Panning for gold

[MooseIBe]

Anyone ever done this? When my bf was last here, three weeks or so ago, I took him to do some at a local mine (not a gold mine .. not actually sure what they were mining, I think it was lead and titanium). Anyway this was very exciting to me because I had never done it before, so I was slightly disconcerted to find that it's quite common in Finland and he wasn't so taken :). But anyway, we had a fun hour and we found quite a lot of what looked like gold - some of it prolly wasn't - and some pretty mineral stones which I am sure are worth nothing at all but are still nice to look at. I have the whole lot sitting downstairs in a bottle on my dressing table.

I'd like to know though .. how do you tell what is gold and what is just fool's gold? Some of the stuff we have, the majority of it, is light gold coloured and I suspect that this is the FG. There is the odd small piece of something darker, almost copper coloured though, and I suspect - simply because it's much scarcer than the other - that this might be genuine gold. I know it will not be worth anything - they wouldn't be letting members of the public pay a cpl quid each to pan their stream if there were fortunes to be made there - but I'd still like to know if it's genuine gold or not. Anyone know how to tell?

[livius drusus]

I had no idea there were places selling gold panning fun by the hour. That's pretty cool.

I don't personally know anything about Fool's Gold, but I found some handy tips on how to tell if you've got the real thing or the pyrite on this site (http://www.ilap.com/bredberg/geo/madocgp.html).


1) Iron pyrite oxidized to a rich yellow color has been mistaken for gold for thousands of years, hence the nickname "fools gold". While I have seen some pyrites that were a good match for 22 carat placer gold, most yellow-tarnished pyrite is actually closer to 10-12 carat gold which is noticeably more pale (more silver-white) than pure gold.

2) Even though pyrite has a high iron content and feels surprisingly heavy for its size, it is less than 1/4 the weight of gold.

3) Pyrite is brittle, and if tapped with a pointed tool, will shatter into various sizes of sharp-edged silver colored fragments. Because of its soft malleable lead-like nature, gold will not shatter, and this is one of the best ways to distinguish between these 2 materials in the field.

4) The golden tarnish of pyrite is only a surface effect. If you scratch tarnished pyrite or rub it with a stone, the abrasion will reveal fresh silver-colored pyrite that will tell you it's not gold.

5) If you rub gold against a rock, the gold will leave yellow streaks on the rock whereas pyrite will leave dull silver grey-black streak.

[MooseIBe]

Well they weren't selling it by the hour .. you paid a pound fifty (about three dollars), got a pan, and you could stay there for the rest of your life if you liked :). We just got bored after an hour (in actual fact, i am sure that if we'd followed their stream up a bit we'd have been able to do it for free given that we'd have been off the mine's property, but still they were selling it cheap and they were nice people - 60ish cpl running it, gave us lots of helpful advice on things of interest to see in the area - so I would have felt a bit mean doing that.

I think tip number five is prolly the best out of that list :). The 'nuggets' are all too small to be bitten or tapped or weight or anything. But I will go out and find a rock tomorrow and give that scratching tip a go. Even if I have some real gold, I doubt it's enough to even make a filling :). But it would be nice to know.

[John Carter]

I had no idea there were places selling gold panning fun by the hour. That's pretty cool.



You can still do that in Dahlonega, liv.

[livius drusus]

Really? That's good to know, John, thank you. Maybe Deadwood will drive me to give it a try sometime. :)

[Dingfod]

In South Pass, Wyoming I met a man, the stereotypical old prospector looking kind of guy, raggedy felt hat, full beard and a stooped over stature, who was panning for gold in a stream there. I asked him if he was showing any color. He said he'd seen a little and pulled out a little glass vial about half full of flakes of gold. I asked him how much money did he make off a vial. He said it was a living, but that's about it. He pointed out a two room log cabin a hundred yards distant and said that was home and that he'd probably catch a couple of brook trout for dinner. What a life, for a sociophobic loner, that is.

[MooseIBe]

see what i have got isn't flakes .. it's tiny nuggets. Which makes me think that most of it is prolly not gold :D.

I have to say though i could quite enjoy living in a log cabin, panning for gold and eating brook trout for dinner!

[wildernesse]

I think there are a few places in North GA and maybe even NC where you can pan for gold and etc. besides Dahlonega. I've only panned for gold in Silverton, CO as opposed to someplace actually within the state I live--and I still have a tiny vial of gold flakes at my parents' house that I found.

I think RA has a pan for panning here somewhere, hmmm. Can you pan for gold on gov't land?

[MooseIBe]

you can if nobody sees you :D