Gold on the beach

[Tahnee]

Hi there,

Was having some fun treasure hunting on the beach and found this today. Did a SG test and it come up about 17, vineagar test and scratch test and they had good indications of gold. Maybe gold? It’s about 1.5 gram. Picture beside a 5c piece for size reference. It’s a heavy little bugger for its size.

The thing is, it seems to have a very fine metal wire/link embedded into it. Possibly it was made into jewellery? Not really sure… Any help would be great.

If it is gold, didn’t expect to find my first little nugget on the beach



Cheers,

Tahnee

 

[user 4485]

Hard to tell from photos but pure gold has a SG of 19.32.
Gold alloy of ~18 karats has a SG between 15 to 17.
The fact that it hasn't tarnished could indicate it's a gold alloy of some type based on your SG test.

 

[grubstake]

Possibly dental gold from cremated remains, scattered in memory of a keen fisherman or surfer?

 

[Tahnee]

Possibly dental gold from cremated remains, scattered in memory of a keen fisherman or surfer?

Thanks Grubstake,

We thought possibly dental gold but didn’t get as far to explain the shape by thinking about being cremated…:. Nice one! Thats a possibility hey!

 

[Tahnee]

Hard to tell from photos but pure gold has a SG of 19.32.
Gold alloy of ~18 karats has a SG between 15 to 17.
The fact that it hasn't tarnished could indicate it's a gold alloy of some type based on your SG test.

Thanks so much for the info! Yea even gold nuggets found usually don’t have a SG of 19.32 as it’s rare to find pure gold from readings I have done (not from experience) so I’m kinda hoping it’s gold!

 

[Hawkear]

You have done well to do a SG on such a small nugget. 1.5 grams at a SG of around 17 to 19 would occupy a volume of under 0.1cc which would be very tricky to work with.
I go along with the gold filling idea.
Gold fillings may not be pure gold but alloyed with other noble metals such as palladium SG 12.2 etc which may explain why the SG is a bit less than gold. They may also have an implant post made of other metals or alloys such as Titanium SG 4.51 which may explain the other metal inclusion
Gold fillings have to be cast to a mold of the cavity shape and then cemented in place.
Imagine if it were necessary to hot pour molten gold to fill a cavity.

 

[Tahnee]

You have done well to do a SG on such a small nugget. 1.5 grams at a SG of around 17 to 19 would occupy a volume of under 0.1cc which would be very tricky to work with.
I go along with the gold filling idea.
Gold fillings may not be pure gold but alloyed with other noble metals such as palladium SG 12.2 etc which may explain why the SG is a bit less than gold. They may also have an implant post made of other metals or alloys such as Titanium SG 4.51 which may explain the other metal inclusion
Gold fillings have to be cast to a mold of the cavity shape and then cemented in place.
Imagine if it were necessary to hot pour molten gold to fill a cavity.

Hi Hawkear,

I appreciate your post so much especially regarding doing well getting a weight for such a small piece. There was a lot of patience and fiddling and possible quite a few curse words but like a typical little enthusiastic treasure/gold hunter I showed great determination

I consistently was getting 0.09 and a 0.08 and 1.0 at times and tied and tried multiple times. I did not account for the tiny bit of metal in there as subtracting this would just increase the SG value anyways. My main aim was to try an ascertain if it was potentially gold and then the other curiosity was the metal inclusion thingy. I love thinking about the history of all the treasures and how long something may have been there just adventuring or hiding in the ocean, rocks and crevices. Even driftwood walking along the beach is cool as it would take so long for some of the pieces to take shape.

I’m purely a hobbyist with all this stuff and love reading about geological formations etc. I moved to Queensland from New South Wales so it is a lot more difficult to gold detect so I tend to just go for a beach detect on the weekends. I have never been lucky enough to find gold out in the bush detecting yet.

I was thinking of going for the ANZAC weekend for an adventure to Talgai and Durikai to have a play around and enjoy the bush. Last Australia Day, I found a shilling on the beach which may very well have been there for 50 years. Such a cool find to find on Australia Day!

Thanks again and everyone for their input. I really appreciate the knowledge and ideas.

Cheers,

Tahnee