# Arny Gold



## justinhcase (Dec 1, 2015)

A friend just sent me some photo's for gold taken in the resent conflict.Apparently they are doing the round's of some U.S. chap's
A little bit Impressive.
Just like to take this opportunity to remind any of her majesty's services I do a special rate for any one CQB Standard Level 1 or above.
:lol:


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## g_axelsson (Dec 1, 2015)

That's some huge bars! :shock: 
50 kilos each? More...?

Not that recent... at least pre 2013 when this was posted.
http://unhypnotize.com/other-conspiracies/98115-iraq-war-just-not-oil-new-leaked-pictures.html

The digital camera used in one of the pictures is also a good telltale it's not that recent.

My guess is that the pictures were taken during the Iraq war.

Göran


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## justinhcase (Dec 1, 2015)

My mate said he has had them for a while.
He has only just got back from mixed deployment so have no idea of the history.
Just thought it was good gold porn.


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## 4metals (Dec 1, 2015)

The color is not right nor is the texture of the bars so it's definitely not fine gold, possibly doré with high silver. Plus a bar that size is likely cast into a standard steel mold sized for 1000 ounces or about 70 pounds. (68.5) So that guy is sitting there with 200 pounds on his lap? 

Maybe it's me but something is off.


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## justinhcase (Dec 1, 2015)

4metals said:


> The color is not right nor is the texture of the bars so it's definitely not fine gold, possibly doré with high silver. Plus a bar that size is likely cast into a standard steel mold sized for 1000 ounces or about 70 pounds. (68.5) So that guy is sitting there with 200 pounds on his lap?
> 
> Maybe it's me but something is off.


Under Developed middle eastern country at best. would they have any real infrastructure to process ore apart from the most primitive way's?
lightly just about every possible constituent in some concentration.
But defiantly not the kind of Brass those boy's are use to collecting :lol:


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## jeneje (Dec 1, 2015)

I know this is about the gold bars, but you do know that putting those men faces on a public site like this is a danger to them and their families. The people they confiscated those bars from are likely to want them back by any means. If they can't get them back,,,,well,,,retribution is always possible. just a thought here. I know i would not want mine face up here associated with that gold.

Ken


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## justinhcase (Dec 1, 2015)

jeneje said:


> I know this is about the gold bars, but you do know that putting those men faces on a public site like this is a danger to them and their families. The people they confiscated those bars from are likely to want them back by any means. If they can't get them back,,,,well,,,retribution is always possible. just a thought here. I know i would not want mine face up here associated with that gold.
> 
> Ken


I do not think after near a decade of having extremely effective munitions dropped on them the original owners are in any shape to chase after any thing.
Let alone walk around the U.S. looking for what look to be very handy service men.
I am sure it all went to the reconstruction effort in any case. Not
I did get a bit paranoid so checked for any glairing problem's
There is one chap with a visible name tag but even with that it would be next to impossible for any one to find him even if they where in the U.S. army them self's .
With over 73,270,043 males, age 18–49 it is harder to find a soldier than most people think. even the U.K. with 156,940 it is still hard to find one face in the mas.


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## jeneje (Dec 1, 2015)

justinhcase said:


> jeneje said:
> 
> 
> > I know this is about the gold bars, but you do know that putting those men faces on a public site like this is a danger to them and their families. The people they confiscated those bars from are likely to want them back by any means. If they can't get them back,,,,well,,,retribution is always possible. just a thought here. I know i would not want mine face up here associated with that gold.
> ...


I find this somewhat disturbing, those kind of people are far reaching in today's world. What is more disturbing is your willingness to put those up without any concern for those men or their families. They were doing a job, like so many, many more has. Putting them up on a public site without asking their permission is not very smart in my opinion. 

Ken


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## jimdoc (Dec 1, 2015)

Who is "Arny"?


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## g_axelsson (Dec 1, 2015)

jeneje said:


> justinhcase said:
> 
> 
> > jeneje said:
> ...


Don't worry, these pictures are wide spread already. No harm in putting them up here that isn't already done. I did a picture search and google suggested "Iraqi gold" as a good search term and I got multiple pages of hits on just one picture with most of the others popping up on each page.

