Glenn in CO

Congrats to your brother on finding his first gold coin, hopefully many more to come. I and my Dad (96 years young) have yet to find our first gold coin. My wife found a 1899S $5.00 gold coin on a club outing to a ghost town several years ago, maybe this year it will happen.

3 hours ago, 1515Art said:

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After posting I was having some second thoughts so decided to take them down

No problem, I understand. Thanks for sharing anyway!

16 hours ago, 1515Art said:

 

 

I saw this post late last evening and now it's disappeared. Anyway that was unbelievable intricate made dagger and appreciate the related info. 

15 hours ago, 1515Art said:

Let us know what you find out too, I’m checking with the friend with the gold connections in Australia  and Nigeria on a price for gold nuggets directly from the supplier we’ll see what she comes up with. She did remark and seemed surprised they were asking as if it was pure 24k at full spot thinking from her perspective this was overcharging not being familiar with the premium nuggets can command so I’m hopeful the prices might be reasonable?

Thanks for the update and will update when I receive information from Heritage.

Congrats! on the gold pocket, you don't happen upon those to often. Nice total haul for the year.

I like your homemade rock crusher, looks like you used a little bit of everything to build it (square tubing, threaded rod, pipe and part of a horseshoe?)👍

2 hours ago, 1515Art said:

So my sale was 11800 I think with the premium he paid 13570 then sold it 8 years later for 20000 paying 6000 @ 30% commission making his investment 19570 for a screaming net profit of $430 yippie! If he bought pictures?

Thanks again for the info! Very cool story about George Taylor, but it's nice to know the real story when some one buys an item and then sells it. If anyone reading that article would say "wow" that person got a lot of money for an autograph, not a very good investment for a eight year period.

I will contact Heritage Auction and submit a few gold specimens for appraisal and compare them to the retail appraisal I received from a well know mineral dealer and see if the auction route may be the better way to go.

Appreciate the help.

2 hours ago, 1515Art said:

I’ve sold a few things at auction it’s time consuming the last item I auctioned it took at least 6mos before I saw any money, expensive the commissions are stiff, you pay extra for pictures and the larger add space although sometimes auctions are the best/only way. I did get an appraisal a couple years ago from Heritage and although I wasn’t ready to sell the auction company was helpful. This was a WW2 relic and I found the complete story about my piece in a book researching google, making it difficult to put a price on but Heritage did the best job out of the handful of auction houses I contacted.

I sent them the 3 rocks and another thing to look over, they apologize it may take a few days due to the number of requests but I expect they are first rate and will get back soon.

Thanks for you feedback, it seems that if you sell your gold through a mineral or gold dealer they only want to pay you half or a little more than retail pricing on unique gold specimens that can range in pricing based on 2x to 10x or more on gold spot price. I know dealers have to make profit, but at that pricing maybe the auction house is the better way to go. Thanks again for the feedback!

On 2/17/2020 at 5:50 PM, 1515Art said:

The amber chunk weighs 4lbs 3oz and is 11.5”x4”x7.5” 

the fluorite weighs in at 4lbs 13.2oz measuring 6.5”x3”x4.25” also from China 

see what heritage has to say and if we made a good buy?

 

I'm very interested in your opinion and feedback on Heritage Auction when you hear back from them. I've never consider selling any gold specimens through an auction house before and would value anyone's experience in selling or consigning to a auction house good or bad. Gerry in Idaho also expressed interest in Heritage Auction in Mitchel's thread.  Gerry's Post

I agree with you it's about the adventure, if you hit big gold that's a bonus. Thanks! for sharing.

Awesome SC Button WTG!

Very Nice Find! Great condition for as old as that coin is. WTG!

2 hours ago, Ridge Runner said:

PS  Some years back in the 90’s I wrote a story on how a nugget could hide behind a grain of black sand. It ran in GPAA mag .

Where did the time go ?

I hear ya Chuck! I wrote a few articles on detecting and nuggethunting for Western & Eastern in the 90's. I and my wife were in the first White's infomercial with our nuggets also in the 90's, but as time went on it was more about going out and doing more on what you were writing about. I wish I had all the energy and ambition I had back then.

You have a great day also!

Glenn

Snapshot of us from the White's infomercial.

