🥇 BANNER 153 lbs of Silver.

[cryptic]

Went metal detectecting in the old silver tailings around here and I got a great signal on the F75. It came in at around 67 on the screen. Oh great another piece of tin i thought to myself. Oh well, dig everything because you never know what it might be. After about 35 minutes of digging and having the hole collapse in on me many times I finally saw the target. It was a nice pink coloured rock. That is a good sign since around here a lot of silver has Cobalt in it. That is one of the ways the miners would find silver veins back in the old days. Anyways, after finally digging it out, I couldn't lift it out of the hole. It was too heavy for me. It was also a very deep hole. I had to get a ratchet strap from my truck and pull it out of the hole. It is so heavy that I could hardly carry the thing over the tailings piles and through the bush. I ended up dragging it most of the way with the ratchet strap which finally gave in and broke apart from the abuse. I ended up rolling/carrying it the rest of the way. When I got home I found out the true weight of it. It weighs over 150 lbs. I still have to clean it up. It has cobalt and calcite in it and I estimate it to be at least over 75% silver. I rubbed it up a little bit to show some of the silver. It still has to be cleaned.

 

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[Jason in Enid]

Holy crap! That's gotta be 80-90%! Have you tried acid etching the rock to reveal the natural metal formation?

 

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[cryptic]

Holy crap! That's gotta be 80-90%! Have you tried acid etching the rock to reveal the natural metal formation?

There is very little calcite in the rock to etch out.

 

[strickman]

Beautiful , I knew you had a good one ! Very nice indeed. Keep it up ,get more before the big freeze (might be too late ) . That looks amazing , I t might be quiet , some are choking on crow !

 

[Hawgwild]

Not that is AWESOME....I got to get me one of those things....Huge congrats..I know your happy for sure....

 

[Troyounce]

Holy Smokes! The stuff dreams are made of! Great find!

 

[crazyfish]

Hi everyone!

I am still waiting for the assay results..

Decided to do a "visual" assay while I'm waiting and got two slabs cut off the big piece to see what was inside. Here is a picture of the second cut and what it looks like. Sorry my camera does not take the best pictures and silver is hard to photograph.

Thanks!

I'd love to buy a slice of that from you. If you're intererested, please shoot me a PM. I don't need much, just a small sliver.

Thanks!

 

[namster]

Results from the assay yet? I've been checking this thread at least every few days or so.

 

[Jim Hemmingway]

Hello All….

I’ve just returned from searching the silverfields in Ontario and would like to add my views to this thread. I recently met and became reasonably well acquainted with Cryptic. We spent considerable time detecting mine tailings together over the course of the autumn. He is a forthright, honest individual… highly skilled as a silver hunter… and knows how to use his F75 metal detector to good effect in that application.

Now to the 153 lb high-grade silver specimen. I had ample opportunity to evaluate it as far as possible based on surface features. Regardless of actual silver content, this specimen has a very good showing of native silver that is associated with some quantity of either cobaltite and / or safflorite. Without lab / assay analysis it is not possible to say more about exact chemical constituents or proportions of these associated substances especially since intergrades are quite common.

Ores tend to blast apart along the weakest or brittle planes. A result is that the surfaces of ores tend to show more of such material relative to the amount of silver showing than is normally found within the core. These “brittles” include calcite / dolomite vein material, plain country rock, and associated sulfides or arsenides common to the area such as cobaltite, niccolite, skutterudites, and safflorite. So clearly a visual determination of silver content is more subjective than otherwise. There is usually more silver content than is indicated by surface features.

An assay is destructive to the sample in question. To do a proper assay would ruin the sample’s specimen value to serious buyers. I know that Cryptic has done some limited “drilling” for assay purposes, but these results will prove meaningless because this technique is largely “hit and miss” and will not properly extract native silver. Relevant assay results require crushing the sample and submitting a homogeneous sample for analysis. I strongly recommend against such a procedure for obvious reasons. The destruction of a lifetime achievement for the sake of a forum discussion is absolute nonsense.

As with many finds nominated for the banner award, we must extend the benefit of the doubt in this instance because supplying the “proof” means the destruction of a museum quality specimen. Did I say a “museum quality” specimen?? Why yes I did. Prior to returning home I visited the local mineral museum and can assure readers this specimen would be prominently displayed there.

Congratulations Cryptic… your technical “know how” with your F75 in concert with your dedication and perseverance has resulted in a winner. Yes it will be difficult to improve on this piece, but I believe you are equal to the task… it’s just a matter of time IMO.

Jim.

 

[JDug]

Amazing! I would vote banner if I knew how.

 

[BenDavis]

Hello. As indicated by Jim, assay results by drilling will not provide meaningful results because silver will not be distributed unformly in the rock. For example, one drill hole may give an indicated 20,000 ounces silver per ton, another drilled in another direction might give 500 ounces to the ton. Furthermore, most assay labs will do a traditional fire assay which will not give accurate results on these arsenic-rich ores. These ores need to be assayed by the old technique of scorification. This is typically done by fusing the sample with excess iron such as nails and an added oxidant such as certain kinds of fertilizer.

