Second-largest gold nugget in the world sells for more than 66 € per gram

According to calculations by German precious metals portal Goldpreis.de, gold has gained around 418 per cent in value since the introduction of the euro in 2002. Apart from the all-time high in August 2020, when it briefly traded at over 55 € per gram and simultaneously broke through the US$2,000 mark for an ounce of fine gold, it has never been as valuable as recently. Many a gold investor will be all the more surprised in view of the following news: A man recently succeeded in selling an untreated lump of gold about the size of a child’s head for significantly more than its actual material value.

Record price at auction: the Alaska Centennial Gold Nugget

The largest gold nugget ever unearthed in Alaska weighs almost 10 kg. Discovered by miner Barry Clay in 1998 in a small branch of the Yukon River near the village of Ruby, the Alaska Centennial Gold Nugget not only holds the size record in its homeland; it is also considered the second-largest nugget ever found in the Western Hemisphere. Only in Mexico has an even larger nugget of gold been unearthed, the 12 kg Boot of Cortez. Clay eventually sold his nugget to a wealthy collector whose heirs put it up for auction at Heritage Auctions in Dallas, USA, in early December 2021. The highest bidder, who has chosen to remain anonymous, bought the Alaska Centennial Gold Nugget for US$750,000, which is currently roughly €662,700.

150 per cent of the official gold price for a gold nugget

In contrast to LBMA-certified gold bars with a 999/1000 fineness, which are, for example, used to physically back Xetra-Gold bonds, the purity of the Alaska Centennial Gold Nugget has been determined to be only 876/1000. According to the precious metals trading portal Bullion Investor, this means that its price per gram, which is €51, should actually be just under 45 €. At the auction, the untreated gold nugget thus changed hands at a premium of 50 per cent to its actual material value.

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