Please help me with accurate information about these please. Thanks.

[richoc]

You need to do research on if they were producing free mill gold from any of the ore that came out of the mine.
That is gold in metal form, if so then these grains of gold can be seen with good magnification equipment.
Crushing and panning will then have Au in metal form to pan out.

If locked in the sulfides you will need to roast out the sulfur to get a working grind to sample.
This will most likely require do a smelt to get any results.
I do see sulfides in the one photo but not all of them.

Try roasting this ore over a fire and see if you smell sulfur, I do see sulfides in the one photo.
You can do it in a 5 gallon steel bucket, then pull safely from the bucket from the fire and pour in 5 gallons of cold water.
Flash cooling the ore with water with make the ore real easy to crush as the stuff is hard to crush by hand raw.

Then you can pan it down to concentrates to exam for free mill under good strong magnification or smelt it if you have a bunch of gray heavies . Take these and roast them like on a gas grill on a flat steel pan to allow the most surface area to be exposited to the atmosphere, in a well ventilated place to drive out all the sulfur. You will then need to smelt to get a bead of metals to recover, then cupel this to oxidize the collector metal and get to just PM's. PM's because the bead will contain all the precious metal types found in the ore.

 

[amgdrw4eva]

Really fine gold can float especially if there are any oils. Dish soap helps the gold sink. You don't need much.

Okay gotcha thanks.

 

[VK3NHL]

So there is no definite way to tell if the rocks actually have gold unless I crush them. How are you supposed to do that efficiently?

Use common sense…

 

[Gwar]

Ok, this is not adding up to me, amgdrw4eva stated that " I actually got the rocks from the Hercules gold mine. It hasn't been operational since like the 1800's but my family owns the property" I asked "Is this located in the Pisgah National Forest ?" the reply was "No. Gamewell" according to The Diggings "The Hercules Gold Mine, located near Collettsville in North Carolina, is historically part of the Blue Ridge Mining District, which is now encompassed within the Pisgah National Forest." so, what do we have here ? Although metal detecting and rock collecting are permitted in the National area, a high / low volume operation seems out of the question, perhaps I just misunderstood, but something is a bit aloof here, JMO

 

[amgdrw4eva]

Ok, this is not adding up to me, amgdrw4eva stated that " I actually got the rocks from the Hercules gold mine. It hasn't been operational since like the 1800's but my family owns the property" I asked "Is this located in the Pisgah National Forest ?" the reply was "No. Gamewell" according to The Diggings "The Hercules Gold Mine, located near Collettsville in North Carolina, is historically part of the Blue Ridge Mining District, which is now encompassed within the Pisgah National Forest." so, what do we have here ? Although metal detecting and rock collecting are permitted in the National area, a high / low volume operation seems out of the question, perhaps I just misunderstood, but something is a bit aloof here, JMO

These are rocks that I picked up off the ground on my families property.

 

[amgdrw4eva]

These are rocks that I picked up off the ground on my families property.

So what are you trying to say? Or what is "bit aloof"???

 

[amgdrw4eva]

So what are you trying to say? Or what is "bit aloof"?

 

[amgdrw4eva]

I'm not sure what you mean but I'm pretty sure I know where I live and my families property is not a mile or two up the road from me. I don't have to explain myself to a stranger.... Do I?

I have not been inside the mine area. But on my families land that is on the surrounding area.

 

[galenrog]

Collettsville and Gamewell are just a few miles apart. I would assume some similarities in geology. This does not mean that any of your rocks have gold, however.

Crush a sample. Pan it out. If free gold is present, then some of your rocks have gold. If not, and you still believe you have gold bearing rock, an assay would be in order.

Time for more coffee.

 

[manorman]

Thank you for your help and why dish soap? If you don't mind me asking.

Jet dry will work better then soap in my opinion, but both work

 

[goldshark]

A drop or 2 of either Jet Dry ( preferred ) or Dawn is adequate. You don't want more than a little bit of bubbles. Put 1 drop in, and watch how the surface disperses virtually all surface oils and other contaminates.

 

[Gwar]

This story has more twists and turns than Chubby Checker...

 

[minero74]

You can use Dish soap Or if You can find Jet dry will work prefectly as well

just add a bit to water it will breaks the water surface tension and the very fine gold will sink

and you will not lose much gold

 

[minero74]

If Yours rocks came from a mine with history of gold mining
better send it to a lab
choose those rock with high concentration of mineralization
the rusty, darker and ugly it’s looks the better

if you are new to cuppeling
don’t it for yourself
is quite dangerous those gasses and very hot melt it stuff.

better send it to a lab.

 

[jphayesjr]

You could also invest in one of these, if you're confident. These a site in YouTube, and a store in Ebay. Sometimes used online. I use one, works fine. To prevent loss of fine gold flakes, Cascade dish detergent, about 1/2 t per gallon of water. It cuts the surface tension of the water, and prevents foaming if there's clay.

 

[jphayesjr]

If you pan out fine gold colored material, put some on a very hard surface and smack it carefully with a hammer. Iron pyrite will fracture, gold will be hammered flatter than it started. How easy depends on the purity and what it's alloyed with. Read the Hoke book that you can download here, and the safety info. Gold ore sometimes includes very toxic things like arsenic, or platinum group metals. There's also links in the site for using heat to 'purify' precious metal ores.

 

[BlackLabel]

You could also invest in one of these, if you're confident. These a site in YouTube, and a store in Ebay. Sometimes used online. I use one, works fine.View attachment 58374 To prevent loss of fine gold flakes, Cascade dish detergent, about 1/2 t per gallon of water. It cuts the surface tension of the water, and prevents foaming if there's clay.

Ashley (amgdrw4eva) didn't even started gold mining. She just collected some rocks hoping they're holding some gold.
A crusher would be overkill.
Mortar and pestle or a dollypot will do it for a few kilograms of ore.

 

[jphayesjr]

I suggested the mini-mill because it saves time and energy. It's ready to go. I made a manual crusher myself, for certain things, it is the safest way to go, especially for very small samples, and samples containing a lot of iron. Some vendors sell them on eBay, too. A couple kilos is a fair amount of exercise. Up to Ashley.

 

[Martijn]

A simple crusher can be made by welding a pipe to a plate and smash the rocks with a hardened steel rod inside.
You will have to split them small enough to fit the crush pipe obviously.
I use a 1 inch pipe with a round hardened steel wedge jammed in the end as a hammer rod. Final grind with a mortar and pestle. Sift the fine powder out and regrind the coarser gravel.
It works fine for sampling individual rocks.
Pan with a bit of dish soap.
View attachment 58355

Just crushed a nice quartz oxidized river rock i found in the gravels at work.

Besides a bunch of tiny specs that could be gold but more likely pyrite and some copper grinding pieces that flew in the crushpipe before... if found some gold. Just visible with the naked eye.
Poor grainy picture, i know.
Now find out where it came from

 

[DarkspARCS]

your rock looks like monzanite. here are some monzanite rocks that bear gold