# IS THIS GOLD???



## Duke Ardelis (Jul 19, 2011)

Hi all,

I think i found gold in some sand from a water well i drilled, it is some 6 meters deep,I pulled a few hands of sand from it, and found something that looks like gold, but I'm not sure.

I did some tests i found online, and all were positive, I sent lazersteve some samples to be tested but I know if he got them since he's not active lately.

-does the sand have magnetic black sand?
YES
-do the leaves bend?
YES
does it leave a yellow trace on a white cotton rag?
YES
does it smell like sulfur?
NO
does it have a cubic structure under a magnifying glass?
NO, it has a more smooth structure, like a flat stone, only in gold color.

I dipped one in 19% HCL i bought in the supermarket,to see if it is pyrite, and it melted after about 24 hours,not like it should immediately, but I read later that HCL i combination with tap water will dissolve gold.

After all this i decided to go the some jewelers, but non of them has ever seen unrefined gold in flakes, so i took it to a refinery of precious metals, but they had never seen gold in this form ether, and they need about 200 ml for testing!!!!!!!!!!
Correct me if I'm wrong but that almost 4 kg of gold.

I don't have the cash needed to buy testing equipment, and on top of that no one sells in my country.

So please take a look at the pics, and tell me what do you think, I can email you the pictures if you cant see them.

I need to be 100% sure this is gold before I go and buy the equipment i need, I know its just around 400 bucks with transport, but at the moment for me that's a fortune, so I cant afford to risk borrowing the money if it is not real gold.

This was taken out of the sand using a pair of tweezers. 























Any help identifying what this relay is, is much appreciated.

Thanks in advance.


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## Anonymous (Jul 19, 2011)

I have panned,sluiced,and dredged for gold in quite a few places,and that "looks" like gold.Of course I am only looking at a picture.
You WILL receive a result from Lazersteve,and it will be accurate....you just have to give him time to recieve the sample,and run some tests on it.
In the meantime,I highly suggest that you do not speak to anyone else about this.The last thing you want is people on your property trying to dig it up.


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## Acid_Bath76 (Jul 19, 2011)

Do you really need to ship it off and have it tested to determine if it's gold? Or did he want to determine the exact quality of the gold? Don't they make test kits for that as well though?


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## Anonymous (Jul 19, 2011)

I think the problem is,his resources,and his finances.He made the right choice by sending it to Steve.But I am sure that the anxiety must be killing him.I showed the pics to my wife and kids and they freaked out......I cannot imagine what this guy is going through.
Duke if you read this.....please just have a little patience,and don't talk to anyone else about it please.You may be sitting on a literal gold mine! I for one will be keeping a close eye on this thread.


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## Duke Ardelis (Jul 19, 2011)

I know steve will answer when he gets the samples, and finds some time to test them. This is my first gold find, I've been searching for it for some time now.

Acid, unfortunately in my country there is no one that tests gold (or they just wont do it for me, like jewelers), and I can not afford a testing kit plus shipping is aprox $100, and i want to save as much money as I can so that i can buy a blue bowl,and a few more stuff like a small sluice box ect. 

I just wanted to know could this be gold, from more experienced people, so that i can hope that the result will be positive :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

Thanks Mic. You are right the anxiety is killing me, I just want to know.

After a long time I could solve some of my money related problem, and quit my stinking job,something else was written here, but i removed it due to cursing rules.


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## martyn111 (Jul 19, 2011)

Have you tried 'panning' this material? 
If you have how did it behave in the pan?


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## philddreamer (Jul 19, 2011)

I've also done some dredging & panning, like Mic, & they look like very thin gold flakes to me. Here's a pic of some that I recently recovered. 
You have some options that won't cost you much for recovering more of the "gold", like making a sluice from 4 foot of 4" corrogated plastic pipe, 2 nails & a 4 foot wood plank.

I hope the test result is positive.

Phil

P.S. 
I found mine, it's about 15 years old I still had it in the backyard.


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## Palladium (Jul 19, 2011)

You said you had hcl. Try adding hcl and bleach to a small piece. Then test the solution with stannous chloride. Though the whole piece probably won't dissolve it should dissolve enough so that you can at least test for the presence of gold in solution.


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## nickvc (Jul 19, 2011)

Well I know they say that all that glitters isn't gold but that sure looks like it to me.
If you live in a part of the world where you would expect to find it and a part of that country where it's not uncommon I think you may have hit pay dirt.
I'm not sure where you are but if you want me to organise an assay on the samples let me know, fire assays are cheap and quick here so just get me a gram and I'll get it done for you with pleasure and at no cost to you...just remember your poor uncle Nick when your rich...lmao.
Just send me a pm if you want me to organise it and I'll send you the details,I don't need yours I can post the results on here if you would prefer to be discrete.
I wish you luck in this and look forward to hearing the results.


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## element47 (Jul 19, 2011)

Love that corrugated drainpipe, Phil! Very clever!


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## philddreamer (Jul 19, 2011)

Thanks element!

It was not my creation; I learned it from someone else, I don't remember who... but it works. I mainly used it to recover the gold from my concentrates after my dredging trips to California.

I don't know how much dirt Duke went thru to pick those flakes, but I think he could be sitting on something good. This little set up can help him get started
washing some of that dirt.


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## eeTHr (Jul 19, 2011)

Duke---

There are only two metalic elements that are colored, copper which is reddish, and gold wihich is yellowish.

Look at it under a magnifying glass. If it looks like a piece of used yellow chewing gum, it's probably placer gold.

It could be an alloy, like brass, but it's not likely unless you drilled into a brass object which was buried down there.

