Somewhere I thought I saw a reference that gold from Larder Lake was used for the Canadian 1908 Sovereign. Does any one have a reference? Could it have been from the Kerr-Addison Gold Mine which is close to Larder Lake and just started up in 1907? Virginiatown is the closest settlement to the mine and and has this proud monument. So there is good circumstantial evidence that Kerr-Addison was the source, but is there a reference?
Thanks Longshot. I'll look for that Forum. edit: Well I'm defeated by the system. I found a list of fora with US coins but no possibility of pasting it there. I can't even find out even how to start a new post! Let alone a forum for it. How on earth did I manage to post this in the wrong forum in the first place? Now I find that some kind person has moved it here. Thanks.
When you click on FORUMS, and then click the forum you want, there is a blue POST NEW THREAD button at the top right.
I don't know of any reference as to where the gold came from. It could have come from several locations and mixed together. By saying that it came from Virginiatown, and erecting the monument, they may "create" the history.
That statue is super cool! I don't have a Canadian Sovereign yet. I think it's very cool to have gold that is known to come from different regions.
THanks so much for the replies. Michael, thanks for the help. I'll post to the right fora when I figure them out. I think most people give up trying to source the gold in their coins for the reason that TheFin suggests. It is usually hopeless due to the essential identity of gold atoms and so gold from any source will be added to the melt. The 1908 might be special as only 636 sovereigns were produced. At 91.7 wt % Au in a 7.99 gm coin and with 31.1035 gm to the troy ounce, then 636 coins require 149.8 Troy ounces of pure gold. Striking Impressions, Haxby's history of the Canadian Mint, says on page 83, "Shipments of rough (unrefined) gold began to arrive at the mint in late 1908. The amounts were small- only 219 Troy ounces by the end of 1908.". THe purity of the rough gold might be about 85% giving about 186 Troy ounces of pure gold, ample gold for the 636 coins. However "Shipments", more than one! And from more than one source??? That sovereign statue and the claim "The source of Canadian gold coins" is a great tourist attractor regardless of the truth. Maybe I should ask the Mint? I think more collections are being recycled as there seem to be a lot of sovereigns on the market, even the rare ones. As a Newbie I don't know if it has been true in the past but currently the lack of cash is the only hindrance to a complete series.
This sounds like a great research project (unfortunately, I have a number of "great" research projects sitting in my queue, some of which may be of legal drinking age by now ). I'm not a collector of Canadian sovereigns, but I think it would be cool if you were able to find source, assuming it was ore and not recycled material.
I've been a mineral collector all my life and recently got interested in gold specimens. The gains in the dope stocks, then permitted a return to coins with an interest in the source of the gold. It's recorded on Trajan's column that he returned from Dacia with 65 tons of gold. I haven't yet got a Trajan aureus with his column on the reverse. Romania has been the source of fine crystallised gold specimens since collecting them began in the 18th century. Recently a Canadian mining company who wanted to open pit mine the old Roman workings at Rosia Montana were stopped, not to preserve history but to preserve the environment. Some guineas have elephant and castle marks to signify the gold was from West Africa and those with EIC are from the East India Company. Sadly There are no crystallized gold specimens from the African Gold Coast or from India. Similarly the Lima and Vigo coins are from treasure ships stolen from the Spanish who stole it from the locals. So the "source" isn
I would think that crystallized gold would be fairly pure, correct? One of the interesting things about different regions is that you can identify where the gold came from by analyzing what else is in it. So in theory, unless it is mixed with gold from other sources, you could identify the source from a sample such as a coin. I don't know how destructive it would be, but perhaps a good XRF machine would work without much damage.
A well focused electron beam should leave a micron sized blemish that's not eye visible. I presume, but don't know of any literature on this, but I suspect there's a small industry looking at the impurities and identifying sources. Native gold usually has silver has the major contaminant, anything from a few to 40% or more by weight. The more silver, the paler it is. More than 20% Silver is often called electrum. Some localities produce a browner gold with a few % palladium. I don't know if Tellurium survives the smelting or just goes up the smoke stack. A few % copper reddens it. Rough gold is quite variable but Ontario rough gold ought to be around 85% gold. As there is a hydrologic cycle, so there is a gold cycle. Very rarely the gold deposits in open spaces or in mud and forms crystals, mostly the gold just fills the veins with no crystals evident. The state of crystallization depends on the space available and not on the impurities, though they can influence the the habit (coarse, dendritic, etc.). These deposits weather away and the gold is rolled into ever smaller nuggets. Eventually they are tiny particles in black sand at the sea shore. THis fine gold is then washed out to sea and gets caught on a subducting plate. A few hundred kilometers below the subducting plate is digested and the dispersed gold is concentrated and then deposited in the veins where it might crystallize.
