PARADISE >> A dream by its nature is usually etherial and vaporous, but that is not the case for Bob Van Camp of Paradise.

For Van Camp, at least, this one dream is 5.18 standard pounds of shimmering, nearly pure, California gold.

Van Camp did not find the nugget, but within two hours of its discovery in July he was holding it in his hand.

The name of the finder is being kept secret, and the location of its discovery is being kept vague, just that it was found in the foothills in Butte County on public land in an area that was “worked” during the original Gold Rush.

Van Camp said the finder, who he calls Mr. Smith,” would not even tell him precisely where he found the nugget, which is about the size and shape on a adult’s hand and about an inch thick.

Van Camp earns his living working for a major rice grower, but he is known by gold prospectors because he runs a metal detector dealership. In the prospecting community he is known as “Digger Bob.”

He is quick to point out that neither he nor Mr. Smith has the nugget in their possession. Digger Bob says the specimen, which he and Smith have been calling the “Butte Nugget,” has been placed with Kagin’s, a numismatic firm and auction house in Tiburon.

“If you have larceny in your heart, you are out of luck,” he said.

Kagin’s will have a nationwide unveiling of the Butte Nugget at the end of this month.

In a brief video he produced (http://goo.gl/ppYUL7), Van Camp, holding the nugget in his hand, says the “pre-sale estimates put this as going for between $250,000 and $400,000.

“You’re looking at a quarter of a million dollars in gold that I am holding in my hand right now. Now that is retirement for sure,” he says.

Gold is measured in troy ounces, which are slightly heavier than standard ounces. The official weight of the Butte Nugget is 75 troy ounces.

Van Camp said Mr. Smith had been using a metal detector to search on the day he discovered the monster, and had found a few small nuggets. Then his detector came back with an extremely strong signal.

Mr. Smith told him his first thought was that there was “a big piece of trash” in the ground, possibly a piece of pipe or a horseshoe. He was fearful that trash would mask the signal of surrounding nuggets, so he decided to dig it out.

About 12 inches down in the soil, he found the nugget.

Van Camp says the Butte Nugget is the second largest extant placer gold nugget in California. The biggest nugget is the 100 troy ounce “Mojave Nugget.”

Both of these nuggets amount to little more than pebbles compared to gigantic 54-pound Dogtown Nugget that was discovered in 1859 on the slopes of Sawmill Peak.

Van Camp said the Dogtown Nugget isn’t on the list of current monsters because it was melted down and no longer exists in its original form.

He said the July discovery proves that life-changing gold is still out there to be found and he urged people to continue to hold onto the dream.

“Follow the three Ps: persistence, patience and perseverance. Keep at it. Keep the dream alive.”

Contact reporter Roger H. Aylworth at 896-7762.