Is this silver?

[1liquigirl]

I found this in the backyard of my 1879 Victorian home, back in August (a few pics below). I thought it was lead because it seemed heavier than a rock would be of the same size, so it sat on my entertainment center for months. Tonight I vacuumed it and a piece of it chipped off onto the floor and another piece is now missing and probably somewhere in the vacuum bag, for a total of at least three pieces. I ran my Garrett 250 ace over it again tonight and it beeps on all modes from relic, jewelry, coins, and all metal in the 1 cent and 10 cent areas, which above is the high area of gold or bronze and low area of silver. When it was one piece, it somewhat had the shape of a cross to it. The longest section being the one that is broke off closest to the ruler. The broken off sections are extremely shiny and metalic, like a piece of aluminum foil, one of them I placed on top of the largest piece for the pictures. Stupid of me to run it through the vacuum before thinking it could be something valuable. Could this be silver? Can anyone help me with ideas on how to tell without taking it to a jeweler?

 

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[Burdie]

Great advise on this forum. BECAREFULL Good luck. Burdie

 

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[bakergeol]

Perhaps a few points here. ID of mineral specimens is very difficult with photos. Close up photos are best. Typical ore specimens have a mixture of other minerals such as quartz, pyrite, etc. which have crystal faces, cleavage planes. In other words pure metal examples which are homogeneous are usually not natural. Natural pure silver is rare(and valuable).
I did some checking and I guess there is some galena/sphalerite in Sinking Valley central Pa which was used during the Revolutionary War. Galena is a lead sulfide which does sound off on detectors and besides occurring in crystal cubes will break off in cubic cleaveage planes.
Perhaps a close up photo would help-looking for other minerals such as sphalerite.

George

 

[Jeffro]

I'm going to guess Tin, and probably slag from a fire of some sort. Tin breaks up like you describe, whereas silver or lead normally would not. You will need to poke it with something harder than a toothpick to see how soft it is, like maybe a needle or a nail.

Whatever it is, it doesn't look like a mineral in its natural state, so thats why I guessed slag of some sort.

 

[1liquigirl]

Jeffro, Tin!? I tried a roofing nail, still no give. Scratches it, but nothing breaks off. It's really hard.
George, I'm sending some closer pictures of the three pieces. I had a hard time getting clarity due to how shiny it still is. There are no crystal substances to it, although it looks quartzy in the pictures from it's shine. It's just plain metalic silver. From the new pics, any guesses guys?

 

[pgleba]

Very doubtful that it is galena. Galena is in the isometric crystal system. The crystals form cubes. Where you broke it off you should have seen cubic cleavages if it were galena.

Easiest test without messing with acids is a streak plate. That is porcelain.

If you have a junk porcelain dish, wrap it in cloth and break it. You will have a clean white porcelain edge on the break.

Get a fresh surface of the material. Rub it on the porcelain. If the streak is black, could be galena (lead sulfide). If silver a good bet it is silver. Don't know about aluminum. You could take a piece of aluminum foil and make a test streak.

A long, long shot. See if it is attracted by a magnet. If it is, a possibility it is a meteorite. I believe the University of Arizona identifies meteorites.

Love your curiosity.

 

[1liquigirl]

pgleba, thanks for the further info, so much safer than testing with acid. Ok, here were the results:
Aluminum foil streaks, no color, just scratched it.
Porcelain streaks, greyish silver.
I scratched quite a bit on the porcelainand in the same spot, to see if I'd get a black color, nada.
The magnet did not attract the small broken off pieces.
Starting to think this is silver. Any other ideas all?

 

[pgleba]

Given your test results, we can rule out galena. If the streak was not black, then it is not lead sulfide. I presume you did not notice cubic cleavage.

Staying away from chemicals, one methodology would be to determine specific gravity. That requires weighing the piece in air and water. Divide the water weight by the air weight. Unless you can rig up something, you would need a Jolly balance. You can Google the specific gravity of silver. You might try Googling silver tests. Or Answer Google. Though that is fee-based.

One other thing you might try is a malleability test. Take a small piece and mash it with a hammer. If it is ductile, i.e., spreads under pressure, it is a good bet that it is silver. If it is brittle and crushes, then unlikely it is silver unless the thing is so old and weathered that it is has been chemically altered beyond its original physical properties.

Here is one other thought. Go to the U.S. Geological Survey website www.usgs.gov. Put your quandary to the Ask-the-Librarian link. The Librarian will refer your question to a specialist. I have always obtained a well-informed answer to the most obscure question relating to topics such as yours. For example, if you want to sell some spare liquid mercury, I got the answer. They are wonderful! Your tax dollars pays for it. If by some miracle you don't get an answer there, try the Canadian Geological Survey. Just remember to say "EH!" a lot. They like that.

 

[pgleba]

Correction. Divide the air weight by the water weight.

 

[SomeGuy]

I beleive the correct formula is air weight/ air weight-water weight. In other words, the weight of the sample divided by the weight of an equal volume of water.

 

[pgleba]

Couple more things. Given you got a reading on your detector in the silver range, it cannot be galena. Lead reads down around nickel. And galena probably wouldn't react to a detector at all.

Realize with the corrosion, the material would not read too high in the silver range.

Let me try this specific gravity again. It has been a long time since my brain dwelled on this sort of things.

Specific gravity is the relationship of the weight of water to the weight of an equal volume of the material tested.

To do this, weigh the object. A bathroom scale will not do. You must weigh to hundredths part of an ounce or gram.

Once you weigh the object, put it into a container of water. The container must be see-through so you can measure.

