Buying

• Alluvial Gold
• Gold Nuggets
• Doré Gold or Doré Bullion

Alluvial Gold
Gold in this format is also referred to as “Gold Dust”, “Alluvial Dust”, “Alluvial Concentrate” or “Raw Gold” and has the attributes of gold coloured sand. Alluvial gold, depending on the source, sometimes produce solid pieces of gold (referred to as nuggets) with an inconsistent form or appearance.

Alluvium (from the Latin, alluvius, from alluere, "to wash against") is gold deposits in soil or sediments deposited by ancient or pre-historic river beds or current rivers or running water.  Alluvium is typically made up of a variety of materials and base metals, including fine particles of silt and clay and larger particles of sand and gravel. This raw format of Gold is the preferred feed stock for the Dancor Process™ to refine Gold as it also the most cost effective to refine.

Purity levels of Gold in this format range from 65% up to 94% depending on the area or country of origin.

This format of gold is normally produced by the Informal Mining sector also known as the Small Miners. The methods of mining employed to obtain or» mine” alluvial gold count amongst, in the majority cases, the most environmentally destructive method.

Part of our Social Responsibility Program is to introduce, implement, assist and educate miners in modern mining techniques as well as the rehabilitation of exhausted mining sites.

Exporting gold in this format is unwise as the contents of a box could, by drilling holes in the box, easily be extracted and substituted with sand. Most of the current LMBA affiliated refineries do not accept alluvial Gold as it complicates the current pyrometallurgical refining processes employed.

Gold Nuggets
Gold in this format is also referred to as “Buttons” and consistently looks like a gold button or half round droplet weighing approximately five grams.

Nuggets are produced by the melting of a constant amount of alluvial dust in the presence of charcoal (carbon), glass or borax as a method to rid the alluvial dust of impurities thus increasing the purity level of resultant button. This however is a very labour intensive and time consuming process on the part of the Miners.

Purity levels of Nuggets vary from 84% to 96% depending on the country of origin.

Nuggets are also produced subsequent to the introduction of Mercury to alluvial concentrate. The resultant amalgam is then melted to produce a button.

To rid African Gold producing countries of the dangerous, disastrous and indiscriminate use of mercury not only forms part of our Social Responsibility Program but also ranks very high in our Objectives and Mission.

Exporting gold in this format can be done but not advised as, as in the instance of alluvial gold, the contents of a box could easily be substituted with brass or other metal.

Doré Gold
Doré Gold or Doré Bullion is an impure alloy bar of gold and silver produced at a mine that will be refined to high purity metal. The median for gold doré vary between 65% and 90% gold purity with the balance consisting of silver and other base metals.

There are no fixed standards for Doré Bars with regards to weight and size and could vary from 500gram to 25 kilogram bars in all shapes or forms.

Exporting gold in this format is the most acceptable. Cognisance should be taken in that Doré Bars could be “spiked” with a range of foreign metals to increase the visual size and the weight.