CRYSTALLINE GOLD QUARTZ SPECIMEN + SERPENTINE 2.37 GRAM NATURAL GOLD FROM B.C.

Description

BRITISH COLUMBIA
CRYSTALLINE GOLD + CALCITE
+ SERPENTINE
SPECIMEN
Gold of North America
F
or gold buffs and rare mineral-collectors, here's something wild from the prospector's realm. This rare specimen hails from British Columbia, Canada. It consists of a large plate of dark green serpentine mixed, possibly, with brownish schist. Turning it over to the backside reveals a scene from another planet. The crystalline mineral ensemble you see here inside the vug-lining is surreal. Every element visible is crystalline and/or microbial. These are surrounded by greenish hues from the altering wall rock. Perhaps a thousand tiny spires or terminations of quartz or calcite, some whitish, but mostly dark-chocolate in color appear as though coated in worm poop. Could this be evidence of bacterially-grown gold? I haven't a clue, but the general appearance of the gold is unlike anything I've seen before. The look is organic like there was perhaps a biomolecular growth catalyst or mechanism at work here. Crystalline Gold, tiny wires and bundles mostly, a thick matte of them, inhabits approximately 1/3 of this vug-lining area. It's especially rich along one edge. Mineralogists will have a field day examining this one under a microscope. Envy the lucky man who stumbles on such a find out in the field. If you're after bullion, this is a lousy investment, but gold purists should be thrilled to add this zany rock to their collection. It's time I passed it on to another.
Many offerings in this Ebay category contain no visible gold at all.
With other specimens, you will need a pocket lens to see the Au. I've bought specimens here that showed gold, but were man-made in a myriad of ways. Some sellers paint rocks with gold-colored paint, then fail to inform you it's a simulated specimen i.e. basically, a fake. They may claim they didn't know and, in all fairness, the latter explanation can easily be the truth. I believe if a dealer doesn't know for certain it's authentic, don't peddle it as 'natural'. Other faux specimen peddlers have been known to glue 'pounded gold' onto the surface of barren quartz. This seems to be a favorite of bogus specimen sellers. Pounded gold is super-thin, 24K gold leaf usually found in liquid-filled vials sold as a novelty. Crinkled up, sprinkled here and there, it can be made to seem natural and decorates up a piece of barren quartz quite well. Although pure Au, pounded gold is so thin and weightless that when you shake the container it's in, you'll see it float around like golden snowflakes. Many specimens listed in this category show nothing but pyrite...lots of pyrite. If such faux specimens are advertised as simulations or as gold ore, that's fine as long as they're not misrepresented as naturally-occurring, gold quartz specimens.
Back when I mined full-time,
finding a curiosity like this would have made my day. If you've hunted for gold afield, you know what I'm saying. This wicked specimen hails from British Columbia.
Please check my feedback for any disputes arising from non-authenticity issues. There are none.
S
pecimen weight:
2.37
G
ram -
36.7
G
rains
S
ize -
28.9X19.9X6.4
mm
R
uler (if shown) is
1/4"
wide (actual size).
A
U.S. 10 cent piece is often used to show size of the item for sale.
FAST REFUND
I
n
case you're unhappy with this specimen, I offer a money back guarantee which includes your initial S&H.
W
ith regards to my gold quartz parcels, gold quartz specimens, slabs, and cabochon, I only deal in rocks containing naturally-occurring visible gold.
I think most of us interested in oro (Atomic symbol Au) would like to see authentic, native gold in their specimens; gold that was put there by nature's elemental forces, not by some man's hand. It's an aesthetic we share and that's what I sell - authentic, natural, gold quartz (with VG visible gold).
Weight Conversions:
15.43 GRAINS = 1 GRAM
31.103 GRAMS = 1 TROY OUNCE
24 GRAINS = 1 PENNYWEIGHT (DWT)
20 DWT = 1 TROY OUNCE
480 GRAINS = 1 TROY OUNCE
S & H
Combined shipping offered. For multiple item purchases, please request an invoice (from the seller) when you buy more than one item.
U.S. BUYERS
S & H is .00 (shipped with USPS tracking and insurance to all U.S. destinations).
Combined shipping offered.
ATTN: INTERNATIONAL BIDDERS
INTNL. BUYERS S&H - .00 (via USPS small Priority box)
PAYMENTS
For U.S. buyers: We accept
paypal.
For intnl. customers: We accept
paypal.
Pay securely with
www.paypal
.
Payment must be made within 7 days from close of  auction.  We ship as soon as funds clear. If you have questions, please ask them before bidding.
REFUNDS
We leave no stones un-turned insuring our customers get what they bargained for.