Göran


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## justinhcase (Dec 1, 2015)

jimdoc said:


> Who is "Arny"?


Arny is short for Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Over here we label a lot of people that are overly macho or military/swagger orientated as" Arny" or "Arny Like"
And just to point out a matter of force personnel security. I was watching a documentary on Britons first response interceptor station.
They had there frontline fighter pilot's interview on camera and the only security precaution that was needed was first name's only.
good enough for the RAF good enough for me.


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## Grelko (Dec 1, 2015)

justinhcase said:


> jimdoc said:
> 
> 
> > Who is "Arny"?



Arny gold :mrgreen: 

http://thumbs.dreamstime.com/z/statue-arnold-schwarzenegger-16464378.jpg


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## Smack (Dec 2, 2015)

It's just brass melted down from the ammo that's been spent there in all the fighting.


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## justinhcase (Dec 2, 2015)

Smack said:


> It's just brass melted down from the ammo that's been spent there in all the fighting.


They do not melt down brass in an operational theatre.
Can you see boy's picking up there spent's any where out side a firing range if they are putting weight down the range of engagement, they are not stopping to tidy up.
Sadam and his crony's lover gold. They had every thing form dung pot's to hole house's layered in the stuff.
If you are a despot it is the best way to hoard the wealth of the poor people you despot over.
let's not forget the illegal crude oil trade that ran before the trouble's, which if memory serve was old fashioned and depended literally on an exchange of such large bulk's of currency's of all kind's


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## justinhcase (Dec 2, 2015)

Grelko said:


> justinhcase said:
> 
> 
> > jimdoc said:
> ...


Ha HA HA .
L.M.F.S.O.
:lol:


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## shmandi (Dec 2, 2015)

Those guys really need to be Arny, holding 50-60kg bars in one hand. Of course I doubt that is gold.


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## NobleMetalWorks (Dec 2, 2015)

Very skeptical,

There is a lot of what looks like oxidized metal on the outside of the bar. If it was scale, anyone casting gold would most likely have hammered it off. 

Where you can see the pipe in the casting, it doesn't look right either, it's not pronounced enough, nor deep enough in my opinion.

Per 4Metals post, the color is all wrong. That could be a crummy camera, or bad lighting but considered the other questions about the metal, it's certainly not refined. It doesn't even look like it's 80% if it is gold.

The casting is also very rough, as if there is a lot of harder metals. Gold typically doesn't cast rough, even at 80% dore', it casts nice and smooth without all the huge dimples. As well, you can see harder metal on the top of the pipe in some of the pictures.

Where the men in the pictures are holding the bars, they are not supporting it in a way that would suggest the weight it would be, if gold. Certainly you wouldn't be holding a bar up for a picture, with your index finger extended along the side, you would be holding the bar with your strongest finger under the bar, not along side. Also, the pictures where the men have the bars on their legs and in hand, the bars are not depressing the skin, nor clothing in a way that would suggest 70 lbs at all. Even the picture where the man is supporting the bar by putting his elbow on his leg, you don't see any depression that would suggest the weight a gold bar would be.



justinhcase said:


> Under Developed middle eastern country at best. would they have any real infrastructure to process ore apart from the most primitive way's?



You also stated that:



justinhcase said:


> Sadam and his crony's lover gold. They had every thing form dung pot's to hole house's layered in the stuff.



If you cannot properly cast a gold bar, what would lead you to believe that they could cast dung pots or layer an entire house with gold? It seems you have a very skewed view of the Middle East. Dung Pots as you call them are not used except perhaps by the Bedouins, or desert nomads you might call them. As a matter of fact, people in the Middle East see Western Cultures that use toilet paper to wipe themselves after using the bathroom, as dirty. I think this would be more correct seeing how using toilet paper doesn't get you clean, it just wipes away most of the muck. In the Middle East, specially in DEVELOPED countries like Iraq, they use Bidets which wash everything away, the same type of Bidets that are used in only the very most expensive hotels in the United States. Bidets are more widely used in the Middle East than anywhere else in the world. 

