- This topic has 8 replies, 6 voices, and was last updated 8 years, 10 months ago by
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http://i.imgur.com/1qhZcWn.jpg
Hi everyone,
I recently came across a grip of these little vials of “gold flake”. I’ve heard on the podcast that Ryanne tests gold with acid. So, I tried a quick google for “gold testing” and came up with a ton of hits. Quite a bit of those look scam-ish. Could someone please help me find legit resources for gold testing. Maybe a kit I could get off eBay?
Thanks in advance for your help!
Also any advice about gold, gold testing or gold forging is appreciated.
Eli -
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Found them in an auction lot. The bottles are tiny so maybe .5 to 1 oz total weight. I have a feeling that it’s some kind of gold leaf for art projects…… but wouldn’t it be sweet if I could melt it all into an ingot. ($1,283.50 per oz)
I’ll post when I learn more. (good or bad) -
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you should weigh it without the jar to see how much you have, easy to find the value. check out Solds here.
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I’ve been meaning to buy one, it’s on my watchlist, but hadn’t gotten around to it yet. This is an item that has been discussed on one of the other seller groups I follow.
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Ok…. So I’ve been down the rabbit hole and back. Here’s what I’ve learned…..
The acid tests are just ok. They can tell you if you have “real” gold but it is a destructive test. (Some of the gold gets dissolved in the nitric acid and you need to be good at chemistry to recover it.) The best test is a conductance test, were you hook up a set of electrodes and measure the amount of current that passes through the metal. Since the conductance of gold is a known quantity you can calculate the purity from this measurement.
Since my “gold” is in very small particles I don’t want to acid test it. I’m going to purchase a graphite crucible ($22 on eBay) and melt all the little particles down to a lump which I can conductance test. (I already have propane and a fire brick to construct a kiln.)
I have a feeling that what I have has a very low gold content so I’m probably going to vaporize it or make a slag rock. But…….maybe…… gold!
Also with a crucible and forge setup I can start melting down scrap metals and selling them. (right?)
Wish me luck, (that I don’t burn my fingers off). And I will do another update after the smelting. -
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There is a chance it is gold flake from someone panning for gold. I have a lot of friends that do that and keep the little flakes in vials. If you have a whole bunch though and they look commercially produced I would think that they are probably novelty items. You see them at gift shops in the west that are “gold flake” from the river in the park you are visiting or the areas in California where the 49er gold rush took place. They are just very low gold content flakes in the little vial and they sell for 5-10 dollars but there is real gold content in them so they do have some value but not sure how much.
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