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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Vern, post: 28834, member: 347&quot;]I&#039;m so excited to share this with you all!&nbsp; I put well over 100 hours into a professional conservation of this wheel.</p><p><br /></p><p>When it was found, the wheel itself was painted over with silver paint which hid the true beauty and real numbers.&nbsp; As I began cleaning it, I found that the numbers underneath were hand engraved.&nbsp; I also found a corrosion stress fracture like what occurred in the liberty bell.&nbsp; There was also a faint verdigris&nbsp; on the back.&nbsp; This led me to a curiosity of what the wheel was made of.&nbsp; I took some sample filings to an assayer, and to my astonishment, the wheel is 15% gold, 35% copper, and the other 50% is a mix of other metals that both precious and not.&nbsp; I will include a photo of the x-ray fluorescence printout.</p><p><br /></p><p>After that mystery was solved, I realized I was working with a different class of object.&nbsp; There were many clues of its age.&nbsp; The most obvious was the Victorian style.&nbsp; The typeface is a didone Bodoni variant, I discovered through research.&nbsp; The brass pole is very old and somewhat imperfect, especially in its crude seam.&nbsp; This wheel has no modern bearing.&nbsp; It has a greased sheet of lead wrapped around a spindle.&nbsp; The remaining original pins seem to be lost wax castings, as does the actual wheel, in my opinion.&nbsp; No two spokes on the wheel, which resemble trees of life to me, are the same.&nbsp; When you look at the back of the wheel you can see it has been &quot;skeletonized&quot; with depressions to minimize the weight of it caused by the precious metal alloy.</p><p><br /></p><p>The wood base has old curved saw marks around the front like you see in very old furniture.&nbsp; I believe it may be oak.&nbsp; The life came right back to it with a little turpentine and linseed oil.</p><p><br /></p><p>Now, this was an attic find that I saved from the dumpster.&nbsp; There were many gambling antiques, including very old horse racing photos and also alaskan gold rush photos.&nbsp; I will share some other finds and parts of my collection as time goes on.&nbsp; I feel this wheel was not made in Alaska, but could have been.&nbsp; I believed for a long time that it either came from Dawson during the gold rush or some other Yukon town.&nbsp; However, after doing some research on the Civil War recently, I am beginning to think that this may have been used to hide gold in the South.&nbsp; Either the Knights of the Gold Circle or a family that worried of confiscation.</p><p><br /></p><p>The only thing keeping me from that conclusion is the Jewish or Kabbalah symbolism in the wheel.&nbsp; The numbers form no known game and there are 72 of them, just like in precious metal Kabbalah prayer wheels for the 72 names of God.&nbsp; Also if you add all of the numbers together it equals 635.&nbsp; In the 10 commandments within the 5 books of Moses there are 620 characters.&nbsp; 620+10+5=635.&nbsp; Also the highest number on the wheel is 50.&nbsp; Moses received the ten commandments after 50 days of self evaluation.&nbsp; There are 50 gates of wisdom, days of Omer, questions God asks Job…</p><p>The tally of numbers on the wheel is as follows</p><p>5 - 4</p><p>6 - 4</p><p>7 - 20</p><p>8 - 20</p><p>9 - 16</p><p>10 -1</p><p>11 -1</p><p>12 -1</p><p>13 -1</p><p>15 -1</p><p>16 -1</p><p>20 -1</p><p>50 -1</p><p><br /></p><p>I have tried to contact museums and auction houses to gain some insight, but it seems maybe the story is not very believable.&nbsp; There is one stamp or hallmark on the back which seems to be a 35.&nbsp; After weighing the wheel and looking at the concentration, this may be how many ounces of gold it contains or it could be a hallmark.&nbsp; I don&#039;t know.</p><p><br /></p><p>I invite you all to share your comments, questions, and other input.&nbsp; Sometimes treasure is hidden in plain sight!</p><p><br /></p><p><a href="http://imgur.com/dalkfvd" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://imgur.com/dalkfvd" rel="nofollow"><img src="http://i.imgur.com/dalkfvd.jpg" class="bbCodeImage wysiwygImage" alt="" unselectable="on" /></a></p><p><br /></p><p><a href="http://imgur.com/XbPfM8q" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://imgur.com/XbPfM8q" rel="nofollow"><img src="http://i.imgur.com/XbPfM8q.jpg" class="bbCodeImage wysiwygImage" alt="" unselectable="on" /></a></p><p><br /></p><p><a href="http://imgur.com/psK7js7" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://imgur.com/psK7js7" rel="nofollow"><img src="http://i.imgur.com/psK7js7.jpg" class="bbCodeImage wysiwygImage" alt="" unselectable="on" /></a></p><p><br /></p><p><a href="http://imgur.com/q3Awh7A" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://imgur.com/q3Awh7A" rel="nofollow"><img src="http://i.imgur.com/q3Awh7A.jpg" class="bbCodeImage wysiwygImage" alt="" unselectable="on" /></a></p><p><br /></p><p><a href="http://imgur.com/ClLE5za" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://imgur.com/ClLE5za" rel="nofollow"><img src="http://i.imgur.com/ClLE5za.jpg" class="bbCodeImage wysiwygImage" alt="" unselectable="on" /></a></p><p><br /></p><p><a href="http://imgur.com/InKvvr8" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://imgur.com/InKvvr8" rel="nofollow"><img src="http://i.imgur.com/InKvvr8.jpg" class="bbCodeImage wysiwygImage" alt="" unselectable="on" /></a></p><p><br /></p><p><a href="http://imgur.com/rTqDOiT" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://imgur.com/rTqDOiT" rel="nofollow"><img src="http://i.imgur.com/rTqDOiT.jpg" class="bbCodeImage wysiwygImage" alt="" unselectable="on" /></a></p><p><br /></p><p><a href="http://imgur.com/Gz9WvB4" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://imgur.com/Gz9WvB4" rel="nofollow"><img src="http://i.imgur.com/Gz9WvB4.jpg" class="bbCodeImage wysiwygImage" alt="" unselectable="on" /></a></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><a href="http://imgur.com/lhzCY2U" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://imgur.com/lhzCY2U" rel="nofollow"><img src="http://i.imgur.com/lhzCY2U.jpg" class="bbCodeImage wysiwygImage" alt="" unselectable="on" /></a>[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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