It seems very extremely far fetched that they would not have the means to cast proper gold bars. These bars are horribly sloppy if they are real gold, you would almost have to go out of your way to cast such a crappy bar, and even at that considering the oxidation and the way it solidified it is my opinion if there is any gold, that it is in very small quantities. The color is wrong, the casting is wrong, the oxidation is wrong, etc.

I have spent a lot of time in the Middle East, I can tell you this. Most Middle Eastern Countries are not as primitive as you would lead people to believe. Perhaps you might seek to spend some time in the Middle East, and discover this for yourself. Western Culture is for the most part, very ignorant about Middle Eastern culture, obtaining the majority of the information that forms their opinions from major news outlets that tend to skew things in a way that would create more fear and ignorance, rather than understanding. It disgusts me that so many people believe the garbage promoted in western media. Saddam's regime most certainly not only had the capability to refine gold, but the money to purchase whatever equipment and technology required to do so. If you studied the history of gold, you may have come across information about "Baghdad batteries"

http://www.world-mysteries.com/sar_11.htm

It is thought that these batteries may have been used to plate gold onto other metals, far before anyone anywhere else was even thinking about attempting it. As a matter of fact, the person who discovered Aqua Regia was a Muslim by the name of Abu Musa Jabir ibn Hayyan:



> Aqua regia was discovered around 800 AD, by the Muslim alchemist Abu Musa Jabir ibn Hayyan, when he mixed common salt with vitriol (sulphuric acid). In the Middle Ages it was one of the ways that alchemists tried to find the philosopher's stone.



https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aqua_regia

https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geber

As well, some of the most beautiful and incredibly intricate gold jewelry is created by artists in the Middle East and India. In the Middle East, when a man marries a woman, most times he also makes a gift of beautiful gold jewelry, it's considered almost as alimony, it case the man dies or divorces, which happens rarely.

http://www.jordanjubilee.com/meetfolk/marriage.htm

If you google gold jewelry in the Middle East, you might find pictures of jewelry shops in Iraq such as this:

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/209769295120572672/

Or this:

http://www.gettyimages.co.uk/detail...ngs-in-a-store-window-in-news-photo/450811934

So please, prior to suggesting anyone is too primitive to properly poor a simple gold trench bar, investigate the culture, educate yourself so that you are not spreading incorrect or absolutely wrong information. Middle Eastern cultures have a far longer history with gold than any other culture or civilization. And if we include Egypt as well, you can perhaps gain a better understanding of just how incredibly talented people were in gold applications even thousands of years ago.



justinhcase said:


> If you are a despot it is the best way to hoard the wealth of the poor people you despot over.



Actually, Saddam hoarded a lot of gold outside of Iraq:

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/06/21/1056119507783.html

What he did hoard in Iraq, was US Dollars:

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/20/w...hole-wall-palace-yields-millions-us-cash.html

As a "despot" hoarding gold would not do you much good if you needed to flee your country. Paper currency would be best, and that's what was hoarded.



justinhcase said:


> let's not forget the illegal crude oil trade that ran before the trouble's, which if memory serve was old fashioned and depended literally on an exchange of such large bulk's of currency's of all kind's



Actually, Iraq used to trade oil for US Dollars, but in 2000 was approved by the EU and UN to receive payment for oil in the Euro. Nothing illegal about how Iraq or Saddam was selling oil at all. However, doing so also affected the US Dollar or in this case we can call it the "Petro Dollar" which threatened the stability of US Currency. What makes US Currency worth anything, is the worlds reliance on the US Dollar for trade, and specifically oil. Countries hoard US Dollars to trade for oil, supply of the dollar or rarity is what gives the US Dollar it's value. Oil trade is almost never conducted by trading hard currency, or cash, for oil. Rather it is purchased using letters of credit that are set up to electronically process payments once the contract requirements are met. It is totally outside the scope of reality to believe that Saddam was trading oil for hard currency. There is some information about Saddam's regime selling oil for gold, like Qaddafi in Libya, but not for hard currency.

