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  1. An ignorant question: for small gold nuggets, is their value strictly the value of the gold they contain or do they carry some premium for being a natural nugget or having a rare shape/composition or perhaps something else?
  2. I've learned the hard way that using water with any type of abrasive process (even rubbing with your fingers and water) to clean copper/bronze coins and relics is often a mistake as it tends to destroy the natural patina and you often end up with an orang'ish pitted/splotchy relic or coin. For things like buttons, I no longer use water, if there's gilt left I'll try lemon juice, but if it has crud, I'll use Naval Jelly. Has anyone tried any of the Andre Le Crayon products? Please by all means share any successful processes your found to restore your dug relics and coins 🤠
  3. Found a nice 15 g silver necklace. It is a bit delicate so I'm surprised it came out in one piece. Before cleaning After several cycles of baking soda, salt, thick aluminum min-pie tin.
  4. Hit local park before the blistering cold comes and came across this ring I thought was kiddie bling as you can see the plating on it but I saw a 925MO and it rang in like a silver. Acid test was bit off on Silver and Platinum test passed but I doubt it was platinum as it rang in up in the silver range. Turns out it was platinum plated silver with moissanite stones. Large one is 8mm and retails just under $800. Not bad for what I thought was junk.
  5. Hey guys, newer coin shooter here. Dabbling from nugget shooting. I found a mining camp I know no metal detector has ever be swung over and I found this beaut! Wondering if I should clean it?
  6. We all know if and when we buy anything it’s a loss to us because the dealer took a profit. That automatic lowers the value of the item we just bought. The problem for me starts when the price is lowered by the company on the detector I just bought . I just trying to combat this problem of taking of a large loss to a small one. Right now I have a detector with extra two small coils was 1200.00 but if I was to sale I could take a 50 % loss . Now what I’m thinking is if I start buying a lower end detector that offering as much as the high end one. One of the ones I’m talking about is about 600.00 . Even if I take a hit like the high end detector my loss is lots less . I don’t plan on taking a loss to buy another of less price but I will put my thinking cap on before making my next buy . Chuck
  7. I just uploaded a video detailing Hydro-Shocking the gold/quartz specimen from my last video. If you have any questions either drop them here or on the comments in the video and I will answer them. The next video will be showcasing the specimen after Hydro-Shocking and conducting a continuity test on the specimen to determine what visible gold is connected throughout the specimen.
  8. Hi Everyone, New to detecting 🙂 hope you are all doing well. What's the best/most lucrative way to sell jewelry? - Gold rings - Diamond rings - Silver? Do you sell to a jeweler or privately? Just curious. Thanks for the tips and good luck out there.
  9. I've been hoping for a situation like this to come by, and I finally had the chance to do this. If you have the room for this, I find it's the best way to store and also display finds. This unit was used by surveyors to store their diagrams and maps. I happen to ask one of them while in their office if they had any old or extra cabinets. They had one that was blocking an isle and the guy said "you want that one.... I'll help you load it right now". I declined on the "right now" part because of the size and weight, but returned with an appliance hand truck and a very sturdy ramp. Popped it up on the truck, brought it in the house, almost killed myself trying to get it down the cellar stairs 😄 and here it is.!!!! I've never had a good way of displaying my Riker display cases, since they take up so much desk surface area, but here they are hidden in narrow drawers, but also very accessible. So it's worth a try and approach surveyors. You probably won't get lucky and get them for free, but maybe at a reduced price. Now, I just have to take the time and fill more relics in my cases. 🙄
  10. Anyone know the best bang for the buck for weigh scales, from experience? I’ve been looking at re-loader scales.
  11. The weather the last couple weeks where I live in Colorado has decided to remain cold and snowing leaving very little opportunities to go detecting even though spring is just around corner. I usually take this idle time to catch up on cataloging and photographing gold specimens that I’ve cleaned. Here are some recent examples of mother nature great works:
  12. Neglected to clean them. Placed them in motor oil and let sit a month. Maybe a hundred or so.
  13. Here are a few fine jewelers making some natural gold into some high class pieces. https://www.townandcountrymag.com/style/jewelry-and-watches/a38660539/contemporary-goldsmith-jewelers/ You could make a few of these yourself or you could contact some of your local jewelers (or distant ones) and offer some of your nuggets with character and spirit. It could be very profitable.
