Gold Native, nugget from Suriname or French Guiana, 2.923 grams- 2.92 g - (1)

Discovery Zone 3°47’ North 54°04’ West This nugget comes from French Guiana, a French territory in the Amazon, or possibly from Suriname, a former Dutch colony. I harvested it myself more than thirty years ago on the Maroni River (Marowijne River), which separates French Guiana from Suriname, in an area called Papaichton about half a day’s boat trip from the town of Maripasoula. At the time I was a gold prospector in French Guiana, and I mainly worked on the rivers, the Oyapock which forms the border with Brazil and the Maroni which forms the border with Suriname. With my team we used a floating dredge that pumped sediment from the river bottom. This sediment was dumped onto a washing ramp (sluice) whose bottom was covered with a mat. The whole setup was installed on a floating barge that also served as living quarters with a kitchen and dormitory. The visible gold nuggets and the heaviest sediments settled by gravity onto the mat, and the rest of the sediments flowed back into the river. The gold nuggets visible on the surface of the mat were harvested by hand. The heavy sediments containing the gold flakes and dust were embedded in the bottom of the mat. From time to time this mat was washed to retrieve these heavy sediments. These sediments were then processed with a vibrating table or a pan to recover the fine gold. The gold collected was then regularly sold in French Guiana or in Brazil. I kept the finest of the nuggets for my personal collection and I am now offering a few of them for sale. Although located in the Amazon (South America), French Guiana is an overseas French department. These nuggets are therefore French. However some are Surinamese (Dutch) when the barge was closer to the shores of Suriname than to the shores of French Guiana. Indeed, the border between the two countries is only a virtual line in the center of the river. So French nuggets or Surinamese nuggets? … difficult to know precisely, it all depends on which side of this virtual line the barge was on the day they were harvested. The gold from this region is quite pure; typically its fineness is about 950 to 980 parts per thousand, which corresponds to 22.80 to 23.50 carats. At the time this artisanal placer mining was authorized; now it is forbidden and gold exploitation is reserved for a few large industrial operators. French Guiana is now best known for the space base in Kourou that launches satellites into space. Of course, the photos truly correspond to the nugget being sold, and I am sending you exactly the nugget that is in the photos. All photos were taken in natural daylight. I photographed this nugget as honestly and accurately as possible using daylight. Please note that differences in screen settings and ambient lighting may cause variations in color, saturation, and perceived tones. I offer fast, secure, and discreet shipping in a nondestructible C5 envelope (162mm x 229mm) by French La Poste registered mail.

Estimate:£586.11

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