California Mining Museum Robbed of $2 Million in Precious Gems

Has the museum never heard of replicas? The thieves came with pickaxes to make off with the loot

California investigators searched Monday for thieves who made off with an estimated $2 million in precious gems and gold from a mining museum in the Sierra Nevada foothills during a brazen daytime robbery.

But they didn't get away with the biggest prize of all—the nearly 14-pound Fricot Nugget, a giant crystalline gold mass unearthed in the Gold Rush era.