# Refining gold ore concentrates



## dukebry (Aug 18, 2008)

Has anyone ever purchased a bag of concentrated gold ore and tried to refine it? I know of a couple of mining operations who sell their concentrates over the web for people to buy and practice panning at home. Supposedly there is some gold in the sand. Most of those mining operators just look for the free milled gold and rely on gravity to remove it but I wonder if you were to take those concentrates and grind to a very fine mesh and then digest it and precipitate it out (or some other leach method), how much more gold can actually be gotten? I wonder how much gold these guys leave on the table by only looking for the free milled gold?


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## NuggetHuntingFool (Aug 18, 2008)

Probably not much, if any... They aren't idiots and know what they're selling most of the time.


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## SapunovDmitry (Aug 18, 2008)

Try electronic scrap. It is simply the same "ore", (percentage is the same) but you know that you WILL get values from it.

Or read C.W.Ammen's book.There is a PDF version of it on the forum. This is my favourite book, somewhere it is even better than Hoke's (electrolysis).


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## OMG (Aug 20, 2008)

I would guess that the people selling the bags just start out with a bag of ordinary gravel, then mix in a known amount of gold and sell it like that.


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## Seamus (Aug 22, 2008)

The best concentrates to pan out are the ones you find in the hills yourself. If your really good at prospecting then you can have a big payday without buying bags of dirt from someone else. Ofcource you would have to have the time and gas money to go out in the first place. So it might work out about the same in the long run. Find out who has the best concentrates for sale in your area.


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## Shecker (Sep 18, 2008)

Another thought would be to become really good at refining black sands and offer this service to placer miners in your area. Then they do the actually work of mining for you.

Randy in Gunnison


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## JustinNH (Sep 27, 2008)

Theres a place in Alaska that sells 'cons' and will send you free samples to get you to buy. They sent me two batches, which had a surprising amount of gold for a free sample.... but the concentrates as they were called were all lighter sands and the gold pieces = someone dug some beach sand and salted it with gold. But hey, it was free


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