Australia is one of the three best gold producing countries in the world. Until recently, Victoria received attention and recognition for its rich gold sources. The area has experienced more gold rushes since gold was discovered in the 1850s. It has been more than a century since that happened, but the Golden triangle area of Ballarat, Bendigo and Stawell still remains one of the richest alluvial goldfields. At one point, gold diggers produced 23,000 oz. per week.
By the beginning of the 1860s the Victorian gold rushes had ended and prospectors had moved to New South Wales, Queensland and across all of Western Australia. The mining industry was quite for a while. It lay dormant until the 80s. The price skyrocketed. This high price also sparked a surge in the number of recreational prospectors and fossickers. A number of Gold buyers Melbourne came into the scene buying up the gold that small time prospectors were bringing in from their fossicking.
In the 90s gold mining activities had escalated with and commercial mining companies were producing more gold. Victoria is responsible for over 32 percent of the gold mined in Australia and 2 percent of gold ever mined in the entire world. On average, Victorian gold mines extract 10.8kg of gold per square kilometre. At one point, over 160 individual mines produced more than 1 tonne of gold each.
- The Walhalla Long Tunnel Mine at Walhalla that would bring up 1,033,792 tonnes of ore to extract 32.3 tonnes of gold.
- The Morning Star Mine in Woods Point brought up and processed 694,786 tonnes of ore that yielded an average of 19.6 tonnes of gold.
- The Port Phillip Co in Clunes processes 1,224,187 tones of ore to extract 16.0 tonnes of gold.
- The Band of Hope and Albion Consols in Ballarat produced an average of 16.3 tonnes of gold. This deep level mine is the biggest gold producer of its time.
- Madam Berry Mine in Creswick produced 12 tonnes of gold with an average grade of 40g/m3.
People are still finding nuggets and placer gold. Finding a gold dealer who will offer you a good price for your gold can be a challenge, especially I’d you are doing it for the first time. This means you need to do deep level research on the gold market and on nuggets in particular.
A large amount of this mined gold is refined to remove impurities and then sold to mints, electronic manufacturers, medical product manufacturers, jewellery and other industries.
Whilst many people assume Gold buyers Melbourne only cater to customers who have old jewellery and coins, Gold Buyers Melbourne also melt and assay nuggets for many gold prospectors. There are people who will buy nuggets because of their rarity and those who dig it out of the ground and sell it for cash as a living. Judging by the number of people who go fossicking with their metal detectors, and how many people sell their nuggets to the gold buyers in Melbourne the gold buying industry can only grow.
