Regional Wash-Golds

We have worked with a unique type of regional gold – Wash Gold.

Wash Gold originates from small mining co-operatives using sustainable and conflict free methods. The process of collection is very similar to traditional gold panning and is ecologically friendly. Instead of using chemicals to process their gold, the small mining businesses rely purely on gravity separation, ensuring that no chemicals impact on the environment. The process is one of the simplest ways to extract gold, and is popular with geology enthusiasts especially because of its low cost and relative simplicity.

Wash Gold provides transparency regarding mining practices and enables traceability back to the source mines. In our case these have been located in Alaska, Argentina, Honduras, Finland and Australia.

A beautiful feature of Wash Gold is the regional variation in its natural appearance and subtle differences in colouration.

A very limited amount of Wash Gold is produced annually. Gold panning usually turns up only minor gold dust that is usually collected as souvenirs by hobbyists. Nuggets and considerable amounts of dust are occasionally found, but panning mining is not generally lucrative. Panning for gold can be used to locate the parent gold veins which are the source of most placer deposits. Indeed, our very own Welsh gold is highly prized because of its origin and scarcity. Considered to be the rarest in the world, Wales’ last commercial goldmine has long since closed. You would need permission from The Crown Estate to take away gold that you may have found or discovered in Wales today, however, if you find gold through panning it is unlikely that The Crown Estate will grant you permission to take it away.

To our knowledge, there are only a handful of UK jewellers actively sourcing and working with Wash Gold. Given the scarcity of this material, it is ideal for particularly important pieces of jewellery such as engagement rings and wedding rings.