Time to look up gold prices, I’d say. And find a scale. Then look up hooker and blow prices.
My guess is also brass. Don’t look like gold shavings or iron pyrite. I do this weekly for a living.
You could try weighing it, then calculating its volume by measuring how much water it displaces.
Gold is 19.3 grams per cubic centimeter.
http://educatoral.com/density_of_substances.html
Brass is 8.55
You know, you could improvise a balance scale with stuff lying around your house. You would need something for a fulcrum, something for a cross-beam, a way to hold them together without the cross-beam slipping but with the ability to tip to ether side. Balance it out with some sort of empty container on each side, fill one side with the metal, fill the other side with coins until they balance. Google up the weight of the coins. Then hopefully you have some sort of measuring cup or something precise enough to measure the volume of the metal. From that, you can (somewhat crudely) calculate the density.
Well they are quite old and still look shiny gold… then … it does look like gold, the way the flakes seem to be a natural formation.
We’ve now heard from an authority. When Authority speaks, make sure to listen! And then verify. But the smart money is on brass.
If it’s gold, then we have to ask why he was keeping it in a peanut butter jar, but if it’s brass, then we have to ask why he was keeping it at all. Not that my opinion is worth much compared to samclem’s, but I’m guessing gold.
They don’t look like shaving period, they look like natural formations or possibly slag or casting waste material. Easiest test would be water displacement and weight to measure density. Then you could have at least a strong hint. I would go with gold until I knew otherwise.
My WAG, if it is gold, is that it could possibly be even older than the grandfather. If the family had been in Washington long enough, it could be an heirloom from the gold rush.
(If the pieces are brass, I don’t know why they are shaped that way. Google image search for brass filings and for gold flakes or gold placer–compare those images to the OPs.)
Thanks for all the opinions. There is an assayer in town and I’m here for a couple more days. I’ll try to convince my dad to swing us by there. He seems far less interested than I am to find the answer, noting that it would be strange to keep the gold in a Skippy jar in the basement (while begrudgingly agreeing it would also be strange to keep brass filings there as well.) I will report back if I get an answer.
Go to a pawn shop. They have the test kits for gold. They might charge you a small amount to test a sample, but at least you would know. Oh, and let us know…!
Well it wouldn’t be the first time a self-proclaimed expert here got it wrong. And what exactly does he do “weekly” for a living that makes him some sort of an expert in identifying brass? He offers no facts or reasoning behind his opinion.
The texture of the substance in question does not match any type of brass I’ve ever seen. It doesn’t look anything like the chips that result from machining brass, nor does it resemble globules from melted brass, nor does it look like anything like the particulates that form from grinding brass.
I’d be looking for “profoundly heavy” if it was gold … it should make a lead fishing weight seem light in comparison … lead is 11.34 g/cm[sup]3[/sup], gold is 19.3 g/cm[sup]3[/sup] … almost double …
IIRC samclem is a coin dealer.
Missed edit window …
If the battery was solid gold, it would weigh over a half a pound … 1 cm diameter x 4 cm long = 12.5 cm[sup]3[/sup] … x 19.3 g/cm[sup]3[/sup] = 241 g = 0.53 lbs
If that’s the case he may have had past experience with hucksters trying to sell him iron pyrite claiming that it’s gold, but that’s a completely different situation than what we have here. The OP isn’t trying to sell us anything, and therefore has no incentive to misrepresent the substance in question.
I have people bring in things that look much like this about every other week for the last 20 years. We have a $25,000. “gun” which analyzes metals, giving a digital printout to a hundredth of a percent for each of the main ten elements(assuming there are that many). Their mystery treasures are quite often in jars of various former uses.
The pictures were just so so, and I just gave my opinion. If I had the metal in front of me, I could probably tell visually what I thought it was, then I would test it with the gun. I see iron pyrite about ever month. If the mystery metal WAS iron pyrite, then someone smashed what are usually rocks into little pieces. Could be. And, yes, brass shaving usually look a bit different. The grains didn’t strike me as being panned gold, either nuggets or flakes.
I’ll be interested to see what they turn out to be.
I was curious about this “smell test” and found this somewhat dubious answer: “Why can we smell copper?” – Chemistry Stack Exchange …
Just so no one thinks I’m being facetious when I suggest taking a little bit and peeing on it … see if that brings out the brass smell …
Here are more, hopefully closer, photos.
Six pieces in distilled vinegar overnight still shiny, no change in appearance.
Pounded a piece with a hammer (one of the single pieces in the photos) - it flattened, no breaking. After I took the photos, smashed the other single piece shown, same result.
There are some “cylindrical” pieces that look more like filings might - some of those may be visible in the photos.
Unfortunately, I don’t think they’re going to get tested while I’m here. My dad has no interest in doing it (we were at the mall where the assayer is and he didn’t mention it - we didn’t have the substance with us or I’d have just gotten it done.) We’ll see.
Edited to add: Actually, it looks like I neglected to take a post-hammering photo, but the result still stands.