Suspected gold bar

[Martijn]

post deleted..

 

[Nigel]

I asked bing and it suggested

1. Aluminum Bronze: A copper-aluminum alloy with a density of 5.4-5.5 g/cm³ 1.
2. Copper-Tin-Zinc Alloy: A copper-based alloy with a density of 5.4-5.6 g/cm³ 2.

 

[Martijn]

I asked bing and it suggested

1. Aluminum Bronze: A copper-aluminum alloy with a density of 5.4-5.5 g/cm³ 1.
2. Copper-Tin-Zinc Alloy: A copper-based alloy with a density of 5.4-5.6 g/cm³ 2.

The first actually looks a lot like your picture and the second is a kind of brass. Copper and zinc.

Care to share where it came from?

 

[lanfear]

Not sure but don't see how could get the color and shine so constant all the way throughout. Just went to home Depot and neither had 80/20 solder so have to hunt some up for tomorrow. And I have done some successful recovery and refining in the past on a hobby basis but have no redilu available nitric or smb without ordering and now may have to order solder I know 5hey used 5o carry it at our Walmart but not any longer

Nordic gold
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nordic_Gold

 

[galenrog]

There are dozens of alloys that are “gold” in color. Only a few have been mentioned here. Most are primarily copper. In absence of considerable experience and expertise, trust the assay, not the assumption.

Time for more coffee.

 

[orvi]

Not sure but don't see how could get the color and shine so constant all the way throughout. Just went to home Depot and neither had 80/20 solder so have to hunt some up for tomorrow. And I have done some successful recovery and refining in the past on a hobby basis but have no redilu available nitric or smb without ordering and now may have to order solder I know 5hey used 5o carry it at our Walmart but not any longer

Feeling and subjective visual appearance are not very good leads to conclude what is what, particularly in science. And this indeed is science, basic, but still is.

Specific gravity is good lead, but with school ruler and kitchen scales, measuring irregular objects, numbers obtained can many times bring in just another unnecessary confusion. To distinguish regular gold alloys from base metal alloys it is sufficient tho...

Best are qualitative chemical tests.
One was already suggested - gold (even in common alloys) do not react with nitric acid. Base metals do. Despite low gold alloys like 10k gold do react, gold residue will stay undissolved as brown sponge. So if you take a drop of nitric acid and it reacts and turn blue/green, without any obvious solid residue formed, there is no gold.

Or you can dissolve piece of that metal in hydrochloric and nitric acid (you can substitute nitric with nitrate salt), and then test for gold with stannous chloride (made from tin metal and HCL).

Just two simplest examples.

 

[Yggdrasil]

Orvi is correct, feelings are subjective and even more so when they get influenced by "Gold fever".
Any objectivity seem to evaporate when these two meets

 

[Ultrax]

A friend asked if I could verify a suspected gold bar. While I have read Hoke and have recovered and refined a few small batches following Lazer Steve's videos so I am not completely uneducated in the arts, I planned to do a simple home test before going to get assayed and looking quite foolish with some fake. I sawed off a small corner and saw that color was consistent all the way through after a magnet check. My plan is to dissolve the filings from the cut in hcl+bleach as I would with finger foils then make some stannis from hcl+80-20 tin sodder and heat and should be able to make a accurate verdict as to whether or not is worth moving forward with taking it to get further testing done. Does anyone see a fault in my plan?

The only way to qualitatively counterfeit a 24-karat gold bar while maintaining a density of 19.32 g/cm3 is to use tungsten. Take sawdust from the ingot to test, weigh it, and throw it into 30% hydrogen peroxide. Tungsten (which is the only metal with the same density as pure gold) will dissolve in the peroxide, changing the residual mass of the sawdust. If we are not talking about pure gold, only XRF or chemical methods.

 

[Ultrax]

P. S. To eliminate the error in weight 19.32 (gold) - 19.25 (tungsten), when selling, criminals usually underestimate the declared fineness of the bar to 995, attributing everything to silver impurities. This approach allows criminals to counterfeit up to 40% of the mass of a gold bar with tungsten.