What is this

[shaggy21]

Is this gold

 

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[refolo]

It's hard to tell from the photos. Maybe you could upload one with you holding the stone a little further from the lens?

 

[shaggy21]

Is this better

 

[shaggy21]

This sample came out of an old gold mine

 

[shaggy21]

Better

 

[CC Hunter]

The orange specks I'm seeing, appear to be on the surface, and rather similar to lichen. Gold will be a very mellow color, and in the sun a warm rich tone. In quartz the gold should be down in the cracks and fissures, rather than across the surface. The gold may be visible on the surface, yet the gold should extend into the matrix. This quartz you have here appears to be a good possibility for bearing gold and there may be gold present. However, in the photos I'm not able to see anything that can be called gold with certainty. Have you tried a metal detector on this? Generally if one can see gold near the surface of a quartz specimen, there is more hiding inside. Most good quality newer metal detectors will pick up even fairly small amounts of gold when close to the coil.

The photo below is an example of one of the quartz specimens I have recovered. The gold is the yellow vein in the center. The reddish-orange is iron oxide staining. The green is surface lichen as the piece was discovered exposed on the surface of a tailing pile. This piece bangs out loud and clear on a metal detector, even set in low discrimination mode.

CC Hunter

 

[shaggy21]

Thank you

 

[Back-of-the-boat]

It looks like a good ore sample.

 

[kuger]

I keep coming back to this and am on the fence.....leaning toward yes.CC Hunter is spot on in his reply.If there is anyway you can get your hands on a piece of pyrite,study that and you will note gold and pyrite are distinctly different

 

[shaggy21]

I do know the difference in gold and pyrite its just i don't want to crush this to see if it is gold

 

[Breezie]

I keep coming back to this and am on the fence.....leaning toward yes.CC Hunter is spot on in his reply.If there is anyway you can get your hands on a piece of pyrite,study that and you will note gold and pyrite are distinctly different

Yes they are. Pyrite has a greenish tone to it whereas gold has a wee bit of an orange tint.
Neat find
Breezie

 

[AU Seeker]

In your first pictures you have two different background elements that is throwing the camera off when it tries to focus, the later pictures it seems that the camera is focusing more on the piece of wood in the background and not on the piece of quartz, try taking a picture in natural light but not in direct sunlight with a neutral background void of any details like a plain piece of paper or fabric without any wrinkles that the camera may try to focus on.

Another method that will get a good image is to lay it on your scanner and hit scan, be careful not to scratch the glass with the quartz.

That being said I can't see any of your pictures clearly enough to determine if it maybe gold in the quartz.

It's possible that it may be chalcopyrite which looks much more like gold than does pyrite.

If there is any pieces of what you think might be gold that is big enough to poke with a needle, it will help to see if the "gold" is malleable or brittle, if the "gold" indents when poke with the needle it may very well be gold, if it crumbles/chips, most likely pyrite or chalcopyrite .