A nugget fit for a tale: Barberton's Peacock Nugget and its curious journey
To stir public interest and perhaps inflate its perceived value, the syndicate had a model of the nugget made for display.
In the golden shadows of Barberton’s mining past lies a story both glittering and oddly forgotten: the tale of the Peacock Nugget. Unearthed on July 4, 1912, by H.W. Peacock at Coetzeestroom 29, just west of Kaapschehoop, this 179.8-ounce (over 5 kg) chunk of raw gold was one of the largest nuggets ever discovered in South Africa. But it wasn’t just its size that earned it a place in history. It was the story that followed.
The nugget was soon sold for £800 to the B.E.D. Syndicate, a trio of opportunistic investors: Isidore Blankfield, Stewart Elington, and G.G. Duncan. Far from treating their new treasure as a museum piece, the group hid it in plain sight, wrapped in green baize and used as a doorstop in Duncan’s Barberton home. In a time when theft was not uncommon and the bushveld could swallow even a man whole, it was a clever ruse.
To stir public interest and perhaps inflate its perceived value, the syndicate had a model of the nugget made for display in Johannesburg. But their ambitions extended further. Blankfield took the original nugget all the way to London, hoping to find a buyer or attract a museum. The plan fizzled. British institutions showed little interest, and the syndicate was forced to sell the nugget to the Bank of England, each man incurring a loss of £25.
Despite this anticlimax, the Peacock Nugget never quite disappeared from memory. A model of it remains in the British Museum, a gleaming reminder of Barberton’s rich gold history, and of a time when prospectors, syndicates, and schemers roamed the hills in search of fortune.
The tale has become something of a local legend - a nugget that travelled the world, disguised as furniture, tied to an era when Barberton’s hills were alive with gold fever. While H.W. Peacock’s personal legacy remains somewhat obscure, the gold that bore his name has become a footnote in South African mining folklore.
Today, the site of Coetzeestroom 29 near Kaapsche Hoop remains largely untouched by tourism, but to the historically curious, it’s a place where the past still clings faintly to the rocks. The Peacock Nugget may have vanished from South African soil, but its story lives on in Barberton’s deep gold veins and deeper imagination.
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