Fool’s Gold or Fortune? A Guide to Avoiding Lookalikes and Finding the Real Deal

A yellow glint in a pan or quartz vein invites a tempting answer. Fool's Gold or Fortune? teaches you to slow down and ask a better question. Record a specimen's context, compare native gold with pyrite, chalcopyrite, mica, and manufactured lookalikes, and learn what streak, hardness, density, and magnet tests can—and cannot—show.

Then decide whether a qualified examiner or laboratory is needed. The field-to-lab sheet keeps the find, marked grain, sample, and report connected. A practical guide for the curious collector who wants evidence before a value claim.

• 24 chapters and 150 pages.
• Gold and lookalike identification with stated limits.
• Records and forms for documenting evidence.

Turn a promising glint into a question you can actually investigate.

See what is inside

The revised edition covers these chapters and reader resources:

• Chapter 1 — Define the Identification Question
• Chapter 2 — Look Before You Label
• Chapter 3 — Three Yellow Minerals
• Chapter 4 — Flakes, Veins, and Fabricated Metal
• Chapter 5 — What a Physical Clue Can Prove
• Chapter 6 — A Concentrate Is Still a Mixture
• Chapter 7 — Ask the Right Examiner
• Chapter 8 — Permission Is Site-Specific
• Chapter 9 — Read the Claim Before the Price
• Chapter 10 — The Field-to-Lab Sheet
• Identification Record