[Rockhounds] Smelter Nickel

[Peter Sparks]

A fellow rockhound here in Ann Arbor bought a bunch of these things, and
his came from an old nickel plating operation for Harley Davidson.
These things formed on the edge of the plating vats.  They look like
drippy globular clusters with many globules that seem to come from one
point, like bunches of balloons you'd see for sale at the carnivals,
upside down and much smaller.  They are a metallic silver/nickel color.
He bought them to make jewelry pieces but strangely, although
attractive, never did sell well.  Harley Davidson changed their plating
methods and these are supposed to be no longer available, at least five
years ago if not ten or twenty.

No information on the trader, though I can report back with more
specifics once I learn them.

-- Peter 

-----Original Message-----
From: rockhounds-bounces at lists.drizzle.com
[mailto:rockhounds-bounces at lists.drizzle.com] On Behalf Of John
Junkroski
Sent: Tuesday, January 06, 2009 4:43 PM
To: Rockhounds at drizzle.com: A mailing list for rock and gem collectors
Subject: Re: [Rockhounds] Smelter Nickel

I have a similar specimen which I bought at an auction. It had only "  
Nickel No.43 " on the label but the seller said it was from a plating  
operation, not a smelter. Since nickel plating was so common during  
the early part of the last century and he was dealing mostly in  
antiques, I accepted his explanation as reasonable.

But now that I've gone and looked at it closely, the form resembles  
molten wax that has dripped from a candle, and it shows a rough,  
broken-looking place where it might have been broken away from a  
crucible or a casting mold, so apparently it was liquid when it formed.
It's really a visually attractive specimen, and I would like to know  
more about it.

John

On Jan 6, 2009, at 2:34 PM, Lawrence Rush wrote:

> OK...this time I DO have a  real puzzle..................
>
> In the 1980's, I used to attend a swap session every summer in New  
> Hampshire. For several years there, a gentleman would approach me  
> (he did not have a booth), and offer to trade me a Nickel specimen.  
> These came out of a smelter somewhere, and were attractive, being  
> kind of globular, and kind of dendritic, and shiny metallic. It was  
> maybe 4x8cm in size. No label, and I wasn't sophisticated enough to  
> ask for one.
>
> I re-traded one of these (don't remember what happened to the rest)  
> to a friend in Arkansas. That owner died and this particular one  
> recently showed up on an auction site on the web, and was sold to  
> another collector. Since it had my label on it, he contacted me for  
> locality information. I know nothing about the specimen or the  
> person who originally had it.
>
> Is there any member who knows anything about this trader? Would  
> anyone know where Nickel might have been smelted in the 1980's, and  
> how it might have got out into the hands of a mineral trader? I  
> would like to be able to add something to the label besides the  
> specimen (and my) name.
>
> Thanks.....Larry Rush
>
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