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Alaska’s Largest Gold Nugget For Sale
By Mining.com A rare and massive gold nugget, weighing around 20 pounds, has been put up for sale 23 years after it was discovered and it’s expected to reach at least $1 million at an auction taking place in December. The Alaska Centennial Nugget, estimated at the size of a baby’s head, was discovered by gold miner Barry Clay near the town of Ruby, Alaska, in 1998, 100 years after the 1896 Klondike Gold Rush. He found the valuable remnant while pushing dirt with his bulldozer along the shores of the Swift Creek Mine. The nugget is the largest ever found in Alaska, and only smaller than the “Boot of Cortez” nugget found in Mexico, which weighs 24 pounds. Clay is said to have buried the nugget near a tree, buying time until he decided what to do with his remarkable find. The current owner bought the rock directly from Clay, and it has been in the same family for more than two decades. The auction will be the first public offering of the museum-quality piece. The fact that the Alaska Centennial gold nugget exists at all makes it all the more exceptional, Craig Kissick, Director of Nature and Science at Heritage Auctions said in a video. “Fewer than 50 gold nuggets over 250 ounces exist as gold in nugget form… (it’s) inherently rare; gold nuggets of massive size, even more so,” he says. Some of Alaska’s richest placers worked in the area around the town of Ruby from 1910 to 1920. There are only a handful of commercial mining operations there today.
Thank you to all the AMA corporate and individual members who joined or renewed their membership to the association in October. You make AMA possible! Corporations Builders Choice Modular, LLC Desert Air Alaska NISS Veritiv Professional Mike Hinton William Morris Taylor White Individual Lee Beasley Joey Benetka Tom Luce & Roberta Berry Alex Deeds Mark Immonen Margarette Jones Brian McJunkin Rob McLeod
Ron & Nancy Ralston John & Kristi Schaff Evan Venechuk David G. & Sharon M. Wright
Anthony Esping Clayton Gooden Janice Hill
Not yet a member of the Alaska Miners Association? Or have not yet renewed your membership for 2021? Renew today so you don’t miss a single issue of The Alaska Miner or this year’s 2021 Alaska Miners Handbook and Service Directory, available only to AMA members. Call or email Jennifer Luiten, Membership and Fundraising Director 907-270-9232. jennifer@AlaskaMiners.org.
Museum Seeks Ancient Mammoth Tusks
Photo Courtesy Heritage Auctions
When ancient mammoth tusks are found in Alaska they receive a varied destiny. Some are plowed back into the ground by miners while others are kept or sometimes sold. If tusks are found on private, state or tribal lands they can enter into commerce whereas if they are found on Federal land they cannot be taken from the land. A museum in Ohio accepts ancient tusks and sections of tusks as donations. The Amish area museum is known as David Warther Carvings and a review of their work can be seen on their website at www.warther.org . Donors who are individuals as well as corporations can claim a tax deduction based on the value of the tusks
because the museum is an IRS recognized 501(c)3 organization. The tusks or tusk sections can be evaluated by one of several qualified appraisers in Anchorage who are able to evaluate them from photos and other information such as weights and measurements if the tusks are in a remote location. This could be a unique opportunity for individuals and corporations in the mining industry to realize some value from this unusual resource and to help a museum at the same time. The museum can be reached for more information through its website.
The Alaska Centennial Nugget.
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December 2021 I The Alaska Miner I www.alaskaminers.org
www.alaskaminers.org I The Alaska Miner I December 2021
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