This is gold ore. .20 - .25 oz per ton.
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90% of the gold mined in the United States is mined from this type of decalcified sedimentary deposit. All of the gold is invisible and can only be proven through chemical testing.
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This is a mineral specimen.
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Mineral specimens are most often associated with ores. This specimen contains no gold but it could easily bring more money on the market than the gold ore sample above.
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This is high grade lead ore.
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About 50% lead with no gold or appreciable silver content.
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This is very high grade silver ore from the Comstock lode in Nevada.
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Courtesy of my friend Chris Ralph. Check out nevada-outback-gems dot something to see the great mineral collections and information Chris has put into his website.
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This is a specimen of silver Proustite crystals.
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Silver is rare in a pure native form but it can be very valuable as a specimen. Do not use a rotary wire brush on silver nuggets if you find them when prospecting. (ask Silver Dog Doug why).
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Ore is the rock you process to get the valuable minerals from. Specimens are the occasional discoveries of the purest mineral crystal forms desired by collectors. Ore sometimes contains specimen grade mineral crystals that usually have a market value far in excess of the refined metals in the same ore.
This is a fairly modern distinction because 150 years ago a beautiful crystal mineral specimen usually ended up in the crusher along with the regular ore. Today there is such a high demand for good mineral specimens that, even if they are microscopic, crushing ore for the mineral value could lose you most of the market value of your deposit.
Times have changed and confusing collector grade specimen material for common ore can be an expensive mistake.
I have a friend that owns one of the most famous gold mines in American history and despite being a former lead geologist for the worlds largest gold miner he only mines specimen grade material for sale to collectors from that mine. The billion dollar copper camp mines in Jerome have been mined by the owners for 60 years for their collectable minerals only. I'm sure some day they will get back to bulk copper mining but in the meantime specimen collection by a few individuals bring millions of dollars per ton of specimen material.
Heavy Pans
What do mean? Seems to me I've have heard the term High-Grade Ore before.
Well here's a little story I'll tell ya about a gold prospector I know that goes by the name Mucker. I've known him for years. He'd call me over time about his new poke hole prospects and wondered about the price of equipment and that, but chasing gold never really did him any real favors. He was out in the west central part of Utah looking over some old gold operations and while there started looking more into the previous short-lived tungsten operations that had been long abandon. He determine that there was value in the ore deposits of those old tungsten mines. He was taking samples to buyer's of tungsten like Kenametal the makers of tungsten-carbide and they said he could go ahead and leave his rock samples and they'll try to get back with him if they're interested. Months later Kenametal contacted this grubby old Prospector called Mucker and said to him they were very interested in his little plans of running this tungsten mine and what could he produce for them. Other investors offered him capital to get him started and he got underway. I'll never forget the day he called me all excited and his exact words was, hey man I hit it big this time. He wanted all kinds of stuff he was saying to mine the project. I didn't believe him at first, until I went out to see his new operation he was telling me about and I will say I was a bit surprised to see that Mucker finally did succeed with a legitimate mining operation. He's now crowned himself president of Scheelite Metals.
Indeed it is an ultra rare mineral specimen. How'd ya like to have been the jippo miner that found that gem? I'll bet the mine owners never even knew that piece was taking out of the mine in some lucky cooches pie can and sold for money to get good and drunk on. The mine it was found in stopped mining in the 1980s I think it was? This mine called Fire Creek in Nevada will run into some visible gold at times. I'm told when that happens only a few trusted employees under close supervision will then take it from there. https://www.google.com/amp/s/elkoda...5541-918a-c69195b3121f.amp.html?source=images
