need to know about specie

what are you better off doing with a specie? are you better off keeping it as one bit or taken the gold out off it?
cheers
stoppsy

Hi Stoppsy
Up to you ,but the way I go if there is a good show of visible gold and not too much inside the speci I keep it as it is, just a good clean up.
You will find species are rarer and in many cases more valuable with the host rock attached, the bigger the species get and the more gold locked inside and out the view the fewer buyers so in that case dollying up may be more suitable.
Cheers Mark
Ps if that gold your finding is rough and hacky and the speci sharp work up higher and take a shovel and pick you might be rewarded,also don't forget to detect over the holes your pulling nuggets from there may be more down there , best I did was three from one dig.

Leave it as a specimen Stoppsy.

I have 4 quartz specimens now and can't wait to find more. I reckon they look way better as a specimen than just a bit of gold sitting in a container.

Fishberley.

thanks guys, what's the best way to clean them up?

Gday Stoppsy, Id say Keep it As is and clean a bit. I got a 22g specimen piece this year and was advicsed to smash it with a hammer and pan the Gold off. Thankfully i didn't and recently soaked it in Alibrite for 3 days. The speccie is now revealing much more gold thruout the quartz n ironstone host rock. A specific gravity test done shows its got 14.3g of gold within. Cheers Evan

Depends on the speccie and what you intend to do with it.
Some are keepers where the quartz or host rock enhance the eye appeal but some are butt ugly and even the dolly pot shuts its eyes.

I have a stack of quartz speccies where only a minute bit of gold is visible and there is no eye appeal for me or a collector so its to the dolly pot and in with the rest and off to the refiner

Hey Stoppsy! Wheres the photo of it?
If it is from your last post of findings it looks to me like it is of a conglomerate makeup. It is hard to tell though.
If it is a conglomerate makeup I would break it up gently with a hammer. You should be left with a nice smooth shiny nugget.
Depending on how hard the matrix is this could be an easy option, but if its mega hard acid will do the trick.
Can you confirm the host rock for us.
Maxx

you can just see the little bit off gold out off the top.

Does your Camera have Macro mode ?

na just have a mobile phone wich sucks.

what sort of mobile phone is it? Most phones now have a macro setting. Mine does anyway, its a samsung. If you look at the camera settings you might see a flower icon (same as any other camera) or perhaps you should take the photo not so close then crop it so the nugget is bigger. Hmmmm, well i guess it all depends on your phone.

finaly got a beeter shot

much better! and yeah that's a keeper

madtuna the picture on top it's like sand stone but there's little specks along the side and i don't wont to clean it to much just incase the specks comes out. don't wont to be holding to much as the sand stone keeps comming off on to your hands. but there would have to be hard rock inside to be holding it together would there?
cheers
stoppsy

ahh mate...so it's not quartz? It might just be a nugget trapped in hard packed clay or what ever and in that case if it was me I'd be cleaning it and removing it.
Get your hands on a multi meter and place a probe on the specks and the other probe on the main nugget and you'll soon see if they are connected or not. You can always pan off the fines and chuck it in with your other fines and butt uglies for the refinery or melt them into a button or ingot.

Stoppsy thats a much better picture.

This is what I would do, soak in "Ali Brite" or similar, scrub of with tooth brush every day, keeping the fine dirt and grit after each brushing because it will contain fine gold. Keep adding this fine stuff to a container and after many specimans being cleaned you will end up with a nice collection of fine gold.

We sent a collection of nuggets and dollied specimens to be refined recently and also the collection of fines that had been saved from cleaning for awhile. To my supprise there was 20grams of fines when weighed to go with the rest.

So what I am saying is every time you clean nuggets or species keep the sediment and collect it. Kind of makes you wonder how much fine gold is in the ground immediatley around a nugget or specie espically.

cheers dave

madtuna wrote:ahh mate...so it's not quartz? It might just be a nugget trapped in hard packed clay or what ever and in that case if it was me I'd be cleaning it and removing it.
Get your hands on a multi meter and place a probe on the specks and the other probe on the main nugget and you'll soon see if they are connected or not. You can always pan off the fines and chuck it in with your other fines and butt uglies for the refinery or melt them into a button or ingot.

Good thinking out of the square Madtuna, I use the dam things at work all the time and never thought once of carrying out that test on a specimen, I have one good speci which is too nice to crush and wondered for ages about the gold being joined throughout.
Funny how the penny doesn't drop sometimes on what is an obvious solution.
Cheers Mark

thanks guys, i'v just removed the nugget and finaly broken down the dirt, the nugget is .73 grams and now just have to pan the rest.
cheers
stoppsy

just pan the the clay there was 3 very very very very small bits, you can't realy see them but it was worth it
cheers
stoppsy

good stuff bud!