This pendant features natural gold nuggets soldered into a silver whales tail setting, approximately 17mm wide and 14mm high. Whether you love whales or this is just a very nice reminder of your cruise, it’s a great piece. Mounting it in silver helps show off the rich color of the gold against the silver background, and it also keeps the price lower. These gold nuggets make very interesting, one of a kind jewelry. They will definitely be conversation starters. Because the nuggets are natural, the nugget shapes will vary. The photo shown is a sample piece. It comes with a silver plated chain and mounted in a gift box. Photos are enlarged to display detail. On any given day, local gold miners will come into our shop throughout the year with the gold nuggets they mined that season. We look through their stash and choose the very best nuggets to make into pendants. These are natural pieces of “placer gold” which means they are mined from the rivers and streams around Alaska. Otherwise known as the “Klondike”. Finding gold nuggets in their natural state is very rare. In fact, gold nuggets make up only 2% of all gold that is found. These nuggets themselves will vary in purity from about 75% to 95% pure gold, or 18k-22k. Since these pieces are completely natural, other minerals can sometimes be mixed in such as silver and platinum. Most of the gold mined in the world is from “hard rock mining” where rock is crushed using big machines and small particles of gold are separated. This process requires a lot of startup money, so it is mostly done by large corporations. Placer mining can be done with a shovel and gold pan, this means the average person can be a gold miner. These are the miners that we love to buy from, hardworking men and women that find gold using basic tools. We have one of the largest selections of gold nugget pendants in the world. Look through our collection today and find one that speaks to you!