UsAuction.Info - A gold nugget weighing more than 26 pounds has been sold for $1,553,500 by Heritage Auction Galleries in Dallas.

The “Boot of Cortez,” a nearly 12-inch-long gold nugget weighing 389.4 ounces, was auctioned on Sunday.

“It’s the largest surviving gold nugget ever discovered in the Western hemisphere,” said David Herskowitz, director of natural history for the auction house. “It was found in the Sonora Desert near Caborca, Mexico, in 1989 by a local man using a metal detector he’d just bought at RadioShack.”

Posted: 01|22|08 at 5:39 pm. Filed under: Auction News.