I gave up using panned gold years ago. I had a customer that
brought in hislocal panned gold for a ring casting. I alloyed it
down with a bought alloy and cast a heavy man's ring. There must
have been some impurity like lead, because it cracked every way it
could until I finally had to give up trying to solder it. Haven't
felt the need to repeat that experiment again. I now will only use
nuggets for accents on a ring of known casting grain.
Alloying native gold can make problems worse, since the alloys we
add already harden the metal, and any impurities in the native gold
will have more of an effect. Used as is, many native golds are quite
workable. During the California and Alaska gold rush periods, miners
often had much more native gold, than they had normal spendable
money, since coins and bills had to be imported from the east, and
often were in very short supply. In the case of California, until
the establishment of the San Francisco mint, it was common practice
for local jewelers and other businesses to take native gold, make
their own coining dies, and issue their own private coinage. These
were not legal, government approved or issued coins, but the area was
still a territory, and the stuff was in wide use. Much more
convenient to have a little coin that was worth a dollar than to have
to weigh out your gold dust at the saloon.
The range and variety of these California gold coins was fascinating
and large, though many are quite rare, since the majority was turned
in to the newly established mint when it was built, and circulation
of the private coins became illegal after the government made coins
were available. After my father retired from his job as a research
chemist, he found numismatics as a hobby, and found and specialized
in especially, the small denomination (a dollar and under) cal gold
coins. Some are very rare varieties, with only a few examples known.
Others are more common. Many state “california gold” on the coin (or
alaska gold in that case)
In most cases, the actual maker is unknown, but jewelers and a
number of other metal working trades were involved, and some of the
coins are just wonderful little pieces of hand cut die work and
minting skills. For the most part, these coins were generally made
directly from the native gold, not from further refined gold. This
was practical since in both the california deposits and the Alaskan
ones, the purity of the gold found tended to be quite consistent,
and these native alloys worked quite well. In both, the main alloying
metal is silver. But there can be traces of copper,lead, iron,
arsenic, and other things, all of which would have an increasing and
sometimes nasty effect on the workability as you alloy the metal down
to lower karat.
The california gold deposits generally tended to be about six
percent alloy, if I recall right, while the Alaskan deposits were
higher gold content. For my dad, this was part of the fascination.
After he retired, he still had full access to his old lab facilities,
which happened to include X-ray fluorescence equipement. So he was
able to non-destructively test these coins for their alloy content,
which made it much easier to identify which were real, and which
were fakes or later reproductions (the victorian age found these
fascinating as tokens and small jewelry items, and there were, as a
result, many copies made in lower gold content. Some were made as
deliberate souveniers, and some of these were labeled as “tokens”, so
there was no deception. The cal gold hobby for my dad turned into a
business, and by the time he died in 2000, he was one of the best
known dealers and experts in these little gems of coinage art, and
his collection of the the best in the world. Not as hard to do as
some types of numismatics, since these were coins from a specific
narrow geographic and historic period, but still, it was impressive.
But anyway (yeah, remembering my dad gets me going sometimes…) He
was passionate about these things, and it fun to sometimes pass on
what little of his passion I know a bit about…
Nuff rambling.
By the way, of the various sources of native gold you commonly see
on the market, nuggets from australia are often substantially higher
in gold content than either california or Alaskan gold. 98 percent or
so. And so are some of the nuggets found in the eastern U.S. Not many
people know it, but prior to the California gold rush, the gold
action was in places like North Carolina. Some of the finest and
largest specimins ever found were dug up in that part of the
country, and from what I’ve been able to glean, there’s likely still
a lot of gold in the ground there. It got abandoned and forgotten in
the California and Alaskan crazes, but it’s still there. Somewhere…
And also by the way, if anyone happens to be interested in
purchasing a really pretty Australian gold nugget weighing about 3.5
ounces (roughly two inches across), with some rather pretty
crystalization in some parts, rather than the water worn look of many
of the alaskan and california specimins, let me know. It’s a piece I
got from my father. Kind of unusual, larger than most specimins you
see for sale. I’d hate to just send it to a refiner to melt down or
dump it on ebay, so I’ve not sold it yet. But I could kinda use the
cash these days… If some collector reading this is interested and
would appreciate having such a specimin, reply via private email. I
also think I’ve got a few of those small cal gold “tokens” (either
the fakes, or real coins that are damaged enough, usually from being
soldered to a pin or something, as to no longer have numismatic
value. Fun, but not worth a lot. If anyone is interested, let me
know.
Peter Rowe