  14. When I find a gold specimen like this, I usually don't get too excited about cleaning it. One of the main reasons is this type of gold specimen when going through the cleaning process will lose some or all its shape and character resulting in a disappointing specimen and reducing the value which in most cases it would be better to leave the specimen in its originally state. I decided to gamble and see what it's true potential might be for aesthetic and value. This gold specimen before going through the cleaning process weighed in at 55.1 grams. You can see the gold has permeated throughout the host rock and no visual indication if the specimen will hold its shape and character. In the final cleaning process, I did leave some of the host rock for stability as the specimen would have become too fragile by removing all of it. The gold specimen after going the cleaning process lost 5.57 grams of gold resulting in the specimen now weighing 28.43 grams. Sometimes you must gamble.
  15. In the latest Miners Den News letter. It might not be suitable for most countries ( partially NZ Simon 😅) as it only goes down to 0.1 grams it could be used with the 6000 if you get a heap of little bits 😁. My only fault is it's upper limit is just over 96 troy ounces which in Australia means it can't not weigh any found above 100 ounces. 😭
  16. We've had many threads in the past that show auction sites for buying and selling natural gold and minerals. I know there are 'go to' places out there where you have bought and sold. The pictures they have of gold can be enlightening about where to look for gold. Now that the price of gold is up you may want to look into your collections and get some cash. I saw a recent post that said someone sold their gold in Quartzsite. Who is the buyer there? I've heard other people say they need to drive to Phoenix to see gold found in Quartzsite. Does anyone trust someone by mail? Here is a place that displays Northern Nevada gold. I don't know anything about them other than this link. https://northernnevadagold.com/en/ Here is a place that you can sell high end gold and not have to wait for an auction. I have been to their store in Laguna Beach, seen them at shows and know some prospectors here have sold to them. https://kristalle.com/product-category/gold-gallery/
  17. Sold our gold bug 2 in one day on craigslist yesterday....got 3/4 what we paid originally. Was going to sell the Zed...could have sold it as well on the first day but then I chickened out...there are hardly any new or used detectors available right now on the internet...out of stock is what I'm seeing. even the small coil for the nox is hard to come by. Am I missing something here? Strick
  18. Here are the results on the four gold specimens from the post "Cleaning Gold Specimens - Step By Step Methods". Specimen A: \ Specimen B: Close up photos of Specimen B front and back: Specimens C: Specimen: D
  19. PART ONE: Pictured below are four gold specimens that I have found and I will discuss what methods I use to remove the host rock revealing mother nature's treasure. I gave each specimen a "letter" designation so you can follow the progress from start to finish on each specimen. Part Two I will discuss the chemicals and equipment I use to clean gold or mineral specimens.
  20. By using $1800 for gold and $28 for silver as a base a common dime would have a value of 2.02 and a .6 grain (not gram) nugget would have a value of 2.02 if it was at 90% purity.If you want to know the silver amount of a common dime multiply .07234 times the spot price of silver.A .6 grain nugget is tiny. I would rather find a nugget then a silver dime any day unless it is a very rare silver coin.I imagine you nugget hunters stumble on to a nice coin now and then.I heard Tom Massie found a $20 gold piece when he was nugget hunting.I hope I did my math right.Even with copper surging to $4.06 today a common dime only has .27 cents of copper in it.
  21. What is, if we should, get the dark crust from an old liberty dime to determine date and other details. No scrubbing with steel wool? Acids? Thank you in advance here at this forum for any help you can give.
