New guy looking for some answers

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dafanman

Member
Joined
Mar 24, 2020
Messages
5
Hello all,

I joined to try and get some info to try and help out the wife of a friend that passed away recently..

According to her, her husband at one time had gotten some gold and ground it up??, my understanding
is that it was ground to a powder consistency and then mixed with red sand.

I am trying to find the right path for her to see about recovery or to let her know it is not realistic to try
and recover it, assuming the above mentioned info is correct...

As I look at what she has, it just looks like sand to me, that being said I have no idea what it should look like.

So, that being said does it make sense that one would powder gold and then mix it with sand?

Looking for any pointers in the right direction I can provide for her,

Thanks,

dafanman
 
Take a long glass tube, blocked on one side, fill with water and pour powder inside. The gold should settle at the bottom, so you can see it, if any
 
People do strange things, no reason to mix it with sand, red or any other color that I know of. Unless he was trying to hide his gold, but even then???

Yes water floatation, (old fashioned panning), will separate any gold from sand. Assuming there is any gold in it.
 
It might be gold ore mixed with litharge, lead oxide. As an attempt to recover gold or just doing an assay.

If it is litharge it should be very heavy, noticeable heavier than normal sand.

Göran
 
Thanks folks for the responses,

I will try and find a glass tube and do as suggested, should I strain/filter so that there is pretty much only a powder consistency before I pour into the tube?

Also, should I consider what appears to my untrained eye to be just sand or is there a possibility that some of what I am looking at may be gold that did not make it to the powder stage? I see nothing shiny like what I expect gold to look like in any of the samples that I have looked at.

Once again,
Thanks to all that took the time to respond.

dafanman
 
Is it possible that the gold was refined, or put into solution then precipitated to powder?
I don't see how someone could grind up gold to a powder.
 
dafanman said:
Also, should I consider what appears to my untrained eye to be just sand or is there a possibility that some of what I am looking at may be gold that did not make it to the powder stage? I see nothing shiny like what I expect gold to look like in any of the samples that I have looked at.

A quick test that requires no chemicals would be to put a tiny sample on a piece of white paper (e.g., printer/copier paper), then press down on it and try to smear it across the paper with something smooth and rounded like the back of a spoon. When gold is dissolved, then precipitated, it usually doesn't look like gold. It is usually a light tan to a dark black powder. But when tested as above, it will turn to a gold streak on the paper. The "sand" may interfere with this test, but it's worth a try because it is quick and simple.

Dave
 
Here is look at gold powders. They can vary in color from pale tan to fairly dark depending on their purity. They can also be fine grains to clumps as well, depending on purity and how they were dried.

26.6 grams gold.jpg
 
Jimdoc,

You may be right sir, the guy was a former math professor.
I have helped him in the past with his scrapping ventures whereby we would clean electronics of
gold, copper, silver, palladium ect..

I have know him to use mercury in the past as part of what he did.

There were notations on some of the sample size bags indicating level of filtering/screening? and the notion
of M+P or MP..

I am waiting for his wife to send me pictures of those sample bags with their notations in case it means anything..

Here is a sample that I got out of one of the containers yesterday

The pictures are 1 lamplight, flashlight and taken outdoors natural light

Hmmm.... not sure how to post pictures on this forum

dafanman
 
Dave describes how to post pictures better than I can, try this link

http://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=69&t=21374&p=220514#p220509
 
20200325_163930_HDR.jpg20200325_163650.jpg20200325_163537.jpg

Thanks for the tip shark

I completely missed the attachments tab... doh!!~!!

The pics are shown in reverse order re: lighting conditions

dafanman
 
Try smearing smashing a tiny piece onto paper with the back end of a Bic pen, does it leave a gold streak on the paper?

With the dirt in a pan (pie pan, old ford hub cap, gold pan), fill a large wash tub with water, add a couple of very small pieces of lead to your dirt (counting the pieces added), fill the pan of dirt with water, add a couple of drops of dish soap, shaking it vigorously side to side (fluffing up everything into suspension, slowing the side to side motion then tilting the pan forward let half the material dump out into the large tub of water, repeat until very little material remains.
With just a little of the heavier materials remaining in the pan and just a small amount of water, with the heavies at the top portion of the pan, and the water in the lower section of the tilted pan, roll the water lightly over the heavy material washing the light bits away and down to the other side of the pan, keep rolling the water over until you see your lead pieces, the lighter material washed away from the heavys can be dumped into the tub of water...

When all you have is the lead you added previously to the gravel and sand. When only the lead is left, and the dirt, sand, and gravel or rock have been panned out (and you still have all of the very small pieces of lead left in the pan you started with) (if there was gold in the dirt, it will be left in the pan with the lead pieces).

If you need more practice gold panning and lost your lead or gold, well it is still in the big tub of water sand and gravel, just keep at it until you can pan out the rocks sand and dirt, and keep only lead and gold in a pan of water.
 
Hi butcher,

I will make an attempt at that when I gather the required materials.

I appreciate the suggestion

dafanman
 
To me it looks just as regular sand and dirt. Maybe he was training to pan gold and wanted some samples with known gold.

Göran
 
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