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1 hour ago, oldmancoyote1 said:

There are several silvery metals that melt at low temperature including lead, antimony, and tin.  That's not enough to identify it.

Unless tiny fragments are REPELLED by your super magnet, it may not be lead.  Lead, as well as similar metals, are diamagnetic, the opposite of iron.

Tiny silver droplets indicates it is an amalgam of mercury and some other metal.

Platinum does not form an amalgam and it melts at a very high temperature.

I don't know what it is.

thanks for the info, when I tried to flatten it with a hammer again it broke into small fragments. one of those showed a small attraction to the super magnet. all the other fragments had no effect . it's not malleable like lead, it is brittle with sharp edges where it fractured. I'm still not sure what it is.

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38 minutes ago, Walker said:

I find a bit of solder  while detecting. What is the low temperature you are talking about? Solder melts around 850 degrees. 

I had no method to measure the temp, but from my welding experience  I'd guess above 1000 degrees

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Maybe solder off an old timers bully beef tin that has been subjected to a camp fire or bushfire years ago.

Rowdy

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Possibly an aluminum can that got thrown in a camp fire?  It looks like it melted over some rock that it sat on while melting.

I found a nugget that looked just like that in Alaska, it turned out to be a melted aluminum can. I still have it.

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1 hour ago, kiwijw said:

Jim brings up an interesting point about it being melted aluminium. I may have missed it in reading the threads, but have you weighed it? There will of course be a huge difference between aluminium & lead for the size of its mass. Gold & platinum a lot heavier again than lead. Keep us posted.?

Good luck out there

JW :smile:  

.23 grams after melting, seems to heavy to be aluminum. It was found in a bedrock crack where the river gets pinched at a place called natural pier. there is a tremendous amount of water flow during high water. also found lots lead. brass. nails, heavy iron etc...

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I'm surprised nobody mentioned meteorite, that's what it looked like. I should have spoke up[ before it was smashed lol but you know how often it actually turns out to be one.

Aside from the usual tests, (specific gravity et al) if you had a piece big enough to cut and polish you might find the tell tale Widmanstatten pattern on it with a bit of acid etching. 

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If you want to know for certain most pawn shops can xrf it for a few bucks, the shop near me will do it for $5 and give me a print out of the reading.

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