AND finally, there is this report about your so called gold bars:

http://www.sundayobserver.lk/2003/08/03/wor03.html

So this statement by Smack:



Smack said:


> It's just brass melted down from the ammo that's been spent there in all the fighting.



Is absolutely correct.

I would strongly suggest, prior to posting anything like this, that you investigate the story properly. It was found in 2003, that's 12 years ago. There is so much information about these pictures, and the bars, that I find it exceedingly difficult to believe, if you did any kind of google search on the subject, that you wouldn't come across this information. I just did, and I was farting around not really trying to find this link. I just came across it at the very end of my posting this.

Investigate cultures prior to making claims they are primitive. Investigate stories prior to making claims that it is gold. Matter of fact, on this particular forum, make sure the information you are posting is correct, specially in regards to processes, etc. Posting incorrect or misleading information is not what this forum is about at all.

Scott


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## justinhcase (Dec 2, 2015)

NobleMetalWorks said:


> Very skeptical,
> 
> more than welcome to be skeptical,I would highly recommend it as a go to stance in most situation's .
> how you can make steed fast assertion's about the content of alloy with out it in hand is very impressive.
> ...


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## NobleMetalWorks (Dec 2, 2015)

I posted the story on your gold hoard, if you read it, you will realize that it is fired brass, and not from the US Military. It was Iraqi military. In the Middle East, metal is recycled far more so than it is in the United States. It's never thrown out, but instead bought, sold, and recycled. Read the story at the very bottom of my post, and you will realize the gold hoard you posted about is really just melted, fired brass. The pictures match that description perfectly.

You didn't read my post. There are several refineries that are very advanced and fully capable of melting and pouring gold properly throughout the Middle East. Anyone with a furnace capable of melting gold, and having a proper, heated mold to pour into can pour amazing looking bars. Many people on this forum refine gold to high purity, even 5 nines fine in their garage, when I first started recovering and refining I did so as well. Why would you think that someone in the Middle East would not be able to do the same? You have a skewed, warped view about the Middle East. According to the UN, the only thing about Iraq that can be considered 3rd world, is their freedom of the press:

http://www.nationsonline.org/oneworld/third_world.htm

However, in everything else, even after being torn apart by war, they are not considered 3rd world. As a matter of fact, and since you are a military person yourself you might appreciate this, when the US invaded Iraq, they had the 4th largest military in the entire world, hardly 3rd world.

Even rough, those bars would look far better than the pictures of the melted fired brass bars you provided. But if we are talking about fired brass, melted, and then poured, the bars would look exactly like the pictures you posted. Even down to the obvious oxidation.

I get the feeling that your friend was pulling your leg and that you took the bait, and posted here excitedly. I get it, but now that the real story has been posted, you might wish to read it. The story is literally all over the internet, google it yourself.

A few more suggestions if I may, and note that I normally do not call someone out on these things but your post is so full of mistakes, that I thought bringing it to your attention might benefit you when you post again. You might want to check your posts for grammar, punctuation and spelling. steadfast is not spelled "steed fast" that sounds more like a horse you ride, that is fast but even that would be "fast steed". Pictures is not punctuated as picture's that would imply ownership. When using a comma, you should also provide a space between the words. Outside is not spelled with two words "out side". Piles is not punctuated as "Pile's" Troops is not spelled as Troups. Goods not Good's. Not sure what you mean by "loo's" but it shouldn't be punctuated with a '. Rough is not spelled "Ruff", ruff is a species of European and Asian sandpiper. I have spent time in Iraq, and didn't see any donkey drawn carts. You should have used Their instead of "There" when referring to something of ownership by a person. It's themselves, not "them selfs" even them selves would have been slightly better. Thoroughly is not spelled "thurly". I am sure I missed more of your mistakes being that there are so many. Remember, the things you post here, are read by others and stay on this site hopefully for a very long time.

If you are going to respond to a post, specially when the person responding takes the time and effort to point out where your argument is flawed, you might do well to fully read the post if for no other reason than out of respect, prior to responding.

Scott


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## g_axelsson (Dec 2, 2015)

Great digging Scott! 8) 

... as always!

