gold & platinum being non magnetic altogether.

Kon  

Thank you Kon! No lead on hand unfortunately. I have weighted it now, 3.5g. I have done a couple of home tests that I’ve found online which I’m not sure would fly in a proper evaluation haha. The ice test found the nugget sinking quite quickly into an ice cube, quicker than a piece of copper I put to match it against. And a bleach test, where the nugget became tarnished in a matter of seconds of having a spot of bleach applied. I have attached photos where you can see my experiments. I can also confirm either very little to no magnetic response.
So seeing as tin and lead have a significantly lower melting point than silver, that should give me the answer if I try the soldering iron experiment. Hope that the iron we have has temp control, if not I’ll find one that does!

Oh great thank you! Will report back. Not sure all this typing is worth the assumed $3.50 in silver, but I’ve learned a lot, and I appreciate it!

I would lean towards silver from what Kon has told you and the fact that the layer covering it is highly unlikely for the other choices. Lets hope I am wrong and it is Platinum.