gold colours?

yes i live in the uk.

i have just bought a gold nugget. my first Californian one. the others are Australian. and it is less golden looking and a little more silver looking. can gold look different from different parts of the world?

Reply to
mewthree
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First thought: Iron Pyrite? AKA Fool's Gold...

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Reply to
Bruce L. Bergman

Sure, this stuff isn't 24 K pure gold. Who knows what is in it. Of course, as another has said, it might not have any gold in it. Have you weighed it?

Jon

Reply to
Jon Elson

yes i have weighed it and it is what it says it is. and seems consistant with size.

Reply to
mewthree

Sure, depends on what it's alloyed with, and if it's a real nugget or something someone melted in the shop into a bucket of water.

Reply to
Dave Hinz

Different structure entirely and VERY different density.

Reply to
Dave Hinz

Yes. Gold that is found in nature is rarely pure. It is commonly found alloyed with silver, and slightly less commonly found alloyed with copper. It is also found alloyed with other elements, such as tellurium, or members of the platinum group. One might expect combinations of several elements. Each of them have a profound effect on the color of the nugget. Not only will the appearance vary by location, but gold content is likely to as well. In my years of refining, I processed gold that ran as low as 30%, and as high as 96% as found in nature.

While it may make little sense to you, the addition of silver to gold yields green gold, quite unlike anything you might imagine. The addition of copper yields red gold. A balance of silver and copper alloyed with gold will yield a subdued golden color we have come to expect from gold used in jewelry. The addition of nickel or palladium yields white gold.

Pure gold has a look like nothing else. At the risk of offending, I'm going to email you a picture of a bowl of gold shot, pure, so you'll understand the color. The shot in the picture is gold that I refined, and is how it was dispensed to the customer, normally manufacturing jewelers. The shot form allowed for the small amounts to be weighed precisely for alloying, which is customary for the average benchman.

Harold

Reply to
Harold and Susan Vordos

Just yesterday I was looking through old "nugget shooting" posts in Google (just got a new metal detector early for Christmas) and saw a post describing how the gold found near the silver mining districts would look pale due to the high silver content. Fairly common out here I understand.

dennis in nca

Reply to
rigger

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