The copper penny is in the photo to serve as a scale.
Fools gold real gold rock.
A copper penny and a tiny gold nugget on a black streak plate with a small streak made by the nugget.
You can also try to scratch a piece of glass or unglazed ceramic with the gold portion of the rock.
Gold leaves a yellow streak while pyrite s streak is brownish black.
Fool s gold is actually a mineral composed of iron sulfide with a crystalline structure.
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Real gold also leaves a gold streak when scratched against a small bit of unglazed ceramic like the back of a piece of bathroom tile but iron pyrite leaves a greenish black colored streak.
Iron pyrite is attracted to magnets but real gold is not magnetic.
As you can imagine the value of real gold is significantly higher than that of pyrite.
Ways to tell the difference between fool s gold and real gold.
There s gold in them there hills on a recent trip to sutter s mill in coloma ca we got a chance first hand to discover actual gold and learn how to tell the difference between the real deal and tricky fool s gold.
Real gold will not scratch these substances.
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It is a mineral an iron sulfide and has a crystalline structure.
To identify gold inside of a piece of quartz hold a magnet against the rock.
Pyrite is called fool s gold because it resembles gold to the untrained eye.
Regardless it s not totally unheard of to find some small traces of real gold in pyrite.
Some pyrite can actually contain traces of metal such as gold.
Fool s gold scratches glass whereas real gold does not.
The tiny nugget weighs 0 0035 troy ounce and at a gold price of 1200 ozt the nugget if it were pure gold would have a gold value of 4 20.
Without zooming in it can be tough to tell the difference especially when the sun is shining and the water makes everything glisten.
If the quartz sticks to the magnet then it contains iron pyrite or fool s gold.
Unlike real gold fool s gold is not a metal.