Gold or fools gold

liljack

Newbie
Mar 5, 2017
2
1
Primary Interest:
All Treasure Hunting

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Kenmitch

Sr. Member
Oct 7, 2016
255
345
SoCal
Detector(s) used
X-Terra 705 Gold
Primary Interest:
All Treasure Hunting
Looks like fools gold but then again it's too hard to tell from the photos. Gold will be gold under all lighting conditions and wont change when your lighting is moved around, other than being more visible at least.
 

Duckshot

Silver Member
Sep 8, 2014
4,455
9,643
trapped on the earthly plane of causation
Primary Interest:
All Treasure Hunting
Put a price of placer known to be gold in a pan along with some equally sized pieces of your sample. Give it a swirl and you will imeadiately see the differences between gold and fools gold. The gold will pretty much stay put while the less dense fools gold moves quite easily.

Also pyrite can be crushed with a pliers or smashed with a hamer. Gold and other metals will just flatten out instead of breaking up.
 

Laz7777

Sr. Member
Dec 19, 2015
255
494
South Fork Yuba River, Motherlode
Detector(s) used
GoldBug II
Primary Interest:
Prospecting
the blurry pic on the top right looks like it might.
unless my monitor or your pic is way off-color, the other 2 pics don't even look like pyrite to me. way too green, some gold will have a greenish cast to it, but not that far off the spectrum of yellow/red that they show.
you have some mineral, and without any further details of where you found it (not exact locale, just general), I don't know what it could be, but I strongly could say what it isn't: gold.
 

placertogo

Sr. Member
Aug 25, 2010
371
350
Maine USA
Depending upon the deposit, there can be real gold as well as silver mixed in with pyrite or chalcopyrite. We have some iron sulfide and copper deposits along the Maine coast which yielded gold and silver as by products.
 

FFFPatriot

Sr. Member
Feb 21, 2017
311
482
Montana
Detector(s) used
Fisher Gold Bug II, 4 Kidde brand smoke detectors, and 1 carbon monoxide detector I bought from Home Depot (can't remember the brand).
Primary Interest:
Prospecting
Try putting a gold magnet on it and see if it sticks to it. A brass magnet would work to. I just do the fingernail press. Pyrite always breaks apart with my fingernail. The gold flakes never do.
 

winners58

Bronze Member
Apr 4, 2013
1,729
4,058
Oregon
Primary Interest:
All Treasure Hunting
Where? what state? could be formed as porphyry or a Laterite
could be green stone or could be the green comes from arsenopyrite.
even if it isn't gold in some areas the green stone is a good indicator of gold close by.
knowing the geology of what type of minerals have been found locally will tell you what you have.
 

Ragnor

Sr. Member
Dec 7, 2015
445
422
Primary Interest:
All Treasure Hunting
Looks like pyrite in some kind of sulfide matrix. crush it and pan it. Save the heavies and roast them if it's worth your time. You never know what you will find. But take your exposure saftey seriously if you are roasting. Some stuff takes just a taste of it to make yah real sick.
 

enamel7

Gold Member
Apr 16, 2005
6,383
2,546
North Carolina
Detector(s) used
Garrett AT Gold
Primary Interest:
All Treasure Hunting
Try putting a gold magnet on it and see if it sticks to it. A brass magnet would work to. I just do the fingernail press. Pyrite always breaks apart with my fingernail. The gold flakes never do.

I tend to use my rubber or wood magnet instead of my gold magnet!
 

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