Jump to content

Alien Jelly Bean ? Leaverite? What Is It????????


Recommended Posts

   I Was up in the forest above Graeagle 3 days ago detecting along with my girlfriend getting fresh air and looking for some new ground closer to me to claim.  I had my sdc2300 and my girlfriend was using the gm1000. it was a great day even though it was very challenging ground to detect. even with our compact detectors and small coils we had to keep super tight sweeps do to the vegetation. My biggest challenge of the day was when I picked up a target near the base of a dead tree. the deeper I dug the fainter the target got. I dug for 10 minutes at least. I was so stuck in tunnel vision focused on the ground that I did not notice that there was a rusty Panther Martian fishing lure stuck in the tree trunk about 10 inches off the ground. I sure felt stupid but new lesson learned. after filling our pockets with lead and other various things we decided to head back to the car. It was on the walk back towards the car that I picked up a strong signal. I only had to drag the ground with my boot to move the target so I instantly assumed a soda tab or something light. I dig up all targets because you never know plus its just good practice to remove trash weather its yours or not. once had uncovered the target I was sure I found an unoxidized fresh piece of lead that just happened to look like a nugget. tested it with my magnet, did not stick. gave it the good old bite test and chipped my tooth. Oops. at this point I was puzzled. when we arrived home and jumped straight on my computer. after graduating from the geology school of You tube "lol"  I ran a few tests on the object. first I weighed it (1.69 g). then I gave it a streak test comparing it to a known lead piece and a steal bird shot. the streak test was done on thick dense paper as I did not have a ruff white piece of porcelain, even checked toilets underside of the porcelain lid but was a raw color not white so was stuck with paper. after that i soaked it in muriatic acid over night, Nothing happened, no reaction, Oxidation or anything. then I put it in some cold aqua regia I made. it took over an hour for me to notice anything. it seems like it just cleaned off any surface contaminants.  the next test I did was a density test. My mass was 1.69g and my liquid volume displacement was 0.077ml. entered it into a density calculator and got a density of 21.94805194852 g/m3. My best guess is it is a natural formed Platinum osmium alloy.  Platinum has a density of 21.45 g/m3 and osmium has a density of 22.59 g/cm3 sure would be great but I have my doubts after searching for a long time on the internet looking up the history of any platinum found in Plumas county. only thing I found was was info about Nelson creek which is  roughly 8 to 10 miles from the location I was at. it said very few platinum nuggets were found there the largest being bean size. barley larger than my alien jelly bean. that all I could find related platinum nuggets in Plumas county. Platinum is also way more rare than gold especially in the nugget form. I have not found a gold nugget with a detector yet so what are my chances that my first good find is something way more rare than gold?

could the little alien jellybean be my first valuable find metal detecting?  Wanting to do my Hallelujah but cant till i know what i have found. Is it worth sending off to get analyzed please let me know what you all think it could be? Thank you.

 

3.jpg

1.jpg

4.jpg

5.jpg

2.jpg

6.jpg

  • Like 5
Link to comment
Share on other sites


How did you figure the volume?

An X-Ray Fluorexcence (XRF) measurement would be nice to see, but sometimes you have to pay for those, and it needs to be a spectrometer calibrated to the high atomic number elements (like gold and the Platinum Group Metals = PGM).

If your density measurement can be verified/confirmed, I'd say it's pretty sure to be PGM.  All of those are valuable.  I'm guessing a natural PGE nugget (just like gold) would carry more value than the simple bullion prices would indicate.  Collectors are our friends!

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

16 hours ago, kac said:

Can you do an acid test on it?

He did.

Can’t say for sure, but a good chance you found a platinum nugget. Has the right look, your tests so far do not contradict it. Lead and bismuth are much softer, with low melting points. The common melted can “aluminum nugget” is much lighter.

https://www.technology.matthey.com/resources/view-questions-answers/can-test-metal-platinum/

  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

If you can't melt it with a propane torch, then i say it's a good chance of being platinum. My only thought is from the size it looks like it should weigh a bit more, but pictures can fool me.  Good luck!  🙂 ht 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Looks good to me to.  Before you send it off ask around, look around, for business's that buy gold and other precious metals and see if anyone can give you an XRF reading on it as GB suggests.  Some pawn shops have them, gold and silver buyers and recovery facilities.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 weeks later...
On 12/10/2021 at 4:54 PM, GB_Amateur said:

How did you figure the volume?

An X-Ray Fluorexcence (XRF) measurement would be nice to see, but sometimes you have to pay for those, and it needs to be a spectrometer calibrated to the high atomic number elements (like gold and the Platinum Group Metals = PGM).

If your density measurement can be verified/confirmed, I'd say it's pretty sure to be PGM.  All of those are valuable.  I'm guessing a natural PGE nugget (just like gold) would carry more value than the simple bullion prices would indicate.  Collectors are our friends!

Then I'm your friend 🤣 probably more than 💯 In my collection

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...