A reader wants help identifying nuggets

Received an interesting e-mail this week, from a G. Clifton in California. The author claims he is trying to uncover a fraud and enlists all the help he can get. If any readers of this blog have an opinion, lets hear it. I certainly don’t. The nuggets, if that’s what they are, don’t look like anything I have seen in Australia. Dear Mr. Van Bergeijk:   I am attempting to uncover a potential fraud.  Perhaps your readers can help. I have been presented with the attached photos of gold nuggets obtensively recovered from a placer in the Middle East.  I …

Aan het werk

Dit is de plek waar ik sinds oktober mijn dagen spendeer: op de zolderkamer, achter mijn laptop. Het boek dat ik aan het schrijven ben, heeft al een (voorlopige) titel: Goudkoorts of: hoe ik dacht rijk te worden in de Australische outback. Het gaat dit najaar verschijnen bij Ambo|Anthos.

Another picture of that huge nugget

Another picture of that huge nugget I blogged about yesterday (thank you BoingBoing). It’s called the Ausrox Gold Nugget by the way, named after the company that brokered the deal. Not a very original name, I am afraid, but then again it doesn’t like anything either. My suggestion would be: the blob nugget. For all Dutch readers: het boek waarin ik verslag doe van mijn pogingen zelf goudzoeker te worden, verschijnt volgend jaar bij Ambo|Anthos.

The third largest gold nugget in the world

Last weekend the Western Australian gold prospectors assembled for their annual meeting at the pub in Ora Banda, a hamlet in the Western Australian outback. At the end of the meeting a nugget buyer from Perth, a guy named Andy Comas, made quite an interesting announcement: he recently acquired and sold a nugget weighing 23.26 kilogram, making it the world’s third largest gold nugget in existence (just after the Hand of Faith at 27.21 kg and the Normandy Nugget at 25.5 kg). When Andy showed a picture of the monster the bar went dead quiet. People just couldn’t take their …