Gold Gold nugget from French Guiana or Suriname, 6.095 grams- 6.1 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, the former Dutch colony. I harvested it myself more than thirty years ago on the Maroni River (Marowijne) which separates French Guiana from Suriname, in an area named Papaichton, a half-day boat trip from the town of Maripasoula.

At the time I was an gold prospector in French Guiana, and I worked mainly 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 river bottom. These sediments were dumped onto a washing ramp (sluice) whose base was covered with a mat. The whole thing was mounted on a floating barge that also served as a living base with kitchen and dormitory. The visible gold nuggets on the surface of the mat were harvested by hand. The heavy sediments containing gold flakes and 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 fine gold powder.

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 a French overseas department. These nuggets are therefore French. However some are Surinamese (Dutch) when the barge was closer to Suriname's banks than to those of French Guiana. Indeed the boundary between the two countries is just a virtual line in the center of the river. So French nuggets or Surinamese nuggets?… hard 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 fairly pure, generally with a fineness of about 950 to 980 parts per thousand, which corresponds to 22.80 to 23.50 carats.

At the time this type of artisanal gold mining was legal; now it is prohibited and gold exploitation is reserved for a few large industrial operations. French Guiana is nowadays best known for the space base in Kourou that launches satellites into space.

Of course, the photos truly match the nugget for sale, and I am sending you exactly the nugget that is seen in the photos. All photos were taken in natural daylight. I photographed this nugget as honestly and 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, discreet shipping in a non-bendable C5 envelope (162mm x 229mm) by La Poste French mail (registered mail).