On 1/18/2020 at 1:30 PM, Ridge Runner said:

They say you can’t take it with you. Well stand back I’m going to give it my best to do so.

Chuck I agree, doesn't do any good to have just set in the bank. Might as well have some fun while you can.

On 1/18/2020 at 4:20 PM, Steve Herschbach said:

Nice looking backpack!

Compared to the ones I have received from White's, this one looks well made and useful. XP at least put some thought in designing the backpack compared to other detector manufacturers.

Very nice find! That's on my bucket list. WTG!

Here are a few pictures of the area we hunt. The area is large in size and the different types of wire and leaf gold specimens are found on specific tailing piles and hydraulic areas. The area is at 11,000+ft. in altitude and the terrain is extremely steep in most areas. The following picture is my wife (lower left) and one our friends detecting tailing piles.

We use a cultivator type rake with a strong magnet for our digger tool. The area has moderate mineralization with some areas that have abundance of hot rocks. A Vlf type of detector is used mostly because of the number of ferrous targets that are encountered. We also find pieces of blasting caps, sometimes ones that had not exploded and bird shot from people target practicing.

This a picture of a nugget that was found on a tailing pile and you can see some of the gold peeking through.

This next picture is an area that was hydraulic and I found a 22.3 gram nugget.

This is another area that was hydraulic and where I found my very first nugget metal detecting. The nugget didn't have the wow factor as others we have found, but it was a special moment for me finding that first elusive nugget.

More to come..........

On 12/20/2019 at 8:45 AM, Steve Herschbach said:

Long story short I hope he is well.

I talked to Reg's brother at the club meeting last Thursday and Reg is not doing too well. Reg had one his leg's amputated last year and now is in the hospital with possible cancer tumor on the liver. Any prayers for a good outcome would be appreciated.

26 minutes ago, DigsAlot said:

I will try it on the first pic nug. Would you mind posting a pic of the bottle you use. I searched whink and it pulls slot of products up.

You can find at Walmart in the hardware/plumbing section.

15 hours ago, Gerry in Idaho said:

Glenn,  it is an Idaho piece found as is, no cleaning. 

It's amazing that some of these wire gold specimens stay intact with no host rock to hold them together. You wonder sometimes if the specimen was a part of a larger piece.

16 hours ago, DigsAlot said:

I really just want to clean the big one. Recommendations?

If you are talking about the last picture in your post, no I would not clean that one., The first picture I would use some Whink if you want to brighten the gold up a little bit or leave as is. The second picture is not focus enough to determine if cleaning any of the specimens would be a good idea.

Very nice course gold specimens DigsAlot.  Be careful if you decide to clean the gold quartz specimen, it may fall apart on you. Myself I like it the way it is.

11 hours ago, Gerry in Idaho said:

Holy Grails Glenn, Those pieces of art are most certainly wall hangers.  CO is one of the stated that I need to go and find a couple, so I check off my list "Been there Dug That" along with WY and the Dakotas.  I don't have many wire gold pieces as you know they are quite fragile and easily break or smash.  Here is one of my bigger ones.  Thanks for sharing some beautiful gold. 

Very nice specimen Gerry, did you find as is or did you clean it? Thanks! for sharing.

14 hours ago, DigsAlot said:

How are cleaning these? I also have some crystal gold but it is ugly right now.

 If your specimen has quartz I would try Whink that has a small concentration of hydrofluoric acid for somewhat more aggressive cleaning of the gold, removing iron oxides and dissolving some of the quartz. If you use these two methods it will take time to see any satisfactory results, so be patience.  If you have some hydrofluoric acid in a higher concentration (48% strength or more) you will have faster results and would need to monitor closely so you don't destroy the specimen. But be extremely careful when using any type of hydrofluoric acid in any form, the acid is deadly and I mean deadly, you better know what you are doing! Finally soak the specimen in baking soda if you use any of the cleaning methods above. There are other methods that can be used to also give a wow look, but I would need to studying the specimen first hand on what would be the best course of action to take. The specimens that we find has shale as the host rock and I can use other types of acids to clean them.

JW,

That is very nice specimen. Big or small specimens like that have a lot of character. If you found that panning maybe you were close to the source. Thanks! for sharing.