This gold nugget pendant weights 2.7 DWT and has a .02 ct diamond mounted in the bail. The mounting is 14k gold, and comes with a gold plated chain.
On any given day, local gold miners will come in to our shop throughout the year with the gold nuggets they mined that season. We look through their stash and choose the very best nuggets to make into pendants. These are natural pieces of “placer gold” which means they are mined from the rivers and streams around Alaska. Otherwise known as the “Klondike”. Finding gold nuggets in their natural state is very rare. This is due to the time consuming process it takes to pull these out of the ground without destroying them. Although this is a challenging process, placer mining can be done by a single miner with a gold pan.
Due to the challenging nature of this process, most of the gold mined in the world is from “hard rock mining” where rock is crushed using big machines and small particles of gold are separated out. This is the most cost-efficient way to extract the gold. The problem with this process is that it destroys these beautiful pieces of art. This means if stores like us stop buying this type of gold, this art will eventually be forgotten. These nuggets will vary in purity from about 75% to 95% pure gold. Due to the fact that these pieces are 100% natural, other minerals can sometimes be mixed in such as silver and platinum.