Would keeping nuggets in salt improve their look?

[Imadogman]

I was reading and dreaming about salt lake nuggets and was intrigued that they are often determined to be shiny and bright compared to other nuggets.

It made me wonder if you stored nuggets in coarse salt, would they get nicer with age? Perhaps they would have to be stored for a couple of thousand years!

Any thoughts?

 

[dam it]

I would say Put the salt on Ya chips & sell the Gold to Grappy,s .

 

[mbasko]

How would you get the alluvium effect of being moved by water & washed against other materials (including ultimately the salt silt)? I believe it's this alluvial movement of the gold, salt, silt, gravel etc. that gives it the shine over time not so much the salt by itself.
Salt is a mild abrasive but needs movement.

"Take a small bottle and fill it about 3/4 full of table salt. fill the bottle the rest of the way with white vinegar. Some of the salt will disolve and you will end up with about a 50/50 salt vinegar mix.

Plop in your gold nuggets and put the bottle on the shelf. Everytime you walk by, give the bottle a good shaking.

The vinegar is a weak acid and the salt acts as a mild abrasive. Doing this process for about a week or less in some cases will remove the majority of those oxides and leave the gold bright and shiny without nasty chemicals. Michael"

 

[user 4386]

Gold is readily soluble in aqua regia, or in any other mixture producing nascent chlorine, among such mixtures being solutions of:

nitrates, chlorides, and sulphates e.g., bisulphate of soda, nitrate of soda, and common salt;
chlorides and some sulphatese.g., ferric sulphate;
hydrochloric acid and potassium chlorate;
bleaching powder and acids, or salts such as bicarbonate of soda.

It is an important process, thought to produce secondary gold in laterites because surface water tends to be salty in near-surface environments (over very prolonged time). While I don;t think you would lose much gold soaking it that way, unless you live to be Methusela, I wonder if it might be sufficient to make nuggets look a bit brighter.

https://www.911metallurgist.com/blog/solubility-of-gold

 

[Deepseeker]

Welcome back goldierocks, great to see your avatar again

 

[grubstake]

Welcome back goldierocks, great to see your avatar again

It isn't the first time he's popped in briefly lately - a very welcome sight, IMHO. :Y: