Copper & Fossil!

[autoenthusiast24]

Copper & Fossil!

I put up a picture of a fossil at the bottom if anyone has any idea what it may be I'd be very interested. I think I'll post a picture of the big hunk of copper ore also see if anyone can tell me something about it

Hello Treasure Net I'm looking for some advice from the experts out there! I recently came across various forms of copper. One isn't pictured because I'm 99% sure it's plain copper ore with a big hunk of copper in the middle of it that I have to chisel out.

What I'm interested in is what exactly I have for the other pieces. I have access to a decent amount more and I'm interested what this stuff is worth.

There are green, clear, and white crystals all over the first two. The pictures do not do any of them justice as far as color of the copper or crystals.

Thank you in advance for any help you can give me! I'm relatively new to the whole metal/mineral/rock thing but I'm very anxious to learn!

 

[Henry2]

Re: Copper!

Not sure what they are worth but those are pretty cool pieces you got there.

 

[autoenthusiast24]

Re: Copper!

I should also add. The piece in the first picture, the crystals are not "growing on" the copper, they are "growing IN" the copper. Think of chunky peanut butter where the butter part is the copper and the chunks are crystals.

 

[autoenthusiast24]

Re: Copper!

Not sure what they are worth but those are pretty cool pieces you got there.

Thanks hopefully they'll turn out to be something interesting .. where I got them from the guy had the same thing as the 3rd picture, but it had 99.9% silver AND copper embedded in the same way..

 

[Tigger]

Re: Copper!

"One isn't pictured because I'm 99% sure it's plain copper ore with a big hunk of copper in the middle of it that I have to chisel out."

before you chisel anything, you may want to take it to a rock shop, or check the going rate on ebay for similar mineral specimens. They may be worth more as displays than for the melt value. I have a piece I got in the UP of Michigan that was copper in matrix, they cut and polished it, makes a nice paperweight/display.
Just a thought.
Tigger

 

[IronSpike]

Re: Copper!

"One isn't pictured because I'm 99% sure it's plain copper ore with a big hunk of copper in the middle of it that I have to chisel out."

before you chisel anything, you may want to take it to a rock shop, or check the going rate on ebay for similar mineral specimens. They may be worth more as displays than for the melt value. I have a piece I got in the UP of Michigan that was copper in matrix, they cut and polished it, makes a nice paperweight/display.
Just a thought.
Tigger

Cool pieces and good advice

 

[autoenthusiast24]

Re: Copper!

I will definitely take that advice I'm going to be calling a rock shop today however there aren't any local so I just have to describe over the phone.. do you guys know what the names of any of this stuff is?

Thanks everyone for your comments thus far!

 

[High Plains Digger]

Re: Copper!

Mineral specimens are definitely worth more than the $4 or so for copper, and that is for copper pipe, etc. Who knows if they will even want "ore" with all the gangue material. Way nicer as specimens. Do you or "the guy" live in Mich?

 

[autoenthusiast24]

Re: Copper!

Yeah I'd never scrap this for weight value, not in a million years

Neither me or the guy live in Michigan, however he indicated a lot of it was from Michigan. I believe some of the more odd samples were from Arizona. I've seen some very high prices on eBay for this stuff, but I don't know if that's just wishful pricing or not.

Do you know anything about fossils? I also picked up a very strange, large fossil that I'm curious about..


Here are some more pictures if they mean anything...

I've seen some pricing on eBay that makes me think they're worth quite a bit.. however alot of sellers on eBay are wishful thinkers. Regardless these will make great gifts, just trying to figure out what I have

 

[Sheldon J]

Re: Copper!

For some reason my Android will not let me see the pictures

 

[autoenthusiast24]

Re: Copper!

For some reason my Android will not let me see the pictures

Strange because they're pictures taken with an Android haha. Probably something with Photobucket.

I think I may just list a few of my less favored ones for sale on eBay so if they sell I'm not too downed but I also can figure out what they can actually sell for.. just noticed one of the smaller ones has two specs of silver in it

 

[goldenlady]

Re: Copper!

Hi,

Check and see if you have a local Gem and Mineral Club in your area. Some samples of native copper can be quite valuable. If you have green crystals in some of your samples they could be rare malachite crystals. If you have blue crystals in your samples they could be azurite crystals. I wouldn't recommend selling anything on ebay until you know exactly what you have. Just some suggestions for you to consider. Have a great day !

Goldenlady

 

[High Plains Digger]

Re: Copper!

Bring on the fossils! And I don't mean a bunch of old guys.

 

[autoenthusiast24]

Re: Copper!

Hi,

Check and see if you have a local Gem and Mineral Club in your area. Some samples of native copper can be quite valuable. If you have green crystals in some of your samples they could be rare malachite crystals. If you have blue crystals in your samples they could be azurite crystals. I wouldn't recommend selling anything on ebay until you know exactly what you have. Just some suggestions for you to consider. Have a great day !