If you're not satisfied with this item, contact me. Then, if the problem can't be resolved, return product within 30 days in  'as purchased' condition for a full refund (S & H included. For those who know the ups and downs of the precious metals market, this is a heck of a deal. Buy it and if the market drops dramatically in the next 30 days, you can return it for what you paid for it. That's a pretty cool insurance policy for precious metal buyers. I think most specimen buyers, however, are more interested in these rocks for their intrinsic beauty and collectability than they are for their gold content.
NATIVE MINERALS
Check any and all
Gold of Eldorado
feedback for disputes arising from non-authenticity of the specimens I sell. You won't find any. I deal in native minerals with visible gold, not replicas, not 'paint-ons'. I don't peddle 'simulated' specimens made with minute amounts of 'applied gold' or no real gold at all. Nor will you find salted pay-dirt here. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, my friend, but that's not authentic pay-dirt. Real pay-dirt is created by nature, not by a man's hand weighing out a sum of gold, then dropping it into a bucket or zip-lock bag of dirt. I was a professional placer miner priding myself on being able to locate pay-streaks both in the form of virgin pay-packs and redeposits. If I still had mining claims today, any pay-dirt offered would be direct from the ground and the original deposit from whence it came. It would not be salted with extra 'color'. What gold you found inside this dirt/clay/caliche/sand/gravel et el would have been placed there by nature, not by a man's hand. That being the case, neither you nor I would know what was in your dirt. So do you see why I don't sell paydirt? I know good dirt when I find it. The odds are that in a pound of bona-fide, untampered-with paydirt, you probably would find some gold. How much is anybody's guess. It might be only a small flake or two. It might be a couple grains of nice chunky pickers; maybe a large nugget or flake. The amount found would depend upon the law of averages and the tenor of your ore, but mostly, on a person's luck. It would be my greedy misdeed and total lack of ethos to sneakily wave a detector coil over your dirt and remove all large nuggets from within. I would rather you found that big nugget and told your buddies. I might lose the biggest nugget ever found on my claim, but my stock would go up, and then think of the story we could tell our grand-kids. All of my advertised specimens, slabs, cabochons, nuggets, gold ores are authentic and contain naturally-occurring, native gold and/or are composed almost entirely of naturally-occurring gold (i.e. gold nuggets, gold flakes, wire gold specimens). The purity of this gold will vary, but if it's from California, you can count on the percentage being fairly high, say from 70% to 95% pure. For comparision, a 14K gold wedding band is 58% pure gold.
A LIFETIME OF GOLD
Prior to starting up my Ebay store, I was a 'lone wolf', small-scale placer miner. That was my calling for over eighteen years. Wherever there was gold, running water available, and a claim to work, I dredged, sluiced, panned, and poured water into a rocker-box. In the arid, water-less desert, both dry-washers and metal detectors came into play. Primary transportation was provided by a 1976 Ford Econoline van. After locating a small box trailer, I had everything needed for packing gear in and out of mining claims. Naturally, a four-wheel drive van would have been even more ideal. Many people ask, "did you strike it rich"? Well, I found lots of nuggets, some over two ounces. I even hit short stretches of an ounce of gold a day. Today, that would be pretty good money, eh? During my more productive seasons, there was hardly a nugget found. Most of what was recovered showed up as fine gold and amalgam.
Hardly any ex-gold miners can truthfully say they struck it rich unless you count independent living as a measure of wealth. I do and I did.
Some argue that miners release Mercury into the environment. I contend modern-day dredgers reclaim it. In many of the hardest-worked rivers and creeks, the old-time miners used 'Quicksilver' unsparingly. Because of it's affinity for gold, they loaded up the riffles of their sluice boxes with it. It seems that when mercury and gold are both clean, they attract one another. Some disinformation circulating says they become alloyed. They don't. Mercury simply coats the gold. It doesn't dissolve it like, say, aqua regia. In practice, finer gold moving down a sluice box sticks to the Mercury (or vice versa) and thus becomes an amalgam. In this manner, a great deal of 'quick' was released into the watershed where it remains in 'hundred-year-deposits' found today. These flood re-deposits are represented by the uppermost sediments washing downstream. Where bedrock is close to the surface, cracks in it will catch the mercury. Until the next major flood waters arrive to create major turbulence, these sediments rest temporarily closest to the surface of that stream-bed. Moving ahead to the present, lining riffles with 'quick' is no longer a practice utilized by any placer miners I have ever known or heard of here in the U.S. Nonetheless, you will find it difficult to convince or persuade folks who are opposed to mining by any method that miners aren't dumping Mercury into watersheds. These are blatant distortions of modern practice. In their ongoing efforts to stop small-scale placer mining, they resort to perpetuating the myth that miners release Mercury into ecosystems. I have found such disinformation spread all across the internet. It would appear many people's minds are closed to the facts. Write your congressman asking them to consider the true facts and reopen California to small-scale recreational gold mining. The economic stimulus this would provide to both small scale miners and to the state could be enormous.
G
old of
E
ldorado
3-10-13