GOLD NUGGET!!

[cyberdan]

A lady is getting together several pieces of gold for me to buy. She gave me a preview of things she has found so far, about 6 pieces. She said she has a lot more and her mom has a few too.

One of the pieces I saw last night is a raw gold nugget her dad found many years ago in northern CA. It is about the size and shape of the eraser and metal cap on a pencil and it has a quartz inclusion about 25% of the piece. It had already been made into a pendant.

I will test it to make sure it is not pyrite but need to know if all raw gold is 24K? I am not going to pay extra just because it is raw, I may try to sell it based on that.

I will have to guess how much to discount my offer based on quartz VS gold. Is quartz roughly 50% is weight compared to the same amount of gold? The whole thing probabley isn't more than 5gr.

[keverett]

Most nugget form gold in Ca is about 22kt. No 24kt gold exists in nature. I can't help you on the weight issue, but there is a formula you can use that uses water and displacement for the weight of the gold in the quartz. Hope this helps.

[trdhrdr007]

I ran across an 18k ring not too long ago that had a huge piece of smoky topaz. It was about 1"x3/4"x1/2" so I knew it weighed a good bit. The seller was pretty firm on their price & wouldn't let me take the stone out of the ring. Total weight of the ring was about 12 dwt. I ended up getting some quartz crystals, guesstimating an amount of them equal to the stone in the ring, weighing that & adding in a safety margin. I bought the ring & the stome weighed about 1 dwt less than I thought so I came out ok.

In your situation I'd be concerned that there was more quartz there than is visible.

[billjustbill]

[ I will test it to make sure it is not pyrite but need to know if all raw gold is 24K? I am not going to pay extra just because it is raw, I may try to sell it based on that.

I will have to guess how much to discount my offer based on quartz VS gold. Is quartz roughly 50% is weight compared to the same amount of gold? The whole thing probabley isn't more than 5gr.

[/quote]

I saw a Discovery Channel program about Georgia's gold. It said that the gold found there is almost 24kt.... Found more about it here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgia_Gold_Belt

Good luck with your buying, sounds exciting!
Bill