Gold Leaf? I assume yes

Ben Cartwright SASS

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Aug 7, 2012
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Massachusetts
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A friend of mine who is a coin dealer and doesn't deal with raw gold mentioned that sometime back he bought some vials of gold. He showed them to me and my first thought is that they are gold leaf. I told him I would take pictures of it and ask here.
When I opened it up the stuff fell out of the vial, if you blow really gently on it, it flies away. And it feels like gold leaf, although I only had some of that when I was a kid and bought "real gold" in a vial.
Also it is a very bright yellow, super yellow, not like the grains of gold I have panned.

Thoughts?

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SO they still buy it by weight, correct?

He gave me one vial to keep for asking about this, at a guess 50 cents worth of gold.
 

Real gold leaf is made from pure gold and is less than paper thin. Pure gold does not tarnish so it will retain it's natural bright gold color if kept separate. Placer gold is always alloyed, by nature, with other elements and is usually no more than 80 to 90% pure and the appearance is not the same as pure gold.
Those may be scrap from the making of electronic boards, etc. They use pure gold in that process too.
If it is real gold then it can be sold by weight.
 

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Careful as many of these types of vials come out of China and are not pure leaf gold. They are all over Tucson during the gem show and can be found for less than a buck wholesale...
 

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