  22. One of the most controversial topics in metal detecting and coin collecting is that of cleaning coins. A lot of this comes from failure to define terms, such as purpose of cleaning and what ‘cleaning’ really means. I’m starting this thread as much to educate myself as anything. As such it is a bit of ‘brainstorming’. I’m not an expert although as is often the case, many of the people who claim to be such aren’t either. “Reader beware” has never been more true than in the 21st Century internet / social media world and this post is no exception. Numismatics is the fancy word for coin collecting, and the topic of coin cleaning must include facts and opinions coming from that segment of activity and knowledge. Here is a list of some of the concepts/issues/concerns expressed there: 1) A coin’s patina is important. ‘Patina’ is the natural toning that comes with age. This idea is shared with antique collecting, as is the concern over refurbishing/restoring/refinishing of antiques in general. It is almost universally accepted in numismatics that coins that haven’t been cleaned are vastly superior to coins that exhibit signs of having been cleaned. Whether or not you consider this reasonable, it’s locked in and not going to change. 2) Most of modern numismatics, and particularly the area with the largest investment, is in uncirculated coins. A lot of the information among numistmatists on coin cleaning relates to uncirculated coins. 3) Although “beauty is in the eye of the beholder” is a general cliche’, coins do change hands and many/most methods of cleaning cannot be reversed. Much of coin collecting (hell, much of the world in general) is about value and (permanent) cleaning has ruined a lot of coins’ values over history – thus the reason for major concern amongst numistmatists on this subject. What does ‘ruin’ mean? Reducing its value by 75-90% isn't uncommon. 4) Most collected coins did not spend years in the ground. The issues we detectorists experience are rarely even considered by coin collectors. 5) Often the word ‘cleaning’ among numistmatists is confused with ‘conservation’. The latter is loosely defined as removing foreign matter that in the long term will damage a coin. ‘Cleaning’ is simply trying to improve the appearance of a coin. Conservation is accepted, if done properly, of course. Even the two major grading services offer conservation options. 6) Statements such as the most common -- “never clean coins” -- or even the less dogmatic “cleaning should be left to professionals” may be well intentioned, but are neither informative nor practical. Who are these ‘professionals’? I suspect if you went to a coin show/convention and did a survey you would get very few answers to this question, but rather be referred back to #1 (“never clean coins!”). Although so far it may seem that numismatists are Chicken Littles, there is a lot of validity to their concerns. It’s just that you need to go past the cliche’s to understand that. Let’s start with an analogy many of us are familiar with – cleaning eyeglasses. What’s the best way to do that? (“Never clean eyeglasses” isn’t an option!) Fortunately micro-fiber cloth is a fairly modern convenience, and that (with a mild cleaning solution) is the proper method. But how many of us have used paper towels, cotton cloths (such as handkerchiefs or shirt-tails), etc. to accomplish the task? I have, and the results are eye-opening (no pun intended). Permanent scratches result, at least for modern plastic lenses (and that includes polycarbonate lenses). Abrasives are a common cleaning medium. Sandpaper is a good example. Would you clean your eyeglasses with sandpaper? Well, fibers in paper and cloth are also abrasives. That also applies to cleaning of coins. The naked eye may not notice fine scratches but coin grading involves magnification and then the scratches look like river valleys. (OK, I exaggerate.) What seem like minor differences in coin grades can translate to huge differences in value. Scratches are one of the things that determine coin grades. A very common occurrence in metal detecting, if YouTube videos are any indication, is the immediate rubbing of a coin when retrieved from the ground. The sand grains, etc., in the attached soil are abrasives! If you want to identify a recovered coin in the field, then take along a small spray bottle and blast the coin with water. (BTW, I’m aware that some perceived experts have claimed that water damages a freshly retrieved coin. While always holding out the possibility that my logic is wrong, ask yourself this question: how many years has this coin been in the ground, free from contact with water?!!!! Even the driest desert gets rainfall occasionally.) The reality is that many coins coming from the ground, especially those which contain mostly copper, are not attractive and sometimes not even identifiable without aggressive cleaning. If you’ve read this far, hoping to get some good answers, you are going to be disappointed. I don’t have them, yet. There have been a few threads on detectorprospector.com with discussion of cleaning methods. I’m not going to repeat those, nor even link to them since they are scattered. What I am going to do this year (new year’s resolution) is to both read more deeply and experiment with cleaning methods. I already own one book on the subject and just ordered two more from Amazon. My workshop is being upgraded to, among other things, make it more conducive to simple chemical experimentation. I’ll report back with my findings. In the meantime, here's an interesting discussion among coin collectors on the subject. Also, a well chronicled experience with one of the coin certification services regarding coin cleaning/conservation.
  23. So I was killing time eye shopping gold nuggets, I like looking but never buy any until now when I saw what I thought was a really beautiful 29.32g gold nugget pendant. This one was full of character and had a variety of color and texture, the simple silver wire mount cleverly wrapped to hold it securely without solder or permanent attachment the perfect gift for my wife’s birthday. Well, it came in the mail today and for reasons beyond comprehension he decided to clean it. The silver mount I guess melted in the acid, it looks I think much less interesting and the weight is down to 26.2g from it’s natural state at 29.32 a little of that lost fine gold. I’m sure I could return it the seller is very reputable but still like it just not nearly as much, what do you think am I wrong thinking it was much prettier before it was cleaned...should the seller have even done this after posting the pictures in his add? before cleaning after cleaning
  24. I have 3 batches like this. I just listed one on CL for 175.00. Almost all iron items with some brass, ceramic etc. Priced too low? Too high? Going to be getting rid of all my old finds soon. Any ideas, opinions are good to hear. Thanks.
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