Goldenlady

Hmm he had a piece of rock that he mentioned had tiny azurite crystals... they were a bright, navy blue if that makes any sense. Like a flueorescent navy blue?.. I believe it was on copper ore that hadn't been cut apart..
Thanks for the great advice, I think I'm going to hold onto all of the stuff until I do what I got them for, learn everything about them.

Bring on the fossils! And I don't mean a bunch of old guys.

You asked for it, you got it!

It appears to be a piece of a much larger fossil, I'm thinking 1/4 of it maybe less. I can't imagine how it went together though. One part of it looks like gears interlocking suggesting two things connecting via "the teeth" (shown in last picture). However, looking down the center, it's held together by a "saucer" shaped piece. On the outside there is a multi layer shell of iridescent something or another. Anywhere you see green or red or a combination on the outside, if you shift it in the light it will switch colors. It appears to have plant fossils on the outside. There are ALOT of little pieces that are probably pretty tough to identify as separate through pictures. Every section that was once a different part is separated by a white, hard ivory looking mineral.

The FIRST picture is interesting. as you see on the bottom half of the picture, it's blackish/grey, where as the top half is closer to white. This is not lighting, this is how it is. Also, notice the strange contour of the blackish/grey area, it's very clear something was once joined here. This part made me think large spine for some reason.


Don't feel bad if you don't know what it is I don't blame you

 

[autoenthusiast24]

Re: Copper!

Just to add, it's waaay more complex than a picture could capture. Having it sit right in front of me, I still find new places where "joints" were. I call them joints because they are now separated by this white mineral. I just noticed that the white mineral separating all the pieces is also very slightly iridescent, and it has more of a white with slightly purple color.

The iridescent multi layer shell has light blue, green, red, purple, orange, and possible some other colors. I just noticed it doesn't actually change color rotating it in light, but certain colors reflect at certain angles.

Also, almost anywhere it looks cracked, it's actually a separation/joint with the white mineral separating it. I feel like this is animal almost for sure because of the incredible complexity, I can just picture organs going in the little areas here and there.

Hopefully this isn't super common and one picture tells exactly what it is and all this typing goes to shame ha


Thanks again guys and gals.

 

[autoenthusiast24]

Re: Copper!

Wrong forum for fossils?

 

[High Plains Digger]

Re: Copper & Fossil!

Fossils here work for me. I believe that what you have is what I call "mudstone". Just my name. Yours, like mine, seem to have smaller bits of rocks within the matrix, and I suspect that when a crack formed, it was filled with calcite. The large piece seems to be calcite, maybe could be aragonite, but the difference between the two isn't much. The "mossy" formations may also be calcite in a much thinner space. Calcite has more than 100 different crystal forms, and you appear to have two, maybe 3. There may be a fossil shell in it, but the whole piece isn't a chunk of critter. I could tell you more with hands on, but..... I have seen ammonites and blemites with calcite crystals in them, and the "mossy" part looks like sutures, but are not organized right. The section with the broken little "knobs" are regular enough that they could be a formation of an ammonite shell and the white splotches opposite of those could be bits of shell. Or not.

 

[High Plains Digger]

Re: Copper & Fossil!

Still thinking and looking at it--not easy without hands on. But I am wondering a little more about an ammonite. But it seems that a lot of the structures are one way, and then another and then another. Unless we have parts of 3 or 4 shells at different angles. These things are found in "beds". And I am thinking more and more that the square calcite crystals may be mother of pearl, which is calcium carbonate anyway, but way cooler. Ammolite can break up into square patterns like that, but it sure looks like calcite (like optical calcite) when the "massive crystal" is broken up into smaller rombehedrons. I am still perplexed by the "gears" as you put it. Some ammonites have very large ridges and knobs. But the sutures still don't look right.

 

[Bigcypresshunter]

Re: Copper!

Wrong forum for fossils?

Here is the fossil forum but you could post in both places. http://forum.treasurenet.com/index.php/board,119.0.html

Interesting stuff which I no nothing about.

 

[autoenthusiast24]

Re: Copper & Fossil!

High Plains Digger:

You posted alot of words but you're not speaking my language!

First off, thanks for the in depth analysis. I'm worried I may not have portrayed what it is well enough though, simply because I can't convince myself it's just rocks.. maybe this will change your mind, if your still convinced it's a hunk of rock with calcite separating the rocks, I'll take your word for it. It just looks so systematic in some areas that it's almost impossible to believe it wasn't some kind of life form.. notice the curvature on the iridescent part with plant etchings (or whatever the fancy science name is )..

Hopefully this video will do a slightly better job of "putting it in your hands"...