Photos Of Gold When Discovered?

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Re: Photos Of Gold When Discovered?

Post by Desert Cruiser »

Mamato: Thanks for the link. I've always told people to stay away from Black Hills Gold because of the low gold content in the jewelry. I've always known about the alloys mixed with the gold to obtain the coloration. Now with all that being said -- it seems I may have misstated the reason for the cost of it. Knowing how many artisans have a hand in it's making and the processes that are required to make it --- well lets say it may be worth it! I won't be knocking it anymore! Thanks for the information.

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Re: Photos Of Gold When Discovered?

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Crystalline Gold -- what is it?

We owned 3 beautiful specimens of crystalline gold and sold them -- wish I had a photo of them. So I found some photos of specimens on the web. This first one is for sale by the owner and it's listed as Crystalline Gold ---

Image

Now this above sample (although a nice chunk of gold) is not crystalline gold! If you took the sample specimen that Jim Hatt posted a photo of and dropped it into a glass container of acid --- the matrix that was holding the gold (most likely quartz) would all be eatin away. and you'd have a nice sample of gold like the one above with little spires and spikes all over (very pretty indeed) but not crystalline gold. I've done this procedure myself so I know what it looks like and how it works. So why would they do this? To increase the value 3 fold of course. And if you didn't know any better you'd get stuck with it. Look closely -- see any crystals?

Now this sample specimen:

Image

The above specimen is the real deal --- crystalline gold! Heck an idiot could tell. It's got the gold crystals all over it. They always have that same shape (the crystals), some samples are larger and some are smaller but always the same shape with the same number of sides. This should be pretty easy to understand with the pictures above, yet they still try to sell samples as crystalline that are not the real thing.

Hope this helps

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Re: Photos Of Gold When Discovered?

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crystalline gold?

This was sold to me as crystalline gold, I am going to guess that it is not, based on the pictures above. It weighs about 4 oz and is 3 inches wide.

Image

Here is a close up of the left side

Image
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Re: Photos Of Gold When Discovered?

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Jim B: Without looking at it with a magnifying glass it's hard to tell. Some gold crystals are small! BUT there's a lot of this being sold that's not really the real thing. I'm sure you've looked closely at your sample. Does it have any gold crystals or are the only crystals in the quartz matrix? You should be able to tell.

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Re: Photos Of Gold When Discovered?

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Here's where I think all the misunderstanding comes from. Years ago when I bought 3 pieces of crystalline gold that had large crystals of gold in each of them -- I proceeded to show them to friends, and other prospectors we knew; including two people that were mining gold in the foothills of the Sierras and making a living from it, in fact more than a living from it. You know what they all told me --- I've never seen anything like that and didn't even know that gold formed into crystals. So very few people would know what it looks like?

I can see why -- it's extremely rare! It took me a long to time to find one photo of it on the interenet ---
Image

Ask yourself this, did you know it formed crystals? Have you ever seen this before? Probably not -- so when someone offers to sell crystalline gold to you, be careful and check it out closely. Even a small crystal would probably earn it's prominence as crystalline gold. On the other hand if it doesn't have any then it's not! Simple.

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Re: Photos Of Gold When Discovered?

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Jim B: That's a really nice specimen of gold in a matrix, please let us know when you've checked it out?

Just curious.

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Re: Photos Of Gold When Discovered?

Post by djui5 »

Jim_b wrote:crystalline gold?
What mine did that come from? That's beautiful :shock:
Jim Hatt

Re: Photos Of Gold When Discovered?

Post by Jim Hatt »

Well, let's see, djui's post will be 10 days old tomorrow, and we still haven't heard what mine that gold is from. Something tells me the chances of us ever finding out get slimmer and slimmer every day. There must be still some left in it. :P
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Re: Photos Of Gold When Discovered?

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I talked to Jim B about the specimen and he's just been too busy to get the magnifying glass and look at it, by the time he remembers (he may be trying to forget) he'll forget about this topic -- I'm probably fired now.

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Re: Photos Of Gold When Discovered?

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The simple answer is I don't know. I didn't see any crystals in the gold, some in the quartz. Here is a link to the story about how I got the gold. http://www.desertusa.com/mag99/sep/stories/gold.html I guess I should take the word crystallized out of the story.
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