augustwest

You called it Steve just a hunk of junk. This had me fooled it even melted around quartz and other local rocks, some of the aluminum even melted and dripped around quartz and made it look like some kind of ore. I picked up a precious metal test kit  from scientific supply and was able to quickly determine this is junk. oh well I'll keep looking for the good stuff.

I just ordered the acid test kit so we should find out within the next couple days. 

It's either something cool or another hunk a junk. Haha

It's pretty heavy for its size 3/4 ounce but it has about 20% calcite inside the metal. The white material on the microscope image is rock matrix. Also it was attached to a calcite/ quartz vein I pulled about 15 pieces of the crumble vein material underneath that also has the silver metal in it. I though it was junk at first but i chopped it out of bed rock and it appears to have calcite that grew within the metal.  

I hit this pocket out hunting along a contact zone. I think it is  native silver, but there have been no historical accounts of silver being found, only platinum and gold. Upon inspection with the microscope I can see gold popping out in a couple places. The large nugget was on the top of a vein of decomposing calcite and quartz, you can see on one side where the rock fell apart leaving some interesting formations. The large piece is 3/4 of a ounce and the foil like piece, that was found downhill, is about a 1/4 ounce. So this is most likely silver but anybody ever see platinum gold ore? The pieces came out very clean with very little magnesium oxide coating. The only thing that has my mind wandering is the fact that the source of platinum has never been found in the area, no historical accounts of silver being found and it came out of the ground really clean. Anybody see anything like this while out hunting for pocket gold?

Hey lucky, nice running into you out there. So, how many did I miss ?

Nate

wow that's just crazy. Soon we'll need a permit to take a piss in the woods and have to wear a helmet to walk down the road.Of course its for our own safety.

Cleaning it up out there. Nice finds

Good thing that one would be tough to explain to the wife! Well you see this detector only cost about 35k... 

Sounds like a great adventure! The bugs are thick this year, not much of a deep freeze this year and all the moisture to go with it..

The ticks are already pretty thick where I live, we usually have next to none.

Thanks for the quick response. I've been loving the racer2 its been working really well in all the iron rubbish around the sites I've been visiting, I pretty much keep it in two tone just hunting for those sweet, non-ferrous tones.  It's a great machine, that's built we'll and it's easy to use. It's those little flat pieces of tin that always have me digging holes they sound too good to pass up on. I spend most of my detecting time prospecting but have started looking for coins and jewelry when I can't get out to the gold fields, it's a blast and it keeps my son interested. He gets a little bored looking for nuggets when the targets are far and few in between, anyway sounds like a good enough excuse for another toy. 

After digging tin all day with the racer2 the ctx3030 is sounding better and better.

Steve, what kind of depth increase would I see with the 3030 vs. racer2?

Looks like I have some researching to do. Thanks to Steve and everyone on this forum for sharing the knowledge, I have learned a lot from this site! Good luck out there!

I found my first gold ring yesterday. It was down about 8" at the same level I was finding square nails. A lot of history on this property, there is a wagon trail that passes through this area, and it looked like a great place to camp. I was using a Racer 2 in D2 mode and it locked on at 36-38 on the target ID. I was wondering if anyone could help me date the ring. I tried to post a picture where you can see the marks. It's marked 14k, then a diamond shape with "JS' makers mark inside, and a possible date mark it 805, or possibly 80E the last number or letter is hard to read. There was also a piece of gold wire attached to the inside to make the ring  smaller. Anyone know jewelers marks out there? Mostly trying to figure out how old the ring is. Thanks!

It's hard to tell from a picture but most yellowish to orange Quartz is called citrine. Nice finds!