Upcoming article: "World’s Largest Gold Bar" 0

[RWB]

A little extracted teaser:

Back in the prime of gold mining times, states and mining territories competed for superlatives. “Biggest gold strike,” “deepest mine,” and other claims were common both for their promotional value in enticing investors, and their fleeting opportunity to generate local pride. One of these which got newspaper attention was the title of “largest gold bar in the world.”

This is not an exhaustive technical work, but more of a just-for-fun subject that's rarely mentioned these days. Should be out in a couple of weeks.

[Nouzillet]

If it was poured from California gold during the 1850’s, then the Assayer’s were probably Kellogg & Humbert.

Circa 1859

Circa 1857, they poured and assayed the largest gold bar recovered from the SS Central America 

[Henri Charriere]

EXTRA!   EXTRA!   Hear all about it...

My army of fans will be delighted to hear I tore through all my leather-bound calendar/diary/record books and found an entry dated September 30, 2011, and photo entitled, "This gold bar shown here last week in Nanjing, China (yes that Nanjing, formerly known as the infamous site of what has come to be known as the Nanking Massacre 1937) weighs 99.999 kilograms and has a purity of 99.999 percent."

MEMBERSHIP:  Hold on a minute!  What's this weigh in troy ounces and what's this worth in USD?

🐓:  To quote the late, great Oldhoopster:

"Go look it up!" 

(Alright, alright... Hint: as of this writing, just one kilogram of gold is valued at $77,338.17.  You may multiply that figure by 100.)

(I thank our Grandmaster, RWB, for his cooperation in graciously allowing me to keep the Topic active pending release of the upcoming article, and the Moderators for posting the foregoing at their discretion.)

Man, I love this place!  🤣

 

[RWB]

The key value is weight of fine gold (1.000 fine, pure). Everything else derives from that.

[Henri Charriere]

🐓:  What's the finest fineness you ever heard of?

Q.A.:  Four nines:  .9999.

🐓  :  So what happened to the other .0001?

Q.A.:  According to Wm S. Burroughs, God kept it for himself.  🤣 

[RWB]

Proof gold, used to calibrate chemical assays, is 1.000 fine - absolutely pure. In the old days, the Philadelphia Mint's Assay Dept. produced proof gold in small quantities for use by the other mints and assay offices.

[GoldFinger1969]

On 5/27/2024 at 12:21 PM, RWB said:

Proof gold, used to calibrate chemical assays, is 1.000 fine - absolutely pure. In the old days, the Philadelphia Mint's Assay Dept. produced proof gold in small quantities for use by the other mints and assay offices.

100% pure gold would be too soft, right ?

And the MCMVII UHR's....if they annealed the copper off the top, how do they know it was still 90% gold/10% copper ?  Too minute to matter ?

Edited May 27 by GoldFinger1969

[RWB]

On 5/27/2024 at 2:37 PM, GoldFinger1969 said:

And the MCMVII UHR's....if they annealed the copper off the top, how do they know it was still 90% gold/10% copper ?  Too minute to matter ?

For the patterns, there were 7 blows and six acid dips after annealing. This removed most of the surface copper. The Smithsonian tested their specimens and found that result. (Doug Mudd was at SI back then, and reported the results.) Not enough copper was removed to affect the overall alloy -- and those were patterns, not legal tender coins.

[Henri Charriere]

On 5/27/2024 at 2:37 PM, GoldFinger1969 said:

100% pure gold would be too soft, right ?

And the MCMVII UHR's....if they annealed the copper off the top, how do they know it was still 90% gold/10% copper ?  Too minute to matter ?

That is why I maintain the so-called "Counterfeit Forgery" was actually a legitimate coin ruined in a crude, primitive way to determine its authenticity. Common sense tells you if its gold fineness: .9 (followed by 17 zeros) and 2, is the precise composition of the real coin, it stands to reason it is real, too.