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# Four gold nuggets stolen from the National Museum of Natural History in Paris
- URL: https://theparnassian.com/en/shokirovan-uznav-chto-iz-parizhskoi-mineralogicheskoi-galerei-na-proshloi-nedele-ukrali-neskolko-slitkov-zolota/
- Published: 2025-09-21T08:03:46.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-02T18:37:42.000Z
- Author: Alexandr Radayev
- Tags: Museums, Observations, Heritage, Science, Paris

Shocked to Learn That Several Gold Nuggets Were Stolen Last Week from a Paris Mineralogy Gallery.

The theft took place in the early hours of 17 September. The perpetrators entered the hall of mineralogy and geology at the National Museum of Natural History in Paris by disabling the security system and with the aid of a plain angle grinder.

The loss was discovered by the museum's cleaners. The case that had been broken open held gold nuggets remarkable for their weight, shape or provenance. The press, citing museum staff, gives the value of the stolen items as 600,000 to 700,000 euros. That is the price of the raw metal by weight; the nuggets themselves are worth far more.

Four gold nuggets have been stolen, dating from the eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth centuries, weighing about 6 kg in all, including a 5 kg nugget the size of a football, found in Australia and bought about twenty years ago.

The official statement notes that gold is a very convenient material for criminals: it is easier to resell than precious stones or jewellery, which exist in only a few examples and are very easily traced by the authorities. Buyers for such stolen objects would naturally be far harder to find, and harder still to find at a price approaching their real value. In this context the gold nuggets currently have almost no chance of being recovered intact. They have most likely already been melted down and, quite possibly, even resold.

Among the stolen items are the first nugget ever discovered in French Guiana, as well as an original nugget from the time of the Gold Rush in the United States. The halls of the mineralogy gallery are now closed and security has been reinforced.

I have [written](https://theparnassian.com/da-moi-liubimyi-muzei-v-moskve-po-prezhnemu-mineralogicheskii-muzei-imeni-fersmana-v-neskuchnom-sadu/?ref=theparnassian.com) before about this museum of mineralogy and visited it only recently: a charming old space with authentic interiors and the spirit of a true academy. But, as life shows, cosy little museums in historic buildings, run in the old-fashioned way, have their vulnerabilities.

This is not the first major museum robbery in France of late. At the beginning of September, three rare Chinese porcelain pieces of the fourteenth to eighteenth centuries, worth about 11 million, were stolen from the Adrien Dubouché Museum in Limoges. And in November last year, a collection of eighteenth-century snuffboxes worth about 1 million euros was carried out of the Cognacq-Jay Museum in Paris in broad daylight.

![](https://theparnassian.com/content/images/2026/09/photo_18046@21-09-2025_11-03-46.jpg)