Artisanal gold mining in developing nation

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cptn.b-nn-tt

cptn.b-nn-tt

Member
Joined
Jan 28, 2024
Messages
5
Location
Washington
Morning, haven't handled gold before and would appreciate some advice.

I work in a developing nation near a village that has a lot of artisanal gold mining. Raw gold is available to buy at a few different levels of processed. I have acquired a "gram" of some of the less processed kind, it looks to me to just be mechanically crushed out of the ore and separated, maybe a bit of panning. I put it in a jar of water and shook and swirled it and it appears to be a fairly heavy metal. It doesn't have a lot of luster in its current state though. The seller requests I take this little sample home and test it, then when I see how good it is I can come back to him on my next tour in country and buy more. He's especially interested in understanding the process of testing, so that him and his cohorts can better understand their product when negotiating with the local gold buyers.

Checked into the laws around it and all good on both sides moving small amounts for personal collection, which is all it would ever be. Goal would be to collect maybe an ounce of it over the course of a year, drop some cash directly into the local economy which saves them from having to go through the gold buyer middlemen next town over, and if I can do it all with the mechanically sorted kind then that avoids them having to mess with mercury and smelting. Plus, it would justify getting myself one of those cool furnaces one day.

To determine what prices I should be paying, and to estimate how much I would need to reach whatever goal I set in the future, I need a way to test a gram of rubble that appears like it could be gold. If it can be done in a very inexpensive and portable way, that would allow for my bringing a kit in for the seller and teaching them how to check their own product more accurately too. Any insight would be very appreciated, thanks.

Will get you pictures tonight.
 
Is the artisanal Gold mining village in Washington, or in Africa? You didn't give that info. If in Africa, it is fraught with scams, so be weary. The miners should know the fineness of their product. If there is still gangue minerals attached, the value is decreased even further. If you are just trying to be a good soul, and drop some cash towards some less fortunate people, kudos. A lot can go into a deal, if you are trying to make a legitimate business deal, and not get taken advantage of. This will include assaying, and refining costs. On less then an ounce, it may not justify the cost to you.
 
Thanks for the warning. Yea this is not to be a legitimate business by any means. Just drop some cash, be supportive, learn a little about gold processing and testing. Mostly a hobby for me as I've always found small scale mining interesting, having grown up in the Rockies where there were a couple old towns full of stories, and with a few of my uncles running a hobby mine in the Yukon when the season allows. The goal of testing is so that I am not being completely ripped off only because I don't want to support scammers. If I can help them learn a technique for processing and/or testing that is less toxic than using mercury amalgamation all the better.

I hear you about the gangue minerals ect, am looking for a test that would be able to work around that and let me know generally how much gold content there is in the end. Put it in the jar of water and broke it up and there was a little bit of it but honestly not bad.
 
cptn.b-nn-tt said:
Thanks for the warning. Yea this is not to be a legitimate business by any means. Just drop some cash, be supportive, learn a little about gold processing and testing. Mostly a hobby for me as I've always found small scale mining interesting, having grown up in the Rockies where there were a couple old towns full of stories, and with a few of my uncles running a hobby mine in the Yukon when the season allows. The goal of testing is so that I am not being completely ripped off only because I don't want to support scammers. If I can help them learn a technique for processing and/or testing that is less toxic than using mercury amalgamation all the better.

I hear you about the gangue minerals ect, am looking for a test that would be able to work around that and let me know generally how much gold content there is in the end. Put it in the jar of water and broke it up and there was a little bit of it but honestly not bad.
Click to expand...
While Sharks test is a great field test, I feel the only way is an assay for determination of purity, and percentage of Au per ton of concentrates. Unfortunately, this has to occur on every small lot, to avoid being scammed, or just coming to a fair price. That is the problem of buying small lots.
As far as improving recovery and safety, it will cost considerable money to invest in either a table (cheapest option ), to a floatation cell ( more costly ), or a Cyanide plant ( probably easy to permit there, but could be the most costly, if proper procedures are not followed ). There was talk on another thread about this very subject. It can be found some where on this site. Long story short, I feel that their process could be best improved, by simply providing them with retorts, and the proper way to operate them. Unfortunately, traditional methods are hard to change.
Jason with Mount Baker Mining and Metals, has some videos where he took a table to some small village, to compare recovery rates. I don't know if they ever adopted the system or not, as there was no follow up to the current practice.
 
goldshark said:
Long story short, I feel that their process could be best improved, by simply providing them with retorts, and the proper way to operate them
Click to expand...
I have often wondered why this seems to be avoided. It has to be much better than the ways I have seen in videos where it is basically done by hand, with no PPE at all. It could easily be the first step to convincing the locals of the seriousness of the help being offered them, and still be a step in the right direction of providing them better protection than many of their current methods.

Back to the current issue of the OP.
 
Wow this is amazing info already thanks, will look into each method mentioned. Love learning about this.

Love to see the community is interested in improving the working conditions of the artisanal miners out here, really living up to the "Refiners Helping Each Other".

Thanks all
 
It does not look metallic so a simple test is smash it with a hammer , if it’s metal it will deform if it smashes it’s rocks.
 

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