The Golden Bear Nugget
The “Golden Bear Nugget” is a crystallized nugget of native gold that is 2 1/4 inches high and 1 5/16 inches wide. It weighs a little over 1 troy ounce. (“Troy” weight is a special system of weighing gems and precious metals. It is universally used all over the world. For our young collectors who know the metric system of measurements, a troy ounce is equal to 31.1 grams.)
The history about this wonderful gold nugget is not exactly clear. The story goes that a 14 year old girl picked it out of a sluice box around 1857 at the Georgia Hills Mine in the California town of Jim. She treasured her interesting gold nugget and took good care of it all her life. She lived to be 75 years old. When she died her brother became the owner of the nugget. He had some money troubles, though, and had to borrow money from a friend. He promised that if he didn’t pay the money back, the friend would get the gold nugget. Guess what? He didn’t pay the money back. The friend took the gold nugget and decided to sell it; he wanted or needed the money more than he wanted the gold. In 1937 a man named Mr. C.D. Woodhouse bought this nugget for $300. He showed it to people in the California Federation of Mineralogical Societies (the CFMS) and they decided to purchase the nugget. They bought it from Mr. Woodhouse for . . . $300. Today you can see the Golden Bear Nugget at the Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History.
Thousands of gold nuggets have been discovered in California. Gold nuggets are rounded because they have been carried by rivers and rolled around in river sand for hundreds of years before they were discovered. Even today, gold hunters use pans to sift through the sand of many of California's rivers and streams to find gold nuggets of any size they can find.
The “Golden Bear Nugget” is a crystallized nugget of native gold that is 2 1/4 inches high and 1 5/16 inches wide. It weighs a little over 1 troy ounce. (“Troy” weight is a special system of weighing gems and precious metals. It is universally used all over the world. For our young collectors who know the metric system of measurements, a troy ounce is equal to 31.1 grams.)
The history about this wonderful gold nugget is not exactly clear. The story goes that a 14 year old girl picked it out of a sluice box around 1857 at the Georgia Hills Mine in the California town of Jim. She treasured her interesting gold nugget and took good care of it all her life. She lived to be 75 years old. When she died her brother became the owner of the nugget. He had some money troubles, though, and had to borrow money from a friend. He promised that if he didn’t pay the money back, the friend would get the gold nugget. Guess what? He didn’t pay the money back. The friend took the gold nugget and decided to sell it; he wanted or needed the money more than he wanted the gold. In 1937 a man named Mr. C.D. Woodhouse bought this nugget for $300. He showed it to people in the California Federation of Mineralogical Societies (the CFMS) and they decided to purchase the nugget. They bought it from Mr. Woodhouse for . . . $300. Today you can see the Golden Bear Nugget at the Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History.
Thousands of gold nuggets have been discovered in California. Gold nuggets are rounded because they have been carried by rivers and rolled around in river sand for hundreds of years before they were discovered. Even today, gold hunters use pans to sift through the sand of many of California's rivers and streams to find gold nuggets of any size they can find.
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