If an approximate estimate of the amount of silver is desired in a non-destructive way the following method can be used. The volume of the ore chunk needs to be determined by water or sand displacement. Then the apparent density can be calculated. If the ore is all cobaltite/safflorite and silver, one might take a ballpark density of perhaps 6.5 for the arsenides and 10 for the silver and then calculate the relative volumes of each that would add up to the overal weight of the piece. With the estimated volume of silver thus determined the number of ounces can be calculated.

If there is some minor carbonate present it could be worked into the estimate and the amount of silver will be a little less.

This large piece of ore might well be surface or near-surface ore and if so will likely have porosity. To check, a few drops of water can be applied to the surface to see if they are quickly absorbed into the rock. If so, the apparent volume of this piece will be more than its actual volume and this can be factored into a rough estimate of the silver content.

In the old days large pieces of ore such as this were common and they were crushed and melted down in small blast furnaces. Nowadays they are very rare and ought to be preserved if possible.

 

[junkhunter]

very nice

 

[dougofpa]

Amazing! I would vote banner if I knew how.

Go to the first post or thread starter...look over to the right there will be a RED button that says "NOMINATE BANNER"..click on it...then it will ask you type in a response as to why you feel this should make the banner. Easy as that...I know man, it took me a while to figure it out too...You must click the red button that is associated with the post you want to nominate as banner

Hope that helps...later

 

[JDug]

Go to the first post or thread starter...look over to the right there will be a RED button that says "NOMINATE BANNER"..click on it...then it will ask you type in a response as to why you feel this should make the banner. Easy as that...I know man, it took me a while to figure it out too...You must click the red button that is associated with the post you want to nominate as banner

Hope that helps...later

Thanks, I figured it was something simple I was missing....

 

[extractor]

Please keep us posted

 

[aicrag]

this site is so amazing.... that's very cool.. everyone is dreaming about this..

 

[Bell]

All that being said, my understaning was drilled samples had been submitted for assay. Still awaiting some kind of outcolme?

 

[Coin Sniper]

Congratulations on the find of a lifetime!!! I am very happy for you and I thank you for sharing your find with us.

 

[cryptic]

Here is an assay report.

Ag
ppm
> 200

Al
%
< 0.01

As
ppm
> 5000

Ba
ppm
< 10

Be
ppm
< 0.5

Bi
ppm
< 5

Ca
%
0.76

Cd
ppm
< 1

Co
ppm
> 10000

Cr
ppm
19

Cu
ppm
1411

Fe
%
4.49

K
%
< 0.01

Mg
%
0.37

Mn
ppm
330

Mo
ppm
< 2

Na
%
< 0.01

Ni
ppm
> 10000

P
ppm
< 5

Pb
ppm
< 2

Sb
ppm
< 5

Sc
ppm
< 1

Sr
ppm
8

Te
ppm
< 2

Ti
%
< 0.01

V
ppm
< 1

W
ppm
< 10

Y
ppm
5

Zn
ppm
30

Zr
ppm
< 1

What does it all mean? Let me know what you think

 

[Jason in Enid]

so it's nickle, arsenic, copper and cobalt?

Looks like it's very low in silver, but would still be a valuable vein to mine!

 

[cti4sw]

Ag = silver
Al = aluminum
As = arsenic
Ba = barium
Be = beryllium
Bi = bismuth
Ca = calcium
Cd = cadmium
Co = cobalt
Cr = chromium
Cu = copper
Fe = iron
K = potassium
Mg = magnesium
Mn = manganese
Mo = molybdenum
Na = sodium
Ni = nickel
P = phosphorus
Pb = lead
Sb = antimony
Sc = scandium
Sr = strontium
Te = tellurium
Ti = titanium
V = vanadium
W = tungsten
Y = yttrium
Zn = zinc
Zr = zirconium

Oh, and "ppm" means "parts per million."

so it's nickle, arsenic, copper and cobalt?

Looks like it's very low in silver, but would still be a valuable vein to mine!

Don't forget about density and mass. 500 ppm of silver is a lot more substance than the same amount of, say, calcium or aluminum. PPM is a comparative ratio; it's an average value taken by sample content times one million, divided by sample size.

If your sample size was 10,000 equally-sized units, and 5 of those units were silver, and you wanted to convert this to PPM, you would use the classic ratio formula:

5/10,000 = x/1,000,000
10,000x = (5)(1,000,000)
10,000x = 5,000,000
x = 5,000,000/10,000
x = 500

Your sample could also have more than a million standard-sized "parts", and it would have been simplified down to PPM. That's basic algebra. I'm pretty sure raw ore is almost always more impurities than actual ore, but still is pretty valuable nonetheless.