What Does Real Gold Look Like

In fact the piece with gold colored particles inside may even be lighter than your other piece of quartz if the gold is not real.

What does real gold look like.

However just because it looks like gold and is in the same place as gold doesn t mean that it s gold. If you look closely at the piece and see that its structure consists of what looks like small and sharp cubes then it is fool s gold. Real gold weighs about 1 5 times more than fool s gold or iron pyrite. Gold can look many different ways in nature but it is important to know the difference between gold and the other minerals.

Gold panning whether it s professional or recreational is supposed to yield gold flakes and nuggets washed out of the soil. The copper penny is in the photo to serve as a scale. Fool s gold can be mistaken for placer gold gold found as rounded or flat nuggets in dry and wet stream beds and rivers or creeks because they both look golden. So indicators of the presence of sulfides like arsenic copper iron and silver may also appear within gold ore.

But real gold stays bright even when out of direct sunlight and though soft does not fall apart when you touch it like fool s gold can. Once you have seen a few pictures of real gold it is pretty easy to distinguish from the other stuff. Gold ore can look like quartz with streaks or spotty areas of gold. Most people have no idea what to look for and even if they do find gold they might throw it out accidentally.

The environmental protection agency says that gold is commonly alloyed with silver and other metals. Fake gold actually is often shinier than real gold. I am using a light source to show the difference between gold which shines and pyrite which sparkles. Most types of fake gold may look shinier or duller in different lights and may appear almost silver at times.

If you look at this picture you will see a gold ring next a couple of different kinds of gold naturally occurring in their rock. Natural gold looks like gold it looks like jewelry it s a buttery yellow color and it s soft looking. Real gold particularly when it is in nugget form has a yellow almost waxy sheen. Fool s gold and other minerals that look like gold will not produce a weight difference between the pieces of quartz.

Check out some of the pictures throughout our website of the various gold nuggets and gold specimens. Fool s gold is made up of crystals and has sharp edges while real gold is a metal with a smoother texture and rounder edges.