"Aww, what the frick..."
Posted on 02/06/2015 2:28:11 PM PST by Thistooshallpass9
A herdsman in China’s remote far west has struck gold after stumbling upon a huge nugget of the precious metal estimated to be worth at least $250,000, state media reported Thursday.
The 7.85 kilo chunk was discovered “practically lying on bare ground”, the official Xinhua news agency said, quoting the herder, an ethnic Kazakh named Berek Sawut.
He found the golden lump, described in the report as “random-shaped” and about 23 centimetres long, 18 centimetres at its widest and up to eight centimetres thick.
It was estimated to be worth 1.6m yuan ($255,000), Xinhua said, assuming it was 80 percent pure.
It quoted a local gold price expert, Zhu Xinfeng, as saying that natural lumps of the precious metal can fetch several times more than the refined variety.
But the report did not say whether the herder would be able to keep his new-found riches. ...
(Excerpt) Read more at theguardian.com ...
I offer this replacement title: “Chinese farmer regrets telling anyone about gold nugget”
Is it worth less in space where it's weightless ;?
“Next thing you know old Berek’s a millionaire -
His kinfolk said, “Hey Sawat move away from there”
They said Shanghai is the place you oughta go
So he packed up the Rickshaw and they moved to HongQaio.”
"Aww, what the frick..."
Short answer: "no."
chinese hillbilly
If I found it only my wife would ever know. I will never understand people who need to talk about such finds.
The wife? That should be very last on the list. Never trust em. There’s a reason they aren’t allowed in the mafia.
And yet, I can't help but see the picture in this article as spray painted sandstone. Nuggets are generally alluvial gold, meaning they came together and formed in glacier formations. That's why when you pan for gold, even small nuggets are already shiny and smooth. The picture in the article isn't smooth at all - I have chunks of sandstone (with small shiny crystals or bits of pyrite in it) that would look just like that if I took a can of Krylon gold spray paint to it.
Just sayin’...
“Gold gold, green tea...”
So, after the 99.9% ChiCom tax, farmer Berek keeps $250, which is 16 years of income.
That’s a worker’s paradise if they gave him .1% of the value.
But what would you do with it? Keeping in under the mattress isn’t going to help you any.
If this poor Chinese guy was to cash in this gold nugget in any way he certainly would be questioned. It’s no good to him in it’s present form what else could he do except hope that the government will let him keep a tiny portion of it. Which they won’t.
7.85 kg of gold is about 252 troy oz. A nugget is naturally about 21.8K pure, often the rest is silver, zinc and copper. If I found such a thing, I’d hammer it into a rough cylinder and cut off pieces of about an ounce or so. One would have little trouble bartering that in a culture like western China. The most important thing would be to do it slowly over a decade or so.
Thanks. I was wondering how one would do it without causing notice to themselves.
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