A 26-Pound Australian Gold Nugget Brings a Weighty $336,250 at Los Angeles Natural History Auction

LOS ANGELES, CALIF.

:On January 16, the "Star of Australia," a nugget of gold found "down under" with the use of a metal detector, was offered and sold to the highest bidder for $336,250 at Bonhams & Butterfields' auction of natural history specimens.

The sale brought more than $1.3 million and featured one of the largest nuggets of gold ever offered at auction. As well, a 3-foot-high quartz crystal and million-year-old fossils were offered - with strong prices paid for these remarkable objects.

The crowded Sunset Boulevard auction room burst into applause after the auctioneer's hammer fell on the 26-troy-pound "Star of Australia." The nugget remains in its natural state - as it was when pulled from the semiarid desert of Western Australia.

A team working with picks and shovels toiled for more than nine hours to unearth the nugget and began calling it the "Star" for its three-pointed star outline. The specimen is said to be astounding for its size, luster and aesthetic shape.

Another lot offered was found while excavators in search of aquamarine in Brazil knocked through a cave wall to expose a treasure trove of smoky quartz formations. A dramatic and smoky quartz crystal point, more than three feet high and weighing hundreds of pounds, was found in 2000. It was expertly polished on five faces at the crystal's tip to maximize the fascinating internal structure and highly desirable phantoms within. The lot sold for $87,500 to an East Coast bidder on the telephone. The quartz crystal is one of the largest to ever be offered at auction.

Natural history auctions at the firm comprise minerals, meteorites, fossils of flora and fauna, gold specimens and jewelry and decorative objects culled from locations across the planet.

Other top selling lots included a massive fossil slab presenting multiple trilobites that brought $52,875; found in Morocco, the slab holds more than 30 individuals. A saber toothed cat skull found in China, complete and in superb condition despite its 5-7-million-year age, sold for $44,063. A large slice of a meteorite discovered in Argentina by a farmer in 1951 sold for $35,250; this is perhaps the largest slice of the meteorite known as Esquel ever offered at auction. The stony iron meteorite is dotted with the gemstone peridot.

A 7-foot-tall cave bear skeleton found in Italy sold for $35,250. It is a unique specimen composed of bones belonging to a singular individual; most museum collections host cave bear specimens made up of bones from multiple bears.

A bidder paid $10,575 for a display of three dinosaur fossils - psittacosaurs, a fast moving bird-like dinosaur living in Asia around 100 million years ago.

Prices reported include buyer's premium.