Finding lots of silver-colored nuggets, various weights. How to identify?

[scooper77515]

I have been all over the southwest in the past few weeks, and I keep finding "nuggets" all silver in color. I have finally identified a couple as lead, but not definitely.

At the beach in Texas yesterday, I found a couple more nuggets, not as heavy as the "lead" ones from the desert, but also not as light as aluminum.

I need to learn how to distinguish what materials my nuggets are made of. Any suggestions?

 

[BADBAJA]

Take them to pawn shop or buy your own kit. They rub it with 3000-2000 grit sandpaper then put drop of test liquid on particles left on sandpaper. Don't pay to test. Pay to buy your own.

 

[scooper77515]

Do you buy the kit at the pawn shop, or maybe a hobby shop? What do I ask for when shopping for the kit. Maybe an e-bay or Amazon.com item?

 

[Tom_in_CA]

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but what you have is aluminum can nuggets, produced when cans get melted in fires. Like beach bonfires, back-yard BBQ's, etc.... when people, who are done with their soda or beer, throw the can into the fire. You *think* they are too heavy to be aluminum, because we are all accustomed to "aluminum" being in the thin pressed can form. But when you concentrate it into nuggets, it's going to loose its plyability, and be denser/heavier.

If you are still convinced they may be some metal type that is more precious, then I've got gunny-sacks full that I'll sell you for only $1 per nuggett!

 

[BADBAJA]

Internet is your friend. Kits are cheap. I found a piece I thought was silver as well ended up being melted aluminum sludge. Get a kit anyhow. Good tool to have if your into precious metals.

 

[scooper77515]

Very well could be, since I found it on the beach.

But I have some nuggets I found in Yuma that might be lead, maybe bismuth (as suggested by another member), and I wouldn't mind knowing for sure.

Also, I can test my own jewelry before selling it to We Buy Gold places.

 

[salmonriverhotrock]

I'm in agreement at least by what I see in the picture.

Camp areas along the river here are loaded with that stuff. I don't know why people do it but they toss aluminum foil and cans into the camp fires and when the river hits high water and takes in some of these fire pits, these melted blobs end up all over hell and gone, even in the river bottom for gold panners and recreation dredgers. After many years of this since the introduction of aluminum foil and cans, some places are so trashed, you would spend countless days digging and gathering this stuff to throw away just to have another idiot melt some more to replace it. I'm not kidding, there are places so trashed with this stuff, I will not waste my time again detecting them. I don't mind picking trash digs and throwing it away but there is a point it is no longer metal detecting.