FMF - Friends of Minerals Forum, discussion and message board

[Brent Lockhart]

I had a brief conversation with Terry Wallace a few months ago regarding some isotopic constitution work done with German native Silvers, i.e. Himmelsfurst as an example. There probably is some discussion of the question of these specimens being natural versus man made on this forum, but I've not been able to find it. Can anyone point me to any such discussion or any recent publications on this matter? I believe there may be some recent published isotopic work available which would be most helpful.

Cheers

Brent Lockhart

[Jordi Fabre]

[Brent Lockhart]

Hi Jordi

Thank you for directing me to this discussion, it helps a lot. I am collecting miniatures now, and am trying to think through what species I would include. I used to own a very good Freiburg Silver wire which was about 17 cm, tall, coming out of an important European collection. There was no doubt that this one came out in the 19th century or earlier, and as such was unquestionably natural on its matrix. But now, as in the Moroccan case, there are questions about smaller specimens' authenticity. In this case it is thought that some pieces may be smelter by-products or lab grown. I had not realized that this uncertainty extended to other localities. So I am looking for any good diagnostic tools to verify or debunk these doubts. Thanks again for helping me out.

Cheers

Brent

[Philip Simmons]

[Brent Lockhart]

Hi Phil

Thanks for the reference, much appreciated. I really was interested in what isotopic evidence had come out of the recent studies and will find a copy of this article. It will certainly bring into question the nature of most of these wire specimens. The piece I was referring to was out of the Bally Prior Museum, coming to them around WWI. The single wire specimen measured 17 cms long and was some 2 cms. wide near the base. While we can never say never, the odds of some lost technology capable of producing such wires in that time frame seems unlikely. At least I haven't seen a flood of very large wire silvers entering the market yet.

Thanks for the tip, I'll try to muddle my way through the article and appreciate your time replying to my question.

Cheers

Brent

[Philip Simmons]

You're welcome!

It is interesting to see new information regarding this long debated topic. I'm not saying the old German silvers are undoubtedly faked, but it might have been possible that there was a similar situation when compared to the zincites from Poland (at least the ones found from the smelter).

Unfortunately, even scientific research has met with strong (and sometimes powerful) discouragement when topics like this are breached. We shall see if more information comes to light regarding silver wire growth. I love these studies for the scientific information we gain, but when dealing with egos and large sums of money things can get swept under the rug, so to speak.

[Brent Lockhart]

Yep, the folks who've paid big bucks for Silvers and the dealers who sold them are not gonna like this. As you point out, isotopic quantity measurement is not something every lab can do. A mass spec (or similar) versus an XRD setup cost is not something I have much of a sense for though. There may be some metallurgical labs around able to do it, but I bet it would be expensive. Think I'll be giving wire Silvers a pass.