All of the pictures on this page are real, genuine, natural gold nuggets.
Gold nuggets are all somewhat different. They can vary quite a bit not only in shape and texture, but also in purity and brightness. While each piece can look quite a bit different, it’s pretty easy to know what real gold looks like one you’ve seen and held it in your hand.

Some small gold nuggets recovered from the California Mother Lode region.

This is a coarse piece of natural gold from Arizona. This piece was found close the the vein, which is why it is so rough in texture and not yet polished into a smooth nugget.

Nice little gold nuggets from California. These were found in a river and have been naturally polished to a nice shine.

Natural gold veins in quartz can be cut and polished into nice cabochons that are popular in jewelry.

Some nice desert gold nuggets. All these were found with a metal detector in Mohave County, Arizona.

A pair of gold nuggets found in the Central City, Colorado. Each one weighs over an ounce and represent the type of gold that was found by the early placer miners back before the areas had been mined hard.

Natural gold nugget found in the Mojave Desert.

A nice collection of gold nuggets found with metal detectors. Most of the smaller nuggets in the glass vials were found with a Fisher Gold Bug 2. Their accumulated weight is several ounces valued at many thousands of dollars.

A spectacular gold in quartz specimen from Australia. Gold in quartz is highly valued by collectors.

Some more nice big nuggets from northern Arizona.

Another Arizona gold nugget…

Many ounces of gold nuggets from Kalgoorlie, Western Australia. Some of the purest natural gold in the world is found in Australia.

Some raw gold in quartz. Note the reddish iron staining on the quartz. This can be a good indicator of gold-bearing ground.

A nice matched pair of gold nuggets makes for a lovely pair of earrings. This can be a good way to add to the value of your gold nuggets, but only a small percentage of gold nuggets are “jewelry quality.”

Gold found in northern California. Very coarse textured nuggets with several specimens in quartz.
Also Read: How Rare are Gold Nuggets?
And: The Gold Smelting Process – Melting, Smelting & Refining