Gold Nuggets As Collectors? Items

The interest in gold nuggets is a recent occurrence. Many people have of late made prospecting for gold nuggets a profitable hobby. Many others collect gold nuggets and are willing to pay a premium price for a good-sized specimen. This is because less than two percent of the earth?s gold is found in the form of nuggets. Furthermore, each nugget is quite unique, and it is rare to find two identical ones.

The rivers of California, some places in Alaska, and Australia, are the main areas that these nuggets are found and where people go prospecting with metal detectors. The nuggets are usually about 92% to 99.6% pure gold. Prospecting for gold is not that easy. It calls for research, the right equipment, determination, patience, and above all, a little luck.

During the days of the gold rush, even if prospectors found nuggets, they were melted down. They were then weighed and sold. Even when the price of gold shot up, people who possessed gold nuggets melted them down to improve their purity and sold them by weight.

Until 1990, all gold nuggets that had been found have been melted down. Now prospecting for and collecting gold nuggets is not only a hobby, but also a form of investment, because the value of these nuggets is much more in the market than their weights in gold. This is because gold nuggets are considered to be gemstones and are more rare than gold dust. Most of the bullion that is traded in the market is made into coins from melted gold dust.

The Origin Of Gold Nuggets

These nuggets now primarily come from Western Australia, northern California, and Gilmore Creek in Alaska. They are classified as large, medium, or small according to their weights. Large are up to one troy ounce in weight, and medium are from five grams to one-half a troy ounce. A nugget weighing more than an ounce is quite rare. The largest one found however is a whopping 27.2 kilograms in weight and forty-six centimeters long. It is known as the Hand of Faith and is displayed at the Golden Nugget Casino in Las Vegas.

Gold nuggets are believed to be formed by the precipitation of gold by chemical solutions that rise from deep and diffused gold deposits in the earth to the surface. All the gold on the surface of the earth has probably been found. A lot of what lies just below the surface is also out. That leaves a very small precious store of gold nuggets still in Mother Earth?s possession.