Is it... a Silver Nugget???

Cylon_Detector

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So I got a really nice clear ringing tone on this piece. Stuck the pin-pointer in to get an exact location and depth and it went crazy. So I dug a messy plug (it's my property sue me :D ), as it was hard to cut a neat one in a layer of moss with hard packed pea gravel underneath. I hate digging in gravel! Nowhere for the shovel to go! Anyways I finally pinpointed what I hoped was a nice silver coin and instead found this little lumpy pellet. Could it possibly be a silver nugget that slipped in with the pea gravel that was poured for the old driveway? I sure hope so! It shines out nicely and 'clinks' like a coin. Or maybe it's just a chip of melted aluminium? I hope not!
 

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I have dozens of aluminum nuggets from the beach in Carmel, CA. They are pretty cool after being tumbled on a pebbly beach for a few years. I got excited, too, when I found the first one.
I'm guessing I'm not the only forum member who has at least a few of these polished nuggets.

EDIT: I should mention that these are from cans that melted in fires higher up on the beach, and were washed down into the surf by storms.
 

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I've found blobs of solder melt that also ring up like silver. Most likely from plumbing work.
 
I have dozens of aluminum nuggets from the beach in Carmel, CA. They are pretty cool after being tumbled on a pebbly beach for a few years. I got excited, too, when I found the first one.
I'm guessing I'm not the only forum member who has at least a few of these polished nuggets.

EDIT: I should mention that these are from cans that melted in fires higher up on the beach, and were washed down into the surf by storms.

Awesome! I have found so many of these and had no idea what they were!! Thanks for solving this mystery!
 
Hello!!

I'm sorry for getting to this forum so late, DO NOT THROW AWAY THAT BLOB.. I've recently found 10 of those here in Kansas, my first thought was aluminum aswell but my detector went ape !!!!. Definitely not aluminum otherwise it would've said its aluminum. It came up as jewelry/Silver. I've read alot of posts tonight and people are revolting this stuff.. STOOOOP. Dont lick it, dont eat it, and dont burn it! I took every one of my blobs to a spectrometer and they all pretty much weigh the same 5-7 grams. My Blobs are Identical to yours and everyone else's I've seen online. This is what our stuff is composed of:

Ag: Silver
Au:gold
Ni: Nickel
Cu: copper
Zn: zinc
Pb: lead
Cd: cadmium (More poisonous than cyanide)
Fe: iron

I'm almost guaranteeing you that your blob is also in that order from silver being the most of its content and iron being the least. I've called a lot of people here in Kansas for the last few weeks and they are stumped. Nobody knows what this is and everyone says its man made and melted junk.. It's literally a chunk of silver and almost every other metal including gold. It's not junk. The bad thing is the cadmium. There is no safe way to separate the cadmium from any of the metals you want to keep like gold or silver in your blob. Touching it is safe but licking it or it somehow getting into a wound or you breath it in while its burning then your screwed my friend. I thought this was just a weird Kansas thing but I've seen people asking about this from Scotland and their silver blob looks just like ours. Please spread this message. I dont know any other way to find out what this is or where it came from, perhaps carbon dating is our only option. I can see where this Could be a meteorite but its non magnetic despite iron and nickel and such. However metals in their RAW form are not powerful enough to be magnetic. So could this be a freak occurence? Or riches waiting for a name to be put on this stuff. It's not aluminum.
 
I'm sorry for getting to this forum so late, DO NOT THROW AWAY THAT BLOB.. I've recently found 10 of those here in Kansas, my first thought was aluminum aswell but my detector went ape !!!!. Definitely not aluminum otherwise it would've said its aluminum. It came up as jewelry/Silver. I've read alot of posts tonight and people are revolting this stuff.. STOOOOP. Dont lick it, dont eat it, and dont burn it! I took every one of my blobs to a spectrometer and they all pretty much weigh the same 5-7 grams. My Blobs are Identical to yours and everyone else's I've seen online. This is what our stuff is composed of:

Ag: Silver
Au:gold
Ni: Nickel
Cu: copper
Zn: zinc
Pb: lead
Cd: cadmium (More poisonous than cyanide)
Fe: iron

I'm almost guaranteeing you that your blob is also in that order from silver being the most of its content and iron being the least. I've called a lot of people here in Kansas for the last few weeks and they are stumped. Nobody knows what this is and everyone says its man made and melted junk.. It's literally a chunk of silver and almost every other metal including gold. It's not junk. The bad thing is the cadmium. There is no safe way to separate the cadmium from any of the metals you want to keep like gold or silver in your blob. Touching it is safe but licking it or it somehow getting into a wound or you breath it in while its burning then your screwed my friend. I thought this was just a weird Kansas thing but I've seen people asking about this from Scotland and their silver blob looks just like ours. Please spread this message. I dont know any other way to find out what this is or where it came from, perhaps carbon dating is our only option. I can see where this Could be a meteorite but its non magnetic despite iron and nickel and such. However metals in their RAW form are not powerful enough to be magnetic. So could this be a freak occurence? Or riches waiting for a name to be put on this stuff. It's not aluminum.

