$460,000 8.2 Pound 131.2 oz Gold Nugget Found.

Ok here's the latest;

James Saunders Grill is the seller and is in hiding. Read it here and make sure you watch the news clip;

http://www.news10.net/news/local/article/140854/2/Landowner-identified-in-giant-gold-nugget-hoax


And here is Jim's website with email address looking for investors;

http://www.lostscotchmanmine.com/

Well there ya go, all's square in the record books once more.
Man that scam artist is going to have difficulty showing his face around his home town again

I still think Fred Holabird has alot to answer for, and didn't he get a huge cut for selling it?
In one of his you tube vids he show 2 smaller nuggets found with it and they are completely different, totally water worn and smooth, Stevie wonder could see that's not right.
Why didn't he get tests done before instead of saying you can see dirt on it which proves it came from California, ah no that just proves it came from the ground!

He also says he didn't have time to have a good look at the photos at first when he said the Aussies were trying fraud but he had time to call this bloke that says he found it and comes back saying he believes him 100%?

I would love to have heard that phone conversation.

Fred Holabird ( auctioneer) said; "he had contacted Irvine-based Spectrum Group International, a precious metals broker that represented the anonymous buyer. He said he had not yet heard back from the company".

A google search for Sectrum International says the are a global dealers in collectibles and memorabilia.

http://www.spectrumgi.com/About_Us.aspx

So who is the "anonymous" buyer? That would be my next pursuit if I was George Warren ( reporter).

The other side of the coin is how did Nokta detectors get tied up in this scam? Were they active players or did they simply hire/sell a Golden King to the scammer who maybe then went into the scrub with some unsuspecting witnesses who watched him unearth a big nug that he had planted on his property?
In this case the Nokta could be said to have actually found the nug in what they thought was untouched ground which would, rightly enough, indicate that the detector was capable of locating big nugs in mineralised ground.
Man there are so many ways this scam could have been played, it just isn't worth thinking about anymore.

The latest excellent story from George Warren in USA will probably be the last we hear about this nugget untill the court cases start.Thanks George for following up this story.I posted the story on the Gold Prospecting Association of America's forum (1000 Views) and have been supplying the various links to the clips and articles. Thanks Dunnart also. The story on this site has had around 3695 views so far. I had contacted the Auctioneer and a geoligist involved early on but the only reply came from Mr warren the reporter. Rwork

Sorry about the crooked scan guys but the newspaper only just got hold to issue in today's paper.

"Prospector Murray Cox says he is 100 per cent sure the so-called Washington Nugget, sold recently for $460,000 at a Californian auction, is in fact the one he found with friend Reg Wilson in Rokewood".

Boy, now I am confused

I thought the monastic Reg Wilson found the orange roughie, but according to Mr Cox, he and Mr Wilson found it together!

What I'm finding a bit strange is that Mr Cox is the one doing all the interviews with the newspapers and American tv. Mr Cox is the only one we are hearing from regarding the original find, yet we have been lead to believe Mr Wison found it. Work that out????

Why hasn't Mr Wilson been interviewed? And the ultimate question is, did Mr Wilson actually find the roughie, or was it Mr Cox?

The great nugget swindle keeps getting more and more intriguing by the day!

My understanding is that Reg detected it and Murray helped him dig it up. So Murray would be able to answer the questions just as well as Reg I guess.

Greetings,

I am new to this forum, but just had to throw my two cents in regarding the big nugget story.

I live in Washington, California and many of us in this community didn't believe the story either. Not that we don't have hard rock and placer gold here, which we do, we all just had serious doubts about the story. I called Fred Holabird, the auctioneer, and expressed my concerns regarding the validity of the story. I even suggested to him that the nugget may actually have come from Australia. He was overwhelming convinced that the nugget had come from the ancient channel bed located just above Washington, and that it was the last remaining large California nugget. He said he recognized the cemented gravel in the nugget as being from the blue lead, part of the ancient channel bed and Fred called that the "finger print" of the nugget. I understand that Fred received $60 thousand for the auction fee and promotion expenses.

I read that there were three eager bidders for the nugget, but who really knows when they are phone bids? I have my doubts. I suspect that the nugget went back to its owner and the whole thing was a big scam to lure investors into the property.

I have expressed these same concerns on another web site, Mindat.org which is a mineral web site that I belong to and recently posted this information on the message board under "Fakes, Frauds and Marketing Ploys". Lyla

Why hasn't Mr Wilson been interviewed?

...last i heard, Mr Wilson was on an Island with Tom Hanks but then floated off into the wide blue yonder.



Shhh...wilson, don"t say anything.

While helping with some research for the Pmav mag i had it pointed out to me by Rita Bently (P.M.A.V president) that kellyco has dropped all reference to this nugget from their site.The original link is on page 1 of this post.I havn't looked to see if they are still promoting the "radar"
unit involved in the finding.(Or faking) Rwork

There appears to be some doubt as to actually found this nugget ( I mean originally).

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_MONSTER_GOLD_NUGGET?SITE=WRGBTV&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

If you read this article Mr Cox "unearthed" the Roughie????

