Is this gold?

[Jason Edwards]

Maybe I'm being a little bit paranoid, but I think I've been fooled!

I took some samples of Gold(maybe), Muscovite Mica, and Iron Pyrite and did a streak test on all of them.

The pyrite came out black...
The gold came out yellow/gold...
The Mica came out yellow/gold...

I thought that the Muscovite Mica was supposed to come out with a white/colorless streak.
The only thing I noticed is that the supposed Gold sample smears around easily across my fingers while the Mica doesn't smear at all. It usually just breaks apart into smaller fractures of itself. It's hard to visually tell the difference and the only acid that I know dissolves mica is hydrofluoric acid ( I don't have any).

What is going on with the Mica sample? Do you guys think I have real gold?

 

Amazon Forum Fav 👍

How to Research for Treasure Hunting and Metal Detecting From Lead Generation to Vetting - Grab it through Amazon!

[Aurabbit79er]

Maybe not.

 

[Lanny in AB]

What do you mean--the gold smears easily across your fingers? Is it a piece of gold--or tiny particles of flour gold. If so, how did you do a streak test? Is the mica a gold color? Do you have enough to do a specific gravity test? Can you perform an acid test?

Gold is a metal and should behave like one--it always has for me. It bends easily--flattens easily--indents easily. It's not brittle--so that rules out your one sample. You may indeed have, as AUrabbit said, have something other than gold.

All the best,

Lanny

 

[Jason Edwards]

What do you mean--the gold smears easily across your fingers? Is it a piece of gold--or tiny particles of flour gold. If so, how did you do a streak test? Is the mica a gold color? Do you have enough to do a specific gravity test? Can you perform an acid test?

Gold is a metal and should behave like one--it always has for me. It bends easily--flattens easily--indents easily. It's not brittle--so that rules out your one sample. You may indeed have, as AUrabbit said, have something other than gold.

All the best,

Lanny

I mean the supposed gold sample didn't have any cleavage. The gold is tiny particles of flour gold. I performed a standard streak test buy rubbing the materials across a white tile and observing the resulting color. The Muscovite Mica appeared gold in color and had a streak color similar to the gold. I did not do a specific gravity test and do not have the means to do an acid test at the moment.

Have you done streak tests with Muscovite before? What was the result?

Thanks for taking an interest in my dilemma btw.

 

[Fullpan]

a magnified pic might help us help you

 

[Lanny in AB]

If the mica is gold in color, and you're using a white base for your streak, that may be why. If you have flour gold, congrats on getting a streak test to give you positive results. I've never done a test with Muscovite mica before as the specific gravity of it in the pan quickly eliminates it as having a heavier specific gravity, like gold does.

No problem in trying to help you out with your dilema, now that I have some more information, it fills in a few blanks--like the info. about passing the flour gold across your fingers. I'd assumed, wrongly by the way, that you were testing bigger pieces of gold. So, thanks for the extra information.

Even flour gold will hang up in the top of the pan (the former crease where you separated it from the black sand) when you run the water away from the gold by tilting the pan down carefully. That's a good way to tell what you've got gravity wise. Lighter materials won't hang up as you wash away the black sand like gold will. Even bigger pieces of pyrite will run away, and tiny specks of flour gold will stay put (unless you've got some oil in the pan and they float away).

All the best with your new adventures in chasin' the gold,

Lanny