CRYSTALLINE GOLD WITH CRYSTAL QUARTZ SPECIMEN .89 GRAM GOLD QUARTZ SPECIMEN

Description

CRYSTALLINE GOLD QUARTZ
SPECIMEN
Gold of North America
F
or true aficionados of natural, wild gold, here's something from an old prospector's poke you might appreciate. It was dug from a pocket and is the real deal. You will not get your money's worth in oro, but I guarantee VG (visible gold) is contained. The value here is in the rarity. I mined for nineteen years, but never found an all-quartz aggregate crystal, auriferous host like this. A rusty layer of altered schist coats one side. When you read articles which describe pocket hunters finding pocket gold, this is exactly what they're talking about. I mined gold for nineteen years, know something about precious metal, and have no intention of trying to sell you fakes or Fool's Gold. Occurrences like what you see here are true, natural anomalies - deviations in the normal mineral world uncommon by their very existence. This piece of ore was discovered in the Mother Lode of California.
Envy the lucky man who discovers a quartz ledge where he can blast or hammer auriferous (gold-bearing) ore directly off the vein. Pocket-hunters in gold country occasionally encounter 'blowouts' - rich quartz lenses right at the surface of the ground. Quartz veins are seldom uniform in richness, but now and then, one of these bonanza pockets is encountered. Tracing an exposed vein across a mountainside, maybe only one small lens within that entire span will harbor specimen gold. These are extremely infrequent occurrences. A high-grade zone/lens/pocket usually 'pinches out' to nothing or returns to being low-grade 'run-of-the-mill' ore. In gold prospecting, there's something known as the 'three-pocket-theory'. Weathering erodes a quartz vein exposing an anomaly i.e. a rich ore zone waiting for some lucky stiff to stumble upon it. According to the theory, there may be two more pockets further down at indeterminate depths below the first pocket...i.e. unless the one you've encountered is already the second or the third pocket.
If you're shopping for bullion, this chunk of high grade is a lousy investment, but 'native gold' enthusiasts may be elated to add it to their collection. I sell the real deal, not Fool's Gold. For what it's worth, there is probably not a solitary dollar's worth of gold contained in this specimen. What makes it valuable is the fact that there's gold here at all. If you know gold, you understand what I'm talking about.
Many offerings in this Ebay category contain no visible gold.
Some specimens require a pocket lens to see the Au. If you've a piece of genuine gold ore in hand, yet the gold can't be seen, crushing, milling, and panning it may produce specks of flour. I've bought specimens which showed gold, but were otherwise faked in a number of ways. Many people like to deal in gold even when their overall knowledge of it is minimal. Considering the price of gold today, small wonder, eh? There's another class of sellers offering plain silicate rock, generally quartz, feldspar, calcite, carbonates et al, containing no visible gold whatsoever. Much of it may not even qualify as being gold ore. These leaverites glisten with mica, stained-quartz crystals, or pyrites. Chalcopyrite bears a strong resemblance to gold, but unlike gold, you can crush it up. Gold in and of itself is malleable, fairly soft, and will bend. If specimens are advertised as simulations, as gold ore, or as Fool's Gold, that's o.k. as long as they're not misrepresented as naturally-occurring, gold quartz specimens.
Years ago,
finding one small rock like any of these would have made my day. If you've hunted for gold in the field, you know the feeling. Anytime a prospector is lucky enough to make a significant discovery, it's quite a feeling.
Please check my feedback for any disputes arising from non-authenticity issues. There are none.
S
pecimen weight:
.89
G
ram -
13.8
G
rains
S
ize -
16X9.8X5.1
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 to all U.S. destinations).
Combined shipping offered.
ATTN: INTERNATIONAL BIDDERS
INTNL. BUYERS S&H - .00 (via First Class Parcel)
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.
WHAT IS REAL PAYDIRT?
Real paydirt was created by nature, not by someone weighing out a sum of gold, then dropping it into a zip-lock bag full of sand, dirt, clay, et. al. As a placer miner and prospector, I prided myself in being able to locate pay-streaks whether virgin paystreaks or redeposits. If I still had mining claims, any paydirt removed from them and offered for sale 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 be placed there by nature, not planted by some man's hand. Neither you nor I would know what was inside your dirt/alluvium. So now you see why I don't sell paydirt. I know good dirt when I find it. This is both aesthetic and ethos. Odds are that in a pound of bona-fide paydirt, you would find gold. How much is anybody's guess. It might be a half-grain of fines, a small flake or two along with more fines; perhaps a couple grains of chunky pickers together with some fine gold; maybe a large nugget, flake, or a hundred colors in a pan. The amount found would depend upon the law of averages, the tenor of your ore, but mostly, on a person's luck.
All of my advertised gold quartz specimens, slabs, cabochons, and gold nuggets 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, gold dredger, and rustic gold-nugget jeweler. When not mining, I created pendants, bracelets, and earrings by attaching bails, jump rings, posts, and karat gold wire stock to natural gold nuggets and flakes.  For over eighteen years, I followed the Golden Fleece and continue my work even today in this trade. Wherever there was gold, running water, and a minable claim, I dredged, sluiced, panned, and/or used a rocker-box. In the arid desert, dry-washers and metal detectors were employed. A 1976 Ford Econoline van hauled myself and my mining gear to the claims being worked. It was my sanctuary from predators, two legged or four. You might even say I was prepared for bear. An equipment rack was installed on the roof. Through those itinerant mining years, that rugged, 4-wheeled mule pulled her weight and served me well. What a terrific prospecting rig. By towing a small box trailer, I had everything needed to haul dredging gear in and out of mining claims. A four-wheel drive van would have added versatility, yet wasn't usually necessary. Many people ask, "did you strike it rich"? I found lots of nuggets; some weighting over two ounces. I even hit short stretches of an ounce of gold a day. Today, imagine how much money that represents. How well did I do? You be the judge. During my most productive seasons, there were hardly any nuggets found. Most of my haul was in fine gold, small flakes, flour. The flour gold was reclaimed from any amalgam I dredged up. Quicksilver (Mercury/Mg) is very good at capturing fine and flour gold, but it's also toxic and should never be released into the environment.
Some argue that miners release Mercury (Mg) into the ecosystem. I contend, more often than not, modern-day dredgers reclaim it. In many of the hardest-worked rivers and creeks, the old-time miners used 'Quicksilver' or "Quick" unsparingly. Because of it's affinity for gold, they loaded up their sluice box riffles with Mg (atomic symbol for Mercury). It seems when mercury and gold are both clean, they have a molecular affinity for one another. When coming together, they unite and bond. Mercury coats the gold and, when there's a lot of 'quick', the gold is absorbed. Quick doesn't dissolve gold 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. Many years ago, a great deal of Quicksilver was released into watersheds where it remained as one mineral component within that 'hundred-year-deposit'. These flood gold re-deposits are represented by the uppermost sediments washing downstream. In other instances, cracks in bedrock, where bedrock is exposed, will act as mercury traps. Until the next major flood event arrives to create some major water turbulence, these sediments temporarily rest close to the surface of bedded gravels or down on the bedrock of a streambed. Moving ahead to the present, lining riffles with 'quick' is no longer practiced 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 means 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 unwarranted misinformation and reopen California to small-scale recreational gold mining. The economic stimulus this would provide to both small scale miners and to the state would be enormous.
So, to answer the question, "did I strike it rich?" Hardly any ex-gold miner can truthfully say he struck it rich unless you count independent living as a measure of wealth. I do and boy, did I hit it big!
G
old of
E
ldorado
3-10-13