Göran


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## NobleMetalWorks (Dec 2, 2015)

g_axelsson said:


> Great digging Scott! 8)
> 
> ... as always!
> 
> Göran



Thank you Sir!

Scott


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## justinhcase (Dec 2, 2015)

I forgot all about artillery brass.
I thought it very impractical to collect that quantity of brass in 51mm scattered around a large field of engagement..
Not being a gunner I had forgotten completely about the huge pile's of spent artillery shell casings.
That would be very practical to stock pile and process.
Sorry to cause such an issue yet again.
No matter how innocent a post I try to contrive I seem doomed to have offended some one.
But being how meany human's are on line I suppose odds are not kind.
Remind me to never buy you chap's a stripper.
You will have her in an M.R.I. making sure she is 100% genuine before she is half way through her act.
Very little that look's good is 100% real.
I will endeavor to improve my self with your kind indulgence and firm hand.


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## jason_recliner (Dec 2, 2015)

Smack said:


> It's just brass melted down from the ammo that's been spent there in all the fighting.


Agreed. A sad by-product of entrenched conflict is entrepreneurial young children who will collect (or steal) anything they can lay their hands on, just to get by.
I would not be surprised if local urchins earned in the order of a few cents per bucket of casings.

Someone will likely be getting very rich off it. Since the world assumes that the Middle East is full of secret stashes of conflict gold, any volume of brass gives high potential to scam suckers.

[Edit: Not calling anyone in here a sucker. Just saying scammers will try.]


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## justinhcase (Dec 2, 2015)

Just to explain.
A friend I have not seen for about six or seven years came around.
He has not had the room to carry a laptop of his own so just has a flash drive.
I let him use one of mine and he had the dreaded photo's on it.
I silly enough thought you would get a kick out of them.
No Idea of the provenance and none advertised.
I hope that excuses some people's objection's.


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## Smack (Dec 3, 2015)

justinhcase said:


> Smack said:
> 
> 
> > It's just brass melted down from the ammo that's been spent there in all the fighting.
> ...




Battles change location much more rapidly these days, it's not like WWI where we sit in a hole for 6 months or longer. We tend to spread it more evenly these days.


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## Smack (Dec 3, 2015)

The 155 and 203 would double as a shipping container for the smaller spent casings.


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## justinhcase (Dec 3, 2015)

Smack said:


> The 155 and 203 would double as a shipping container for the smaller spent casings.


Have you a M.O.Q.??I am P.S.C. my self.


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## g_axelsson (Dec 3, 2015)

justinhcase said:


> Just to explain.
> A friend I have not seen for about six or seven years came around.
> He has not had the room to carry a laptop of his own so just has a flash drive.
> I let him use one of mine and he had the dreaded photo's on it.
> ...


We do get a kick out of the pictures! But as anything posted on this board, if we smell that something isn't what it's said to be we start to pick it apart and look for the real background.

So far it seems to be brass ingots that were found during the Iraq war and not any recent conflicts. The fact that the pictures are used to illustrate articles about gold in Iraq tells more about the low quality of checking sources in modern journalism.

Whenever I see anyone holding an alleged gold bar my first thought is always how heavy would it be and is he strong enough to hold it like that. These photos didn't pass that test.

Göran


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## justinhcase (Dec 3, 2015)

g_axelsson said:


> justinhcase said:
> 
> 
> > Just to explain.
> ...


thank you


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## Smack (Dec 4, 2015)

justinhcase said:


> Smack said:
> 
> 
> > The 155 and 203 would double as a shipping container for the smaller spent casings.
> ...



Lol, no minimums from me. PSC? Public Service Commission? Private Sector Corp.?


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## Harold_V (Dec 4, 2015)

g_axelsson said:


> These photos didn't pass that test.


That includes the photos of the ingots in what appears to be some method of transport. It should have been obvious that the amount of metal shown would quickly outweigh most equipment's capability to transport such a large volume, assuming it was gold. 

Don't lose sight of the fact that gold is far heavier than brass----more than double its weight.  

Harold


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