Before putting the object in the container, measure the height of the water down to millimeters, the English scale is not fine enough.

Put the object in the water making sure that it is submerged. You must be extremely quick because it will start absorbing water immediately throwing your readings off. Before put the object in the water, dry in a warm oven for a couple of hours to drive off already absorbed water.

Then measure the height to which the water rises.

Empty out the container. Dry it thoroughly in the oven. Weigh the container. Then put in the same volume of water that was displaced by the object. Weigh the container and the water, subtract the weight of the container to get the weight of the water.

Then divide the weight of the object by the weight of the water.

Realize that with the corrosion--silver sulfide and carbonate--this object will not have the specific gravity of pure silver. You are going to use a fudge factor to see if it the s.g. is in the right ballpark. Simple isn't it.

To get at the pure silver you could use electrolysis. This would takes weeks for the process to work. You would wind up with very little silver with the corrosion.

Thank you for allowing me to exercise my intellectual muscles. I think I will take a rest now. Good luck.

 

[EDDE]

TUNGSTEN OR PLATNIUM sorry dont mean to yell..

 

[bakergeol]

From the photos- the item does not look like a natural mineral specimen. Rounded edges and shapes in addition to cavities(holes) suggest heat source. I see no accessory minerals here at least from the photos- just solid metal. To ID as lead, silver, still best bet to ID with the liquid as suggested above. It may be cheaper if you could get a jeweler to do it than to buy the chemicals but than again you may have other specimens to ID. If memory serves me right Tayopa's thread had a long list of metals which you could ID with the liquid.

Remember you are doing this just to satisfy your curiosity. Even if it was mainly silver(man made)it would not have much value but it would be a great conversation piece which anyone would be proud to own.

By the way detectors do detect galena-Even though galena is a lead sulfide there is enough lead there to set off any detector.(VDI numbers mean nothing here). Pyrite also

George

 

[Monty]

I'm pretty sure i have it, from the color of the tarnish and the color when scratched, it looks like melted copper to me. That would also account for where it rings in on the scale of the detector. We had a smelter here in town and they used slag for fill on a lot of roadbeds in the area. I saw pieces of melted copper blobs....usually not pure all the time and dig one up every once in a while. Impurities would make parts of it brittle while the mass would still be hard and solid. Oh, well, as good as any guess I suppose? Monty

 

[bk]

Okay, I think its kryptonite.

 

[hollowpointred]

the specific gravity of .925 silver is 10.31 grams. the specific gravity of .999 pure silver is 10.50 grams. in that same book i found the info about the acid test there is information regaurding specific gravity testing for silver and gold. i can post the info if you would like. let me know if this is something you might want to investigate and ill post it.it is a lot of info and would be a lengthy post to put up otherwise.just let me know.

 

[Bigcypresshunter]

1liquigirl, Here is an earlier post with color charts for acid identification. You will have to buy the chemicals from a supply house. I have Nitric Acid and Potassium Dichromate and have used this method with success.
http://forum.treasurenet.com/index.php/topic,24080.0.html

 

[Chagy]

Hi,

It looks like the same material used for wellding cooper pipes, try heat ( lead or alloy maybe)

Chagy

 

[1liquigirl]

Thanks so far, all of you for your postings. It's turning into a great thread for learning all the ways to test for silver! I think I'll try the water weight test first, since it is the least expensive way to do things, and safe as well. The placing in the oven part, can you be more specific? Do I place the glass jar in the oven to get rid of absorbed water, or the object itself? Or both? Should I be worried of the object melting, if that is what you were referring to, and not the jar. Also does copper appear in a metallic silver color when left in fire? Thanks for your continued oppinions on what it could be, and all your suggestions so far. I'd like to see not just your oppinions, but also why you think it is, whatever you say it is. That may help me as well.

pgleba, I'm going to do the weight test tomorrow, post the results, then get on the Geological Survey website and let them know the results of the tests done so far. Thank you and all others, you've been a great help.

 

[SomeGuy]

As a practical matter, it can be hard to measure the volume of a small sample with enough accuracy to distinguish between say, lead and silver, (especially if the silver is alloyed) because a small error in volume (1/2 ml) can be a large percentage error (e.g., if total volume is only 10 ml).

It is difficult to set up the scale to weigh the item under water, but this method is only limited by the accuracy of the scale.

There are more remarks on this in an old post here:

http://forum.treasurenet.com/index.php/topic,21470.msg142830.html#msg142830

Some specific gravities of common metals can be found here:

http://www.tesarta.com/www/resources/library/weights.html

When an object is immersed in water, it displaces it's volume in water, that is, the object occupies space. You want the water to fill all voids and hollows, because you only want to measure the volume of the material, not the volume of any trapped air pockets.

The weight of a submerged object equals it's dry weight minus the weight of the water it displaces. This is why a steel ship floats, it sinks into the water until it displaces it's own weight of water. If attached to a scale, the scale would read zero. If you crushed that ship into a solid block, it's volume, and therefore it's displacement, would be reduced, and the weight of the water displaced would be less than the weight of the ship. The ship would sink, but it's weight on the scale would still be reduced by the weight of the water it displaced. The volume of the water displaced would equal the volume of the steel used in the ship.

Water weighs 1.00 gm/ml (@ 39deg.f, it varies slightly with temperature, .998gm @ 68deg.), so if a sample displaces 75ml of water, the weight of water displaced is 75 gm.

I probably made all this about as clear as mud. Anyway, you don't need an oven.

 

[hollowpointred]

i have some instructions on how to test the specific gravity of silver using this water test. i will post them when i get home from work today, no time right now.it should make it easier.