# how pure is my gold?



## artart47 (Feb 25, 2014)

Hi friends!
I've always wondered how well my refining technique was working and how pure of a product it was producing.
Last week a guy told me that I should stop at Greenfield gold and coin, suburb of Milwaukee. he has a scanner gun and would check it for me.
I stopped in there a couple hours ago and talked alittle with the owner. I have the 50gram piece that I recently posted on "where are all the pictures?"
I was quite surprized! The gun displayed, gold 99.99%. He showed me that it said that the remaining impuities were silver,tin and that there appears to be a trace of cadmium amd tungsten.
Now I can strive to get that missing "9"
To my friends here! I owe this great feeling of accomplishment to your selflessness and generosity!
Thank you!
artart47 

p.s. How does it get cadmium? no jewelry, just electronics. just curious.


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## nickvc (Feb 25, 2014)

If its an xrf gun then it assumes certain things so I wouldnt worry, the chances are the balance impurities are from your water.


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## Lou (Feb 25, 2014)

I wouldn't trust the XRF gun to tell the difference between 99.5 and 99.95. Fire assay also lacks the precision. To see 4N you need spectroscopy.


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## artart47 (Feb 25, 2014)

Hey Lou!
Wow! I was under the imprssion that the gun was very accurate. so now I'm sad. What kind of place would have spectroscopy? per-haps some kind of metals business or testing lab ?
I'm curious. What is the cause of inaccuracy with the gun?
artart47


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## Geo (Feb 25, 2014)

XRF analyzes the surface of the metal where spectroscopy analyzes the metal itself. After the matter has been vaporized, a spectral analysis can be made on the particles. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser-induced_breakdown_spectroscopy


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## g_axelsson (Feb 25, 2014)

artart47 said:


> I'm curious. What is the cause of inaccuracy with the gun?
> artart47


Read this http://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=49&t=12763

If the XRF was exact then no one would mess around with fire assays.
You should have compared with a known 999+ reference, for example a Canadian maple leaf.
You should also have asked for how big the errors were on the XRF analyze.

Göran


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## artart47 (Feb 26, 2014)

Hi!
thanks for the info! very interesting. There was no cost for testing it, just an informal "let's see what the gun says"
artart47


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## Lou (Feb 26, 2014)

At most it's a useful screening tool. It can't be relied upon to make any determination of high purity.


American Analytical Labs in Akron Ohio has experience doing gold assays by difference ICP following the ISO method. We have a customer that needs all of their 4N gold shot certed that way.


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