Intresting insight into my Martha Washington trial piece.

I know someone with an XRF machine. (Google them... they are pretty cool)

Anyway it's a handheld device that tell you the composition and any trace elements on the surface of a piece.

I had him scan this piece.



This is the results.



You can see some of the compounds found.

Ag = Silver
Pd = Palladium
Ti = Titanium
Ni = Nickel
Cu = Copper
Zn = Zinc
Bi = Bismuth
Hg = Mercury

Some of these make sense... This piece is supposed to be copper nickel alloy that was golden and did NOT contain manganese. It looks to be true.

Where the heck do things like Palladium, Silver, Bismuth, and Mercury come in in trace form???

These pieces were used to try experimental rinses on... are these byproducts of the rinses??? Do any of the resident chemist have any thoughts?

 

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No idea about why the others show up but I do have a question-

Did you break out the coin or is it able to read through the slab? I wouldn't think you would break it out but I also wouldn't think it would give accurate readings through another substance.

 

Cam beat me to it. How did you test a coin in a slab or did you crack it out?

 

That's exactly right doug. I was told that the plastic would have no effect on the outcome of the reading.

 

You need to find out what the sensitivity of the machine is. My guess is the reading on those trace elements is below the sensitivity level the machine, thus they were not actually present.

 

I'll ask him next time I see him but this coin tested for almost 2% silver... I'd have to think that it's more sensitive then that.

The others were in very small amounts lit appears...

The silver however was the one that made me say hmmmmm..

 

Those are neat machines. Thank you for the picture.

The "contaminants" the device detected are possibly just residual natural minerals that persisted despite the best purifying attempts to extract the desired metal.

(Although I got a chemistry degree 30 years ago, I have no authority to talk about anything in chemistry since I haven't used my degree in more than a quarter century.)

As an aside, I am always dismayed that the Ancient experts have not utilized this technology more. It seems to me that we could use this technology to better learn about the sources and techniques of Ancient coinage. The arguement is that it shows only surface minerals and not deeper levels. Fair enough. Perhaps, because of chemistry principles I never knew, the superficial surface levels, aside from outside contaminations, don't reflect the true makeup of the coin.

guy

 

Here's an interesting post about determining the authenticity of four Ancient coins. The experts all disagreed. Then, the coins were sent for X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy:

http://www.severusalexander.com/answers.htm


guy

 

Matt can you post values for all the elements found?