The Ovens Gold Mines

1861 June – December

(The name “Ovens” refers to the natural sea caves.)

Photographs of Plaque

The Ovens Lunenburg County Nova Scotia

Is this one of the rare examples of a typo on a metal plaque?
“The Ovens yielded 120,000 in gold…” makes no sense.
120,000 ounces? No. This site produced less than 600 ounces
in 96 years. What measure does the “120,000” refer to?
It has been suggested that this is a mistake, perhaps by the
foundry, perhaps in the information supplied to the foundry.
Maybe the 120,000 was meant to be £20,000 and the “£” was
mis-read by someone. However, this does not agree with the
historic price of gold, which was about £3 to £4 per ounce
in the 1860s, at the peak of the Ovens production. A reasonable
estimate of the total value of this site’s gold production is
closer to £2,000 than to £20,000.
The plaque text is a mystery.

The Ovens: general view, historic plaque

The Atlantic Ocean coast below the plaque