🔎 UNIDENTIFIED For you Geologists!

[oldbattleaxe]

I had this in my garage for decades. I cannot remember where it had come from? I remember how I was interested in it for the weight and color it had for its size. Magnets do not attract to it. I put it on the grinder in one corner and it shines with a silver color. The outer surface has a goldish to purple metalflake color. What do the experts think?

 

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[Red-Coat]

Looks like it might be a piece of specular hematite. if so, it should produce a red to reddish brown streak on the unglazed back of a porclain tile.

Hematite itself is not attracted to a magnet unless it also has magnetite as a secondary mineral.

Peacock ore (bornite) is also non-magnetic and develops iridescent surface colours as it tarnishes, but its natural unweathered and interior colour is brownish.

 

[oldbattleaxe]

It is a black scrape.

 

[CreekSide]

Looks almost like a schist we have in Georgia. What state

 

[Red-Coat]

It is a black scrape.

Thanks for checking. I would guess then that it's pyrite-rich something. Pyrite streaks grey to black and can have metallic surface iridescence when weathered. It isn't always yellow, and ranges through to silver-grey, especially for the unweathered interior. It could still have a proportion of hematite since iron minerals often occur as mixtures. Pyrite is fairly dense but hematite even more so.

Note that bornite (mentioned in my first reply) also has a greyish-black streak, but the interior that you exposed doesn't look like bornite.

Galena also streaks greyish-black and is very dense, but the streak has a distinctly metallic sheen. It wouldn't exhibit a surface colouration that could be described a metallic goldish purple though.

 

[oldbattleaxe]

That makes sense to me Red-Coat. You do know your stuff. I am 74 and had collected unusual relics along with WW1 and WW2 soldiers relics. I had the opportunity to talk with WW2 veterans when I purchased their relics. Helmets, medals, insignias etc. Items like this are sometimes in their foot lockers or just at their estates. I think was in a collection. Only until Treasure.net began one wouldn't be able to find out much about unusual items like this. I have one other item that was posted on here and I still need some expert advice about an unusual metal piece. I am hoping you will look at it and give your expertise on it. The item above is now solved. Thanks to all commenter's .

 

[oldbattleaxe]

The last two pictures were found on an ancient battle axe website. The attachment method looked to be similar to the piece I have. I have been trying to identify it to no end. It looks to be made that. It fits into palm nicely. It was in a soldier's estate. Since our soldier's served in Africa, Italy, India they would have been exposed to things that interested them if it fitted in their backpack. Please give me opinions. I can handle it.

 

[Red-Coat]

That makes sense to me Red-Coat. You do know your stuff. I am 74 and had collected unusual relics along with WW1 and WW2 soldiers relics. I had the opportunity to talk with WW2 veterans when I purchased their relics. Helmets, medals, insignias etc. Items like this are sometimes in their foot lockers or just at their estates. I think was in a collection. Only until Treasure.net began one wouldn't be able to find out much about unusual items like this. I have one other item that was posted on here and I still need some expert advice about an unusual metal piece. I am hoping you will look at it and give your expertise on it. The item above is now solved. Thanks to all commenter's .

The last two pictures were found on an ancient battle axe website. The attachment method looked to be similar to the piece I have. I have been trying to identify it to no end. It looks to be made that. It fits into palm nicely. It was in a soldier's estate. Since our soldier's served in Africa, Italy, India they would have been exposed to things that interested them if it fitted in their backpack. Please give me opinions. I can handle it.

You’re welcome.

I don’t think there’s any reliable way to tell what that is from your photographs, nor how old it is. Especially not with only anecdotal provenience.

I saw from your original post that you were musing on the possibility of it being meteoritic iron (if it is actually from Egypt). While it’s true that, in early times, iron was a scarce high-status material in Egypt and largely sourced by hammering and forging of meteorites (earning the hieroglyphs for “metal from heaven”), that wasn’t the case in later times. The iron age began in Egypt around 1200 BC, with imported iron becoming the dominant source and, by the late Greco-Roman period, Egypt was smelting its own iron ore. The material was then in common usage from about 500 BC.