halfdime
Silver Member
More gold discovered, and you won't believe where!
Lately, I've been scrapping metal for a few extra $; Monday, I took a load of steel and lead and yesterday planned to take copper and aluminum. Before the Cu and Al trip, I had to deal with what I thought was a mixture of copper and aluminum in the radiator portions of an old air conditioner. I assumed that the coils were copper with aluminum fins, so my plan was to melt the aluminum off. Don't worry, the Freon was long gone. I built a fire in my mother's burning barrel and put the radiators on top; it didn't take long to see molten aluminum dripping and pooling underneath the barrel. It was very cool to watch, actually. The fire burned down, the aluminum started to harden and cool, and I began pulling aluminum "shapes" from the ashes. I got a pretty good pile set aside and, because the aluminum was still pretty warm, loaded the pieces into a wheelbarrow. Once things were cool enough to handle (with gloves), I put the aluminum in the back of my truck with the rest of the load. I got down to the point at which there were just little "crumbs" of aluminum and I noticed one of the crumbs was yellow. "Boy, that looks like gold!" I set it aside in a little container for safekeeping and later testing. As it turned out, the radiators were almost entirely aluminum, with only a few small pieces of copper that didn't melt. I took that load to the scrap yard and was happy with the $56+ it netted. As a precaution, I called my mother and told her not to do anything with the ashes from our fire until I had the little yellow crumb tested. Not one to let the grass grow under my feet, I went this morning to a local establishment that buys/sells gold and silver (among other things) and unloaded a few silver dimes and a war nickel. My real purpose, of course, was to find out what exactly my little yellow crumb was. "It's pure gold!" I got $11 and change for it (.2 pennyweight) and headed right over to Mom's. I started gently spreading ashes and sure enough there were more nuggets! There were also a lot of aluminum/gold alloyed pieces, which I might have to play with. It was an incredible sight, finding gold that you didn't even know existed 24 hours earlier. I can only surmise that the radiators had some gold in them somewhere; the only fuel in our fire was some sticks and the soundboard from a 100 year old piano (wood, glue and a few screws). I'll have to do more research, but the second batch of nuggets netted me $228.57; not a bad thing right before Christmas! The picture is the first crumb, posing with a Merc for sizing purposes. I didn't get a picture of the big batch because I didn't have my camera. What an amazing find!
Lately, I've been scrapping metal for a few extra $; Monday, I took a load of steel and lead and yesterday planned to take copper and aluminum. Before the Cu and Al trip, I had to deal with what I thought was a mixture of copper and aluminum in the radiator portions of an old air conditioner. I assumed that the coils were copper with aluminum fins, so my plan was to melt the aluminum off. Don't worry, the Freon was long gone. I built a fire in my mother's burning barrel and put the radiators on top; it didn't take long to see molten aluminum dripping and pooling underneath the barrel. It was very cool to watch, actually. The fire burned down, the aluminum started to harden and cool, and I began pulling aluminum "shapes" from the ashes. I got a pretty good pile set aside and, because the aluminum was still pretty warm, loaded the pieces into a wheelbarrow. Once things were cool enough to handle (with gloves), I put the aluminum in the back of my truck with the rest of the load. I got down to the point at which there were just little "crumbs" of aluminum and I noticed one of the crumbs was yellow. "Boy, that looks like gold!" I set it aside in a little container for safekeeping and later testing. As it turned out, the radiators were almost entirely aluminum, with only a few small pieces of copper that didn't melt. I took that load to the scrap yard and was happy with the $56+ it netted. As a precaution, I called my mother and told her not to do anything with the ashes from our fire until I had the little yellow crumb tested. Not one to let the grass grow under my feet, I went this morning to a local establishment that buys/sells gold and silver (among other things) and unloaded a few silver dimes and a war nickel. My real purpose, of course, was to find out what exactly my little yellow crumb was. "It's pure gold!" I got $11 and change for it (.2 pennyweight) and headed right over to Mom's. I started gently spreading ashes and sure enough there were more nuggets! There were also a lot of aluminum/gold alloyed pieces, which I might have to play with. It was an incredible sight, finding gold that you didn't even know existed 24 hours earlier. I can only surmise that the radiators had some gold in them somewhere; the only fuel in our fire was some sticks and the soundboard from a 100 year old piano (wood, glue and a few screws). I'll have to do more research, but the second batch of nuggets netted me $228.57; not a bad thing right before Christmas! The picture is the first crumb, posing with a Merc for sizing purposes. I didn't get a picture of the big batch because I didn't have my camera. What an amazing find!
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Quite an interesting story and mystery; it sure pays to be observant. 
