Posted: 6/19/2006 11:10:08 PM EDT
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I have a block of what appears to be silver. My uncle told me it was silver when he gave it to me. It was obviously melted and poured into a mold at some point. Over time, the color has become bronzish from slight exposure to sunlight. I know silver diplays this property. I believe the 15.05 might be ounces, since it weighs around a pound. I figure someone on here may know what it is or where it came from.    
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Lead will turn darkish grey when oxydized. Severely so will cause white powdery crap to form on it. Zinc does almost the same thing, but doesn't get as dark as lead will. Ditto on the white powdery gunk. Looks like you have a big silver ingot there. Could've come from anywhere, but the lack of assaying proof marks (purity stamp, etc) would mean it probably was NOT from somewhere in the US. God only knows, where from though. Got you a fancy paperweight 
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I want to have someone determine what it is and how pure. If silver prices spike, I wanna get something out of it, lol. |
You'll need to have it professionally assayed then. No clue on the cost of that, but I doubt it'd be really worth it, considering the value (or lack, thereof) of silver, these days. You'll probably be hard pressed to find a buyer, without it having been done though. As far as prices spiking ? I wouldn't hold my breath too much. Honestly. |
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If you have a scale that will accurately weigh it (e.g. not the bathroom scale) up to a pound, try this: 1. Zero the scale and weigh your ingot. Write the weight down. 2. Put an empty, fairly wide container (big enough to easily hold the volume of the ingot) on the scale and zero the scale. (a whipped cream tub or heavy duty aluminum foil food pan like the ones for carryout food might work) If you can't adjust the scale enough, just write down the tare weight of the empty container and subtract it later. 3. Put the empty wide container on the table, bench, countertop or whatever. In it, place another container that's narrower, yet big enough to let you lower the ingot into it. You don't need to weigh this one empty. 4. Carefully fill the inner container with tap water to the very top, even to where you can see it's actually a little above, except around the edge - the surface tension of the water is all that's keeping it from spilling out. Make sure there's no water in the outer container. 5. Now carefully lower the ingot into the inner container - a couple of loops of light monofiliment might work. Your objective is to carefully allow the excess water to spill into the outer container, yet still have the inner container full to the brim. 6. Carefully lift the ingot from the inner container so that you don't spill any more water. Leaving the monofiliment loops around the ingot while it's in the water won't affect the accuracy much. 7. Now lift the inner container out of the outer container -- if any water is adhering to the inner container's bottom, maybe tip it a little to make it collect on one side of the bottom, then touch it to the inner edge of the outer container so that it drips back into the outer container. Set the inner container and its remaining water aside. 8. The outer container now contains water equal in volume to that of the ingot. Figure out the weight of this water. Don't forget to subtract the weight of the container, if you weren't able to zero it earlier once you'd put the container on it. 9. Divide the weight of the displaced water into the weight of the ingot. The answer is the "specific gravity" of the ingot - the density of the ingot compared to the density of the water it displaced. (Because you had equal volumes, you don't actually have to calculate the density of the ingot) 10. The specific gravity of silver is 10.5 in other words, it's 10.5 times as dense as water. 11. If your answer is something significantly off 10.5 you could always try consulting a mineralogy textbook or do a web search for a table showing the specific gravity of various minerals. Silver, gold, and copper are called elemental minerals. There may be an easier way to do this, but this is the best I can think of at the moment, using readily available stuff. If you don't have an accurate scale, you could just carry the ingot and the container of displaced water to a place that has one. Hope this helps!  |
