Gold Native gold nugget from Suriname or French Guiana

Discovery Zone 3°47’ North 54°04’ West This nugget comes from French Guiana, a French territory in the Amazon, or from Suriname, a former Dutch colony. I gathered it myself more than thirty years ago on the Maroni River (Marowijne River) which separates French Guiana from Suriname, in an area named Papaichton, a half-day journey by pirogue from the town of Maripasoula. At the time I was an 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 sediments from the riverbed. These sediments were dumped onto a washing ramp (sluice) whose bottom was covered with a mat. The whole thing was installed on a floating barge which also served as a living base with kitchen and dormitory. The gold nuggets and the heaviest sediments settled by gravity onto the mat and the rest of the sediments returned to the river. The nuggets visible on the surface of the mat were harvested by hand directly. The heavy sediments containing the specks and gold powder were embedded in the bottom of the mat. From time to time this mat was washed to recover these heavy sediments. These sediments were then processed with a vibrating plate or a pan to recover the powder 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 putting some up 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 boundary between the two countries is a simple virtual line in the middle of the river. So French nuggets or Surinamese nuggets??…. it is hard to know precisely, it all depends on which side of this virtual line the barge was on the day they were collected. The gold from this region is fairly pure; in general its purity is around 950 to 980 thousandths, which corresponds to 22.80 to 23.50 karats. At the time this type of artisanal gold mining was permitted; now it is prohibited and gold exploitation is reserved for a few large industrial operators. French Guiana is now best known for the space base at Kourou which launches satellites into space. Of course, the photos truly correspond to the nugget for sale, and I am sending you exactly the nugget that is shown in the photos. All photos are taken in natural daylight. I photographed this nugget as honestly and as precisely as possible using daylight. Please note that differences in screen settings and ambient lighting can lead to variations in color, saturation, and perceived tones. I offer fast, secure, and discreet shipping in a sturdy envelope format C5 (162mm x 229mm) by La Poste France registered mail."} }`-LIMITS-desired: 3-?**

估價:$3,249.28

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