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This spectacular gold nugget weighs 5.17 ounces and was recovered in late April
of 2007 in Mariposa County, California. The gentleman who found it was using
a metal detector to look for gold nuggets. It was covered by about one foot
of soil. The finder valued the piece at approximately $10,000 because of its
beautiful specimen quality. Only a few weeks before another large nugget,
weighing in at over
three ounces, was recovered about 50 feet away. |
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Montana Bob Dansie assembled this fantastic collection placer of gold using
various Minelab metal detectors. He dug each flake, one nugget at a time. Most if this
placer material is from Arizona, but it also
includes some gold from other locations. The upside down jar with the small gold
contains several pounds of small flakes and pieces placer gold. |
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This is a
fine 7.5 ounce nugget taken from the north Fork of the Yuba River in Sierra
County , California by some friends of mine in 2004. The Yuba river is famous as a gold producer and has
been producing gold for more than 150 years. The specimen value of this
piece is likely more than $10,000. |
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River
rounded placer gold looks like these nuggets. These specimens show the
smoothing effects of being transported in a stream where rocks and gravel
pound the gold into rounded shapes. Most of the placer gold recovered by
miners is of this type. These are from the Mother Lode country in
California and were recovered by the author from the Yuba River and nearby
streams. |
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These
angular pieces of gold have not been shaped by the flows of a stream. They
were mined on the hilltop near the rocks in which they were formed. They are
from California and were also recovered by the author. |
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I have known of gold
specimens being sold around the western USA for a number of years that are marketed as
coming from the "Mad Mutha" mine in Nevada. Well, I finally got to meet Mr. "Mad Mutha"
himself at a recent mining conference in Sparks, Nevada. He uses a GP Extreme and and a Gold Bug II metal detectors to find
gold. The gold he produces is very spongy, the kind of stuff that PI
detectors sometimes have a bit of trouble with sometimes. The photo at left
shows some of the gold he markets from the Mad Mutha claim.
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The photo
at left shows some more of the gold he markets, but this specimen is not from the Mad Mutha
claim, its from the Lost W which is another of his claims. It is however of
the same type with small gold crystals and a spongy texture. The crystals are
small, and for crystal gold it is cheap for crystalline material, only about
$1240 per ounce! |
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I had
a chance to see some gold quartz specimens offered for sale at a conference
of mining folks. I wanted to post these so
you all could see how expensive nice crystal gold is going for.
The next 3 photos are from the Eagle's Nest mine in Placer County. The specimens
are made by treating high grade gold quartz with Hydrfluoric acid to etch
away the quartz. The price on No. 3 was a bargain $4,500. I would estimate
it contains about 3/4 or an ounce of gold. No. 4 is $1500 and probably has
about 2 dwt of gold - I saw that it did sell at the conference. The specimen
in No. 5 has a spray of gold around 3 inches tall, and probably does have
2.5 to 3 ounces of gold. It was for sale at the bargain price of $14,000.
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Another fine specimen from the
Eagle's Nest mine in Placer County, California.
It can be seen that nice crystalline gold specimens and the
specimens that can be created out of higrade gold-quartz by those with tools,
talent and a few quarts of Hydro Fluoric acid. Just a disclaimer: HF acid can be
very dangerous if mishandled. |
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Here is another fine specimen from the
Eagle's Nest mine in Placer County, California. |
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Photo
no. 6 is a nice but small piece of Crystalline Chevron placer gold from Rye Patch.
Its a nice specimen, but I've seen better. Likely this piece of placer gold was recovered with a metal detector. I'd estimate
it at around 3 to 3.5 dwt. The $850 price works out to just around $5000 per
ounce. IT SOLD at the conference. Dang, if I could get $5000 per ounce, I'd
probably sell my gold, too. |
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Photo
7 is a small piece from the big mine at Round Mountain. It has little
quartz, is mostly gold and weighs in 8.8 grams. The gold is high in silver
probably not more than about 80% gold by weight. Price per ounce for this
little crystal nugget is a measly $4400 per ounce. |
Recommended
Metal Detectors
For Gold Prospecting:
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Photo
8 is a piece from the big mine at Round Mountain. I'd guess it has less than
a quarter ounce of gold, the rest is rock. Total weight is 28 grams. Price,
as you can see is $2500, so you are talking about roughly $10,000 per ounce.
Again, I'd happily sell all my gold for $10,000 per ounce! |
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This
fine crystalline gold specimen is from Butte County at the northern end of
the mother lode region in California. |
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The
state of Colorado has produced quite a bit of gold, including these fine
natural specimens. |
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Wire
gold specimens like this one are actually quite rare. Curved horn shaped
wires like the specimen at left are actually more common in silver as it is
not unusual that native silver will grow in this sort of "rams horn" pattern.
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The
Breckenridge District of Colorado is well known for fine wire crystal gold
specimens. The area was very rich in the early days and many fine specimens
like this one were melted down for their bullion. |
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Australia is well known for producing some gigantic gold nuggets. The larger
piece here weighs in at more than 5 pounds, and is roughly a foot long.
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The vast majority of gold mined in Nevada is tiny - microscopic in size.
However a small percentage is large and here is an example of a pan full of
gold taken from the Round Mountain Mine in Nye County. Only about 3% of
their total production is coarse nugget gold like this, but even at 3 % of all their gold,
it adds up to a very large quantity. The Round Mountain Mine is operated by Kinross
Gold and is
located North of Tonopah in Nye county, Nevada. The State of Nevada
produces a tremendous amount of gold - millions of ounces each year. Check out this web page
if you want to learn more about
Nevada's Rich Micron Gold deposits. |
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