5 year old found this rock!

n8huntsman

Tenderfoot
Apr 12, 2021
8
7
Primary Interest:
All Treasure Hunting
I spent $1000 on a VLF detector, 300 on a drywasher, 400 on a multi-sluice, plus more on misc. stuff and haven't found anything yet. Haven't tried that hard yet either, but still! We were walking down a trail along the Colorado river near Fort Mohave Arizona (Black Mountains/Oatman area) and saw a bunch of old lead dot cans that piqued my interest. My 5 year old picks up a rock "that looked pretty" and sees a vein in it. She hands it to me and asked if it was gold. To humor her I take a look and what do you know! I sure do believe it is. What do you guys think? It is soft, like the feel of lead, not hard like pyrite when I touch it with tweezers.
Next question, what should I do with it? She wants to get the gold out and put it in a vial. Do you think the rock alone, as-is, would be of more personal value someday?
Also, by the way it's split, can you tell anything about the rock? I was thinking maybe an old miner found it, split it, brought it back and then lost it. The spot is probably 20 miles or so from a well known gold area. If that's the case, what was the old timer looking for in this particular rock? It looks very unassuming without being split open. I wouldn't even have thought it had quartz in it but it sure seems to, along with gold, on the inside. Just trying to figure out what I should be looking for in the future.
Thanks for anything you can provide me with.
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edit: Heres a couple more with better color:
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angelito1

Bronze Member
Jun 3, 2016
1,786
1,744
FLA
Primary Interest:
All Treasure Hunting
Welcome to Tnet .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. ..:hello:
 

xr7ator

Gold Member
Sep 2, 2011
5,182
7,169
Denver, Colorado
Detector(s) used
Garrett AT Pro, AT Gold, ATX, MH7 (oldie!) Minelab Explorer SE Pro, EQ800
I have lived here in CO all my life and have seen a whole bunch of shiney or interesting rocks and I don't see any gold in any of your pictures. Gold is unmistakable. It's buttery bright yellow color is, well, nowhere to be seen in your pics!
 

OP
OP
N

n8huntsman

Tenderfoot
Apr 12, 2021
8
7
Primary Interest:
All Treasure Hunting
I have lived here in CO all my life and have seen a whole bunch of shiney or interesting rocks and I don't see any gold in any of your pictures. Gold is unmistakable. It's buttery bright yellow color is, well, nowhere to be seen in your pics!

Way to disappoint a five year old! LOL... so what would have this shine and color, but still be soft? It's actually malleable. I was chalking the difference in appearance up to it having been mechanically altered when the rock was split, disrupting the surface. Almost like someone hammered a punch into it.
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russau

Gold Member
May 29, 2005
7,266
6,723
St. Louis, missouri
About 15 year's our gold club (Show me Gold Prospector's ) went out to a sand and gravel plant to get some fine gold out of they're tailing's race and during a small break we went looking into they're over sized rock pile . we found some nice rock's and when I was ready to give up and go back to my working's my eye caught a glimpse of a rock at eye level and I garbed it !!!! It was a about the size of a large golf ball round split in half and it had a heart shaped center in it of broydrial Hematite !! man was I pumped up and it was close to mother's day!!! That got me again interested in looking for rocks and 20 min's latter i found the other half of it ! Now I'm showing it off to all the club member's and ( at that time our President of our club) (the other rock nut) said it was a very good find. That made my day!
 

Mountaineer2020

Jr. Member
Jul 5, 2020
90
218
Oregon
Detector(s) used
Minelab gs3000
Primary Interest:
Prospecting
Might could be gold with quite a bit of silver in it! An alloy? Some gold I've found has been buttery yellow and others more a white. To crush that stuff I welded a piece of pipe to a base plate and SMASH with a 5 foot long axle shaft of nearly the same diameter. Works pretty good. From there you can pan out. Not a fan of the mortar and pestle. Course I'm usually look for little specs of fine gold not big chonky's like that.
 

Tpmetal

Silver Member
Jan 4, 2017
4,434
7,554
Western ny
Detector(s) used
equinox 800, Whites mx sport, Garrot carrot, bounty hunter time ranger
Primary Interest:
All Treasure Hunting
Crush and pan, you got nothing to lose!
 

Tesorodeoro

Bronze Member
Jan 21, 2018
1,233
1,925
Primary Interest:
All Treasure Hunting
I see blocky yellowish minerals. If I had to guess I’d say pyrite of some sort. I’d definitely had picked it up to investigate.

Hard telling 100% from pictures.
 

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