Australian Gold Nugget Bracelet, ca. 1885

Appraised on: September 6, 1997

Appraised in: Secaucus, New Jersey

Appraised by: Barry Weber

Category: Jewelry

Episode Info: Secaucus (#1623)
Secaucus (#202)

Originally Aired: January 26, 1998

IMAGE: 1 of 2  

Appraisal Video: (1:37)

GUEST: Well, it's been in the family for many, many years. I don't know much about the history at all.

APPRAISER: And this whole bracelet is made up of a series of real gold nuggets. Each of these side segments is raw gold. They found these and they just said, "Let's make a bracelet out of it." but this one is rather special. How do we get gold nuggets and a kangaroo together in one piece? Well, you know, Australia was a penal colony, but Australia started to become more desirable when they explored the natural resources and found out they had opal mines and they had terrific resources for metals, and one of the metals they had was gold. Now, somebody quite wealthy brought this back as a souvenir from Australia. Do you have any idea what something like this might be worth?

GUEST: I have no idea, no idea at all.

APPRAISER: It's only the second piece of Australian gold I have ever seen in my career. I'm three generations in the business. We had one other piece that was a brooch with a kangaroo, but it wasn't made out of nuggets. This rare piece of jewelry has a value of about $12,000 to $15,000, and if not in New York, certainly in Australia.

GUEST: Well, that's nice to know, very nice to know.

APPRAISER: I hope you're pleased about that.

GUEST: I'm very pleased about it, I just hope none of my brothers or sisters are listening.

APPRAISER: Oh, all right.

GUEST: Very nice, thank you very much.