Blob of what the?????

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Guessologist said:
Was it in an historic mining area? I'll eat my hard hat if that isn't antimony metal. Definitely a smelter product of some sort. Check out "antimony regulus" or star metal on google image search for some comparisons. I frequent a site that's got quite a lot of it, makes an awesome noise! The magnetism could be a bit of a red herring for ID, I'm going to guess that there's some blobs of iron in there giving it magnetic properties.

The photo of the inside's a bit hard to see but that perhaps may be stibnite in the middle of the lump.

Cobalt might be unlikely? I understand it's a fair bit of work to separate cobalt from the other metals it occurs with, doesn't seem like the kind of thing to just discard when you've put a lot of work in it. And that's a fair chunk!

edit: just tested with a couple of my found lumps of antimony, some are pretty magnetic, some aren't at all. Got to be some iron contamination here, no nickel or cobalt around and I know they quarried ironstone nearby to use as smelter flux.

Yep im still swinging towars smelter metal. No mining or smelter anywhere near where it was found. There was a brick works other side of town so not sure if it could of come from there
 
Hey tailormarc.... here's a link to goldie's mineral identification thread.

https://www.prospectingaustralia.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=24759
throw your photo and question up on there
1553719412_1553487584_img_6541.jpg

He's our resident geologist :Y:
 
Pretty sure that is a lump of either smelted metallic nickel or cobalt, but more likely to be nickel. Nice find :perfect:
 
Don't think it looks like a meteorite, galena, antimony, tin, silver, lead etc etc. Looks man-made - an alloy? No sulphide mineral will survive a hundred years on the ground or in soil (otherwise pyrrhotite might have been a possibility). A flame test is about the only thing that would help since it gives an indication of the elements in it. Also SG determination for comparison, as it looks pure or pure alloy. Magnetism limits it to some sort of iron, cobalt, nickel alloy I guess. If you told us the location it might help.
 

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