Take a hammer and polish the face of the head, and get a polished piece of steel. Put a sample piece of the material on the steel, and press down on it with the hammer head. If it flattens and spreads out easily, it's gold. If it crushes into powder, it's not. Brass should flatten a little, but not easily, and break if you crush it a lot.


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## darshevo (Jul 20, 2011)

eeThr's test is a good one. Being that drilling was taking place it could be brass shavings from a bushing going south. Color looks more like gold to me though (plus like everyone else here I want it to be gold for you :mrgreen: )


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## Harold_V (Jul 20, 2011)

Duke Ardelis said:


> ect.


ect is not a word. Did you mean etc.?

Don't get too excited about your find. I'm of the opinion you have mica---which is commonly found in sand. If it has been stained by rust, it will very much resemble gold in appearance, but will not have the ductility of gold, in spite of being quite soft. To determine if it's gold, or not, do two things, and don't worry about the notion that gold will dissolve in HCl. That doesn't happen easily. 

Soak a few pieces in HCl, to see if they get leached of color. I expect they will, and will be fee of color once they do. They will remain as they were inserted in acid, but will have been leached of color. 

Place one of the pieces under your fingernail and try to crush it. If it breaks up in small pieces, sure as hell, it's mica. If it dents, but remains intact, fairly good chance it's gold. 

Harold


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## Duke Ardelis (Jul 20, 2011)

Thanks for all your help, I'm new to all of this and I must say I'm touched with your kindness.

I found the same material, again by accident in a dried out river where i came to dig some sand for my kids sandbox, looking at the sand i saw that the sand in the sandbox is the same as the one i pumped out of the well, after a a minute a found a few gold flakes, I know that rivers carry gold, and the same river flue trough my back yard a few hundred years ago, that gives me reason to believe it might be gold. 

I haven't tried panning it, I will take a picture of how i do it, the "cavemen style".

I like your sluice phil, i will try to make one like that.

Since to me it seams a lot of gold like material in a small amount of sand (two handful's of sand), and the amount you see in the picture is just a small portion that i could take out with a pair of tweezers, about the same amount I gave to a jeweler to test, but he said he couldn't do anything with it cause i kept it in a glass vial with water, so he threw it away, there is more that escapes me when I try to grab it, and smaller pieces that I just cant grab since they are too small.
I was thinking of using the blue bowl directly on the sand, could this work, or do i need to sluice it first?

Special thanks to nickvc, I just got word from steve, he got the sample i sent him, so now i just have to wait for him to say it's....  or  
I will remember that when i get rich, it might take a while judging by my current situation, but if it happens before I develop dementia I will surely remember you. :lol: 

I will post the test results when get them.

Thank you all, you made my day.


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## Duke Ardelis (Jul 20, 2011)

Harlod, 

Yes you are right "ect" was misspelled, I wanted to say "et cetera" or "etc".

About HCl, this is what i did, and what happened: 

I took a 19% HCL from the supermarket, and poured it in to a small bowl, blue in color so that i can see what happens, I placed a few flakes inside, after a few hours nothing happened, so i vent to sleep, when i woke up the result was disappointing to me, the "gold" dissolved, and what was left was something glass like, like little flakes of glass, or something transparent or half transparent, I thought it to be bad.
This was a month ago.

Please tell me is this what happens when the material is gold or if the material is mica?

Thanks.


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## Harold_V (Jul 20, 2011)

Duke Ardelis said:


> Harlod,
> 
> Yes you are right "ect" was misspelled, I wanted to say "et cetera" or "etc".



Thanks for your understanding. We try to be deadly accurate on this forum, to prevent mishaps that can be associated with loose terminology. While your slight error is insignificant, for those that don't use English as a first language it can be troublesome. 

I really appreciate your cooperative attitude. 



> Please tell me is this what happens when the material is gold or if the material is mica?


Sadly, it's mica. I was really encouraged to read that a river ran in that area at one time. I processed a considerable amount of gold that came from just such a deposit. Sadly, in this case, it appears that you don't have gold---but that may not be true of all of the material. 

Mica is not very heavy. It won't respond the way gold does when panning----so try to sort what you've recovered by panning. Mica should get washed out readily, while gold should remain. If this has been discussed, I'll come to understand. I have not yet read all of the posts in regards to this thread, but I will do so immediately after posting these comments. 

Harold


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## Duke Ardelis (Jul 20, 2011)

I figured it was to good to be true, but what can one do but hope.

It's up to steve to make the final blow, and than I'm back to square one.


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## pathfinder_05 (Aug 12, 2011)

Following these posts has been like reading a good book.

A good beginning, an excellent rush of excitement in the middle, then unfortunately, a sad ending - although with a promise of a sequel.

I'm sure there are many fingers still crossed for you!


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## rewalston (Aug 12, 2011)

philddreamer said:


> Thanks element!
> 
> It was not my creation; I learned it from someone else, I don't remember who... but it works. I mainly used it to recover the gold from my concentrates after my dredging trips to California.
> 
> ...


There was a gentleman I talked to years ago from the Gold Prospectors Association of America (GPAA) his name was Buzzard, he called the pipe you're using a "poop tube" works great with concentrates.

Rusty


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## Anonymous (Aug 12, 2011)

That sounds just like ole' George. He was an awesome man,and greatly missed.I've heard some bad things about GPAA and LDMA since he passed.It's ashame,tom and perry seem really nice on tv,but it appears that they have a bad reputation in real life.But I have never met them so I don't know for sure.
BTW what was the verdict on the material that started this thread?


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## Geo (Aug 13, 2011)

ive used one of those many times (corrugated pipe) and one thing i can tell you is gold sticks to it like it was glued down.you have to stand it up on its end to wash all the gold out. :lol:


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