# 70 ounce button



## Reno Chris (May 18, 2014)

Here is some inspiration - a 70+ ounce button of raw, unrefined gold. Probably around 85 to 90 percent pure. Taken at a mine in California several years ago. 
When you get up to 70 ounces, you're starting to talk about real money!
Think about how many computers would have to be disassembled to make 70 ounces.
Fun stuff.


----------



## butcher (May 18, 2014)

I am curios to the size of the pile of rock this came from.

Real money? You mean you are talking about real Gold, that money is getting more worthless every day.


----------



## Reno Chris (May 18, 2014)

This is probably the result of treatment of something like 200 tons of rock.


----------



## justinhcase (May 18, 2014)

I take it that was just the tip of the Rock-Burg..LOL
How big a cone mold where they using and how big was the slag layer on top.
When I was in S Africa I saw some con molds you could stand in .
They seemed to like a Pyramid as most of the small one's I see are a cone.Probably much easier to make a Pyramid in a large size.
Thank's for the Photo that would make a very nice door stop..


----------



## g_axelsson (May 18, 2014)

That is a really.... small hand! 70 ounces would be about 8 cm wide cone. Those nails... not a miners hand, looks like a girl is holding the cone. All for the look of it. :mrgreen: 

Thanks for sharing!

Göran


----------



## Irons (May 18, 2014)

g_axelsson said:


> That is a really.... small hand! 70 ounces would be about 8 cm wide cone. Those nails... not a miners hand, looks like a girl is holding the cone. All for the look of it. :mrgreen:
> 
> Thanks for sharing!
> 
> Göran



I was thinking the same thing. No dirty or chipped fingernails there. :mrgreen:


----------



## Reno Chris (May 18, 2014)

It was a lady who worked for the mine who was holding the button - those are not my fat, grubby fingers. She worked in some technical capacity, she was not a miner, but she was not just a secretary. I cant remember her position there, but she was very familiar with the different phases of mining and milling. When I graduated with my degree in mine engineering, there were several female engineering students in the engineering program.

The cone mold for it was maybe 12 inches deep and about the same in diameter. I don't know the amount of slag as I was not there when they poured it, but I would imagine only an inch or so as its a melt of the free gold they collected in the process. It was a non cyanide operation, gravity and flotation only. When I used to pour buttons at a mine I worked at in Nevada, it was a heap leach cyanide and the gold-silver was caught in a filter press with a good amount of diatomaceous earth, so the slag was probably 5 times the volume of the metal. 

Here is a picture of some of the richer ore from that mine.


----------

