A great article.
The chap who found the big nugget hosts a good Belgium friend if mine who attends the panning competitions in Italy and goes there annually.
My friend Michel has panned a lot if fine gold there but has shown me photos if his friends gold including the nugget.
Quite impressive really.
I have been invited to go to where the nugget was found and the clue to the secret spot where the nugget was found might be here in New Zealand - my Belgium friend showed me photos of his Italy trip including the nugget and area found in
I think from memory but lost his camera at my place - maybe water will have rendered the card useless by now.
My Belgium friend also used a Minelab 5000 to detect a 28 gram nugget at what he stated was a deoth of 95 cms in Alaska. He deserved it as he also said that it was the 100 th hole he dug.
On one of his last trips out he booked in at Naseby to go gold mining but had a bad experience with his host and due to bad weather got very little gold…In one of my rare moments of generosity I gave him five grams to take home. He now thinks it rains every day in NZ as it has rained on him every trip!
He has asked me to go to stay in Belgium (pillage WWI battle sites) so I might yet.
Thanks Gavin…a great read especially as I saw the connection with my friend.
I like this bit when he says…
Giorgio Bogni, a gold seeker and geologist from Sesto Calende, spends as much time as he can on streams. “Goldpanning is fun — it’s a hobby, but it’s also a form of meditation, in nature, with the sounds of the river around you,” he said.
“It’s usually a grueling day’s work,” he added, “and you come home and your wife looks at the two atoms you found and says, ‘Is that all?’ But I’m happy.”
Its exactly the same the around the world…I show my gold to my wife and daughter…they just laugh at me when I return home from a gold adventure and say…is that it!! …lol…the world over…!!
i was panning in italy 2 years ago and i meet Giorgio bogni he showed me some spots but not much gold but thunder and rain 7 days out of 8 so that was shit. but Giorgio is a great guy i might go back later on this year to visit him again and find some gold this time. i moved back to sweden 5 years ago from living in nelson and i do miss my goldpanning not much gold in sweden so i have to look elsewere
Do they know the value of your rescued gold?
It’s more about the adveture, getting outside…
Provided you remember insect repellent.
Me thinks that all gold is priceless and especially when it is only a colour or two found in a fantastic spot with fantastic company on a fantastic day…then those fee colours represent a great day out and therefore become more valuable than their monetary value.
Yes.
However I believe much of the gold & other natural minerals that are stockpiled simply for their astheitic appeal or moneytary value would be better used in technology to improve all of humanities lives.
I’ve a few inventions that could satisfy many peoples basic NEEDS.
Once Needs are covered people stop struggling to survive, and have a chance to grow intellectually.
…but knowing humanity, they’ll probably just have a large pissup! 
