A terrific, old time example of native gold from Nevada!!! This specimen retains an old label indicating it is from a "High Grade Mine, in the
town of Rhyolite (now an isolated ghost town), Nevada!!! This specimen hosts a rich network of buttery yellow veins of native gold in a quartz matrix!!!
There is also a small area that has been cut and polished to reveal the gold within!!!
According to wikipedia:
Rhyolite is a ghost town in Nye County, in the U.S. state of Nevada. It is located in the Bullfrog Hills, about 120 miles (190 km)
northwest of Las Vegas, near the eastern edge of Death Valley. The town began in early 1905 as one of several mining camps that sprang
up after a prospecting discovery in the surrounding hills. During an ensuing gold rush, thousands of gold-seekers, developers, miners,
and service providers flocked to the Bullfrog Mining District. Many settled in Rhyolite, which lay in a sheltered desert basin near the
region's biggest producer, the Montgomery Shoshone Mine.
Industrialist Charles M. Schwab bought the Montgomery Shoshone Mine in 1906 and invested heavily in infrastructure including piped water,
electric lines, and railroad transportation that served the town as well as the mine. By 1907, Rhyolite had electric lights, water mains,
telephones, newspapers, a hospital, a school, an opera house, and a stock exchange. Published estimates of the town's peak population
vary widely, but scholarly sources generally place it in a range between 3,500 and 5,000 in 1907–08.
Rhyolite declined almost as rapidly as it rose. After the richest ore was exhausted, production fell. The 1906 San Francisco earthquake
and the financial panic of 1907 made it more difficult to raise development capital. In 1908, investors in the Montgomery Shoshone Mine,
concerned that it was overvalued, ordered an independent study. When the study's findings proved unfavorable, the company's stock value
crashed, further restricting funding. By the end of 1910, the mine was operating at a loss, and it closed in 1911. By this time, many
out-of-work miners had moved elsewhere, and Rhyolite's population dropped well below 1,000. By 1920, it was close to zero.
Old time examples of native gold from Nevada are
quite scarce on today's market!! The pics hardly do it justice!!!
Good luck and be sure to check out my other exciting mineral auctions on ebay!!!
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