The Life Changer Butte Nugget

If you have larceny in your heart, you are out of luck, a dream by its nature is usually etherial and vaporous, but that is not the case for an unknown person of Paradise. The “Butte Nugget” was found by a prospector in California in 2014 by using a metal detector. He dig up a piece of iron rubbish, but unearthed lifetime of this monster nugget. It is believed to be one of the largest gold discoveries in California in the past century, weighing more than five pounds of solid gold. The Butte Nugget confirmed weight was 75 troy ounces, it has no quartz inclusions and gold from this area is generally very high purity. Somehow the place of discovery was not revealed, but it was found somewhere in Butte County, which has always been a major producer of gold in the state. Many millions of ounces in gold have been found here since the early days of the gold rush. The Butte Nugget is the second largest extant placer gold nugget in California. The biggest nugget is the 100 troy ounces "Mojave Nugget." The estimates value put this as going for between $250,000 and $400,000.

Some of the primary mining districts in Butte County when it comes to producing gold are Magalia in Yankee Hill and Oroville District. The Yankee Hill district had the largest lode production between 1929 till 1959; approximately 30,000 ounces of gold were produced. Although substantial production took place during the 1800’s but very poor production records exist during that time. The Oroville District the southern part of Butte County production records 1964130 ounces of gold between 1903 and 1959. This impressive amount of gold that was found within the Oroville district made it the largest producer of gold in Butte County, primarily obtained because of bucket line dredge operations that worked the river gravels.