Interesting. 7 years ago when he posted this thread, the concensus was melted aluminum can. My money is on that assessment.

Welcome to the forum!
 
Hey

Yeah honestly I'm starting to think its "space alloy". For me I've been finding them at lakes, which I thought okay melted aluminem but then I saw the Gold in it so I took it home and it remained grey til I used hot water+salt+aluminem and baking soda, shined like a silver bell and the gold looked like glitter. So i got it tested, there is No aluminem, tin, or steel. What it does have is what I listed. I've gone thru several of these posts from people asking what they've found and they have what looks identical to mine in size and color ect but some people are finding them in the desert, on the street, at lakes, on beach shores ect. These aren't trash nor are they safe because of the cadmium. I believe the only way we will be able to prove the true existence of these things is to get them radio carbon dated. Can't be a soda can if it's a million years old right?
 
Yeah honestly I'm starting to think its "space alloy". For me I've been finding them at lakes, which I thought okay melted aluminem but then I saw the Gold in it so I took it home and it remained grey til I used hot water+salt+aluminem and baking soda, shined like a silver bell and the gold looked like glitter. So i got it tested, there is No aluminem, tin, or steel. What it does have is what I listed. I've gone thru several of these posts from people asking what they've found and they have what looks identical to mine in size and color ect but some people are finding them in the desert, on the street, at lakes, on beach shores ect. These aren't trash nor are they safe because of the cadmium. I believe the only way we will be able to prove the true existence of these things is to get them radio carbon dated. Can't be a soda can if it's a million years old right?

So how do you plan on carbon dating a hunk of metal? It is almost certainly melted aluminum, but lead and zinc fit the bill too.
 
Yeah honestly I'm starting to think its "space alloy". For me I've been finding them at lakes, which I thought okay melted aluminem but then I saw the Gold in it so I took it home and it remained grey til I used hot water+salt+aluminem and baking soda, shined like a silver bell and the gold looked like glitter. So i got it tested, there is No aluminem, tin, or steel. What it does have is what I listed. I've gone thru several of these posts from people asking what they've found and they have what looks identical to mine in size and color ect but some people are finding them in the desert, on the street, at lakes, on beach shores ect. These aren't trash nor are they safe because of the cadmium. I believe the only way we will be able to prove the true existence of these things is to get them radio carbon dated. Can't be a soda can if it's a million years old right?
You can't radiocarbon date metal. And C14 dating is only good to 50,000 years or so.

Anyone wondering about their metal blobs should start by using the Archimedes method of determining density - it's quick and easy. That will eliminate many options right off the bat.
 
You can't radiocarbon date metal. And C14 dating is only good to 50,000 years or so.

Anyone wondering about their metal blobs should start by using the Archimedes method of determining density - it's quick and easy. That will eliminate many options right off the bat.

Not a bad idea, but it will only work well if it's relatively pure (or close to an alloy you're comparing it to, like 90% us silver coins).
 
Interesting. 7 years ago when he posted this thread, the concensus was melted aluminum can. My money is on that assessment.

Welcome to the forum!

People dont listen when I say, THERE IS NO ALUMINIM... It's hard to be a melted down can without having melted down can properties. I've never known gold to be in cans of various beverages.
 
People dont listen when I say, THERE IS NO ALUMINIM... It's hard to be a melted down can without having melted down can properties. I've never known gold to be in cans of various beverages.

Maybe not in your blob, but the blob in the original post absolutely looks like melted aluminum. Some of these blobs are indeed precious metals though
https://youtu.be/6P0YZKaLscM
 
Mine

In these you can see the gold speckled in some areas, the fact I've found these "things" 3 feet underground, under trees, rocks and water leads me to believe they weren't made in a fire pit.
 

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In these you can see the gold speckled in some areas, the fact I've found these "things" 3 feet underground, under trees, rocks and water leads me to believe they weren't made in a fire pit.

You might rig a simple density apparatus using your findings specimen scale and report the density of the specimen(s). It may be a composite density number, but that is OK. It will likely support your spectrometer analysis showing an alloy of higher density metals. A melt of aluminum cans ought to be a density number that is pretty close to that of pure aluminum. Taking a color streak and a hardness will provide additional information.

I wonder if the Kansas Geological Survey would provide you with a quantitative analysis as a public service? Could it be a type of solder? The old-timers apparently used various kinds of solders.
 
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