crafty09 said:
I'm just wondering whether black Sun is somehow involved. The entire conversation looks as if it was made up to make the accounts seems genuine between rolls and glint. I assume black sun realised something was up and got out of there but who knows
Hi all,
After everything that has transpired over this affair, it will be useful to tell all. Quite frankly, I think its been quite an education for everyone, and I'm grateful for the extra learning I picked up. After all, isn't this what silverstackers is all about? Learning about precious metals?!
I love rocks & minerals, but am no geologist. Initially I believed those nuggets were real, and so I put up high bids to keep everyone else away from my "treasure".
After bidding that sort of money, and being willing to go a fair bit higher, I then immediately set about investigating silver indepth, more so than I had ever done before, after all, there was a lot of money at stake, and possibly I might get more "nuggets" after winning the first 4 auctions. I knew that native silver came in a whole variety of forms, so it was a bit odd that I'd never seen any like rolls nuggets, even after looking at 100s of photos after placing my bids. So I started to question myself, were these real? On Monday morning, I called ALS Minerals Laboratory in Townsville, and spoke to a guy about getting an XRF chemical assay done; its a 7 day turnaround, $200, they need 4 grams of material, which they then roll, and cut into 4 slices each weighing one gram. 4 separate tests are carried out. The slice of silver is dissolved in a chemical bath, and then they analyse the exact elemental breakdown of the sample.
Meanwhile, a fellow SS (whose name I have not mentioned to anyone, nor even previously suggested his presence) sent me a warning email. He noticed that rolls had unusual silver experience; eg. the CSIRO machine; photographic silver, and also told me something else - an important clue (which I can't say, as it will give a clue as to who this SS might be). He said that if rolls had appeared with only a couple of nuggets, he might not say a thing, but seeing as rolls has appeared with 5kg of nuggets, he can't just remain silent. He advised me to approach this matter with caution. What a pal... he helped me make up my mind, to go no further.
I advised rolls via PM that I was withdrawing my bids, because I had looked through a mineral database and viewed 1500+ photos of native silver (in addition to looking on other sites), and could only find about 2-3 examples of silver that resembled his: (1) a couple of examples which were no larger than 5mm in size, and (2) a nugget held up by a miner, the size of a large marble, but with flattish planes, similar to a pyrite crystal. So I had a problem with this. Asked rolls about getting a 4 gram example for a chemical assay. Said not to worry, as he's getting it x-rayed at Goldmakers. Also informed goldpelican immediately of what had happened. Rolls came back to me and advised that Goldmakers said that the nuggets were "100% pure silver", which was the final straw for me. No natural nugget of any kind is 100% pure. Whereas in these auction posts, rolls just says that its "pure", with no mention of "100%", probably because this claim would be torn to shreds in a public forum, buy saying it just to one guy, you might be able to get away with it.
Didn't reply to rolls after this, but advised goldpelican that I was having no further dealings in this matter, no communication or interaction; its over! Goldpelican advised me to publically post my withdrawals in the forum, going beyond the "private agreement" with rolls that if I won I just wouldn't pay at the end. So that's when you saw my bid withdrawals appear.
Another stacker sent me an email, advising of a way he has seen other metallic materials shaped into nuggets, which look the same as rolls ones. I won't advise how this is done, as don't want to give a clue as to who this SS might be.
Problem 1: rolls nuggets look identical. This is highly highly unusual. Unnatural.
Problem 2: rolls has a huge collection of nuggets. Very unusual, as silver nuggets are rare.
Problem 3: 100% silver purity.
How the hell does someone end up with a 5kg nugget collection, of IDENTICAL looking "nuggets", when even a single damn nugget is rare?
Anyway, I sent an email & web-links to the mineral expert who runs
http://www.the-vug.com/vug/vugfakes.html, a specialist site detailing all manner of rock & mineral frauds, and he replied back to me, "they look like man-made globs to me."
Interestingly glint in his introduction says that he has invested in gold and uncut gems. As many SS know, gemstone investment is a real specialist area. You are either an expert or a fool. And now the educated gemstone investor, glint, wants to vacuum up all these stupid silver nuggets? Ha ha... Give me a break!!
All the lies and the deceit... and while you're at it, pass me a beer. As I said in last PM to goldpelican, "the auctions are self-destructing nicely".
So I was temporarily fooled, because I have never had false nuggets in my face before. But now I know better, and am grateful for the chance to learn. So if you guys want to know what man-made "silver nuggets" look like, have a good look guys, because here are some good close-up pictures, right in your face.
PS: It would have been honest to advertise these as "man-made globs". But what the hell is a "glob"?
PPS: I notice that boyracer is still in the lead for this glob, at $105, so he must really want it