So who really did find the Roughie?

Greetings,

Please check out "Grass Valley Union" 7/7/11 for the final results of the Washington Nugget. Lyla

Thanks for the story Lyla. Link to the "Grass Valley Union" 7/7/2011 story below.

http://www.theunion.com/article/20110707/NEWS/110709901&parentprofile=search

Looks like these fraudulent scoundrels are still creating hot discussion in the states.

My guess is as much as Jim Sanders, Fred Holabird and his business partner Don Kagin of Holabird-Kagin Americana dealers would like this to go away......it looks as if it ain't going to

http://goldbedrockgold.blogspot.com/2011/07/striking-it-rich-story-just-gets_28.html

If these guys manage to avoid being convicted of attempting to scam people out of their hard earned cash, their business name and future in the gold game must be totalled by now surely????

ABOVE: The nugget "as it was found" at ten feet (!) below the surface. I can't think of any metal detector that can go that deep, hence I was skeptical about the find or the accuracy of the original reports. Of course, now we know the nugget was purchased from an Australian prospector and was originally named The Orange Roughie Nugget for its resemblance to a fish that goes by the same name. At least the nugget was real.


Here's the situation:

EVENT #1: Nokta have a penchant for making claims about their detectors which are simply not true. A nugget this size (large as it was) is simply not visible to GPR at such depth. On top of this, the finder claimed that his detector "howled" when it heard the target. Again, GPR doesn't work that way. Instead, it builds an image of what is below the surface from tiny samples just 1cm wide taken at precise intervals and distances from one another. So the detector he described in his earliest interviews must have been something else. Here's the quote from an article printed here: "On the day they discovered the 9-pound chunk, “the metal detector went off the charts,” Sanders said. He dug down about 10 feet with a backhoe to find the glowing monster." LINK TO ARTICLE HERE

EVENT #2: Kellyco have in the past been selling Long Range Locators in the past which are considered by world experts (and both the FBI and the British Government) as 'likely fraudulent devices' that simply cannot work. (Note: The Nokta Golden King is not an LRL.) The FBI bought their LRL from a US dealer (not Kellyco) but the investigators reporting on the incident noted that evidence supports Kellyco as being the manufacturer of some of these devices. You can read about Geotech's report into the link between LRLs and Kellyco HERE

EVENT #3: Kellyco was selling Nokta detectors on their site and using the Washington Nugget (AKA The Orange Roughie Nugget) on their webpages as proof of the Nokta's success.

EVENT #4: Dishonest "Prospector" Claims to have used the Kellyco sourced Golden King to find massive nugget (later named the Washington Nugget) which is then fraudulently sold off at auction for $460,000 - a high price considering the Orange Roughie (the original name of the nugget) was sold to a US buyer for just $50,000. The reason why the final bid price was so high is because such nuggets at this size are rare in the USA.

No matter how you look at it, the situation is sullied by so many dishonest elements that it's hard to point a finger and say which one was the most at fault. But for those of you who feel like a little nostalgia, I have kept an archive of the Kellyco webpage featuring the "fake" nugget find and their willingness to promote it via the Nokta detector. Just how much was the nugget's "finder" paid for such premium web-based real-estate?


Screen shots captured @ 2011-05-14 at 10.03.36 AM

Greetings,

I had not thought about a connection between the detector manufacturer/seller and the U.S. scammers. Thank you Nero for that post and if true, it greatly expands on the magnitude of the scam. After operating an assay lab and several mines throughout the years, plus dealing in gold, I thought I had heard of most of the mining scams, but this one is way over the top. Thank goodness for the reliable memory and vigilance of the Aussie miners.

I haven't heard anything new here in the U.S. since the last news provided by Holabird/Kagin regarding the final deposition of the nugget. In my opinion, that information was very questionable and designed to try and quiet all speculation. It didn't work, and I think made things more suspicious.

I live here in Washington and have known James Sanders Grill ( like the barbi) for over thirty years. I also have known Fred Holabird for years and early on warned him about the veracity of the nugget story from James Sanders Grill, which he chose to ignore. I have always thought Fred was an honorable guy, but am lately rethinking my opinion.

As a third generation miner, I get real testy when greedy/crooked folks misuse the mining game. I sincerely hope the authorities come down hard on all participants in this scam. Cheers, Lyla

Thanks for your input Lyla.

There are many here in Oz that are following the developments of this scam with great interest, so if you hear of anything, please keep us posted.

A little bit of scuttlebutt I heard through the grapevine recently, was that Holabird-Kagin Americana actually purchased this nugget from a private vendor well before it was "found" on Mr Sanders Grill's property.....

Interesting update on the Orange Roughie fraud.

Apparently the auctioneer has sent samples to Mr John Watling, a professor with the Forensic and Analytical Chemistry Group at the University of Western Australia.

Just wondering if any members may know of this professor, or have a contact for verification?

I can't help but think this is a bluff, and I'm expecting the "results" to come back inconclusive

http://www.sacbee.com/2011/08/19/3847848/disputed-gold-nugget-to-be-tested.html#mi_rss=Bee%20State%20News