Picture this: the year is 1848, and a carpenter named James W. Marshall is building a water-powered sawmill along the American River at the base of the Sierra Nevada Mountains in Northern California. While working hard one morning, he noticed a piece of yellow metal glistening in the streambed nearby. Turns out it was a gold nugget! Glorious gold! Historians would later dub the specimen the “original gold nugget,” which weighed less than a quarter of an ounce. Although small, it played a significant role in launching the California Gold Rush, a seven-year period in which 300,000 gold seekers ventured to the Golden State (California) hoping to "get rich quick."
Throughout the ages, there have been many notable recorded discoveries of gold. But for gold prospectors and collectors, the most coveted and valued finds are LARGE gold nuggets. Historically, these are chunks of gold that weigh over 10 pounds, and finding one is equivalent to hitting the jackpot. Let’s explore the stories behind the world’s largest gold nuggets, which originated in four countries and ranged in size from 44 to nearly 200 pounds!
What is a gold nugget?
A gold nugget is a fragment of gold in its natural mineral state. Its composition is typically 70-95% pure gold mixed with trace amounts of other metal alloys like silver, iron, copper or palladium. Its signature color is a bright, brassy yellow in varying shapes and sizes. Gold nuggets account for only 2% of all the gold in the world, making them true masterpieces of nature. In fact, finding a one-ounce gold nugget is rarer than finding a 5-carat diamond. While most gold nuggets are melted down and incorporated into jewelry, larger and more impressive pieces are often saved for the collectors’ market or displayed in museums.
How do gold nuggets form?
The formation process of gold nuggets is debated in geological circles. Still, the standard explanation is that over millions of years, hot, gold-rich liquid seeped into cracks in the Earth’s crust, cooled and became trapped in quartz veins (fractures in rocks). The effects of erosion over time caused pieces of gold to separate from the mother rock and land in the surrounding streambeds, rivers and creeks. The movement of water pounded the gold against sand and rocks, creating a natural gold nugget. In 2024, a new origin theory was published in Nature Geoscience, suggesting that large gold nuggets can form in quartz veins as the result of “piezoelectricity” or electrical currents produced by earthquakes!
What is the largest gold nugget ever found?
“Welcome Stranger” Gold Nugget
Moliagul, Victoria, Australia
172 pounds
On the morning of February 5, 1869, in the rugged goldfields of Moliagul in Victoria, Australia, two Cornish miners named John Deason and Richard Oates discovered the largest gold nugget in history, buried just a few centimeters under the ground near the roots of a tree. It was so massive that Deason reportedly broke the handle of his pickaxe trying to unearth it, and ultimately had to use a crowbar to pry it free.
The nugget was named "The Welcome Stranger" to describe an unexpected fortune and weighed a whopping 2,520 troy ounces (a unit of measurement used to weigh precious metals) or 172 pounds (that’s heavier than a kangaroo!) and was 24 inches long. Jewelers cut a few pieces off to fit it on a scale, reducing its weight to 2,284 troy ounces or 156 pounds. Shortly after, it was sold to an Australian bank for 10,000 pounds (roughly $3-$4 million in today's money) and melted into gold bars. Even though "The Welcome Stranger" is no longer intact, several replicas are on display throughout Australia, including at the Dunolly Museum in Victoria and the Old Treasury Building in Melbourne.
The second largest nugget ever found is the “The Welcome Nugget,” a 152-pound specimen uncovered in the gold rush town of Ballarat in Victoria, Australia, just 11 years before the discovery of the similarly named “Welcome Stranger.” People thought it resembled the shape of a horse so formidable that miners fainted when it was brought to the surface. Unfortunately, this thoroughbred lookalike is no longer around because it was sold to the Royal Mint in London and melted down (for 10,500 British pounds or $1.7 million in today’s money). However, you can still see a replica of “The Welcome Nugget” at the Ballarat Gold Museum in Australia and the Mineralogical Museum at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
The 5 largest gold nuggets that still exist today
1. The Canaã Nugget
State of Pará, Brazil
134 pounds
The largest gold nugget currently in existence is the Canaã Nugget, also known as the Pepita Canaa. This colossal hunk of gold was discovered in 1983 by a miner named Júlio de Deus Filho while working in the Serra Pelada mine in the state of Pará, Brazil. At the time of its discovery, the Canaã Nugget weighed 1,682 troy ounces or 134 pounds but was later trimmed to 115 pounds. In 1984, it was purchased by the Banco Central do Brasil for $4.4 Brazilian cruzeiros or $1 million U.S. dollars. Today, it remains on display in the “gold room” of the central bank’s money museum with an estimated worth of approximately $3 million U.S. dollars.
2. The Great Triangle
Ural Mountains, Europe & Asia
79 pounds
The world’s second largest surviving gold nugget is "The Great Triangle," a three-sided lump of gold discovered by miners in 1842 on the eastern slope of the Southern Ural Mountains. It weighs 1,059 troy ounces or 79 pounds. The Great Triangle is on display alongside other crown jewels as part of its Diamond Fund collection.
3. The Hand of Faith
Kingower, Victoria, Australia
60 pounds
The third largest gold nugget still in existence and the largest gold nugget ever found with a metal detector is “The Hand of Faith.” It weighs 60 pounds and was discovered in 1980 in the former gold rush town of Kingower in Victoria, Australia, by a down-on-his-luck gold prospector named Kevin Hillier. Hillier and his wife named the nugget "The Hand of Faith" because they thought it looked like a human hand with two fingers pointed toward the sky, which they considered a sign of divine intervention. They sold it in 1981 for $1 million to the aptly named Golden Nugget Casino in Las Vegas, where it remains on display.
4. The Normandy Nugget
Kalgoorlie, Western Australia
60 pounds
The “Normandy Nugget” is the fourth largest surviving nugget, weighing just under 60 pounds and boasting a gold purity of 80-90%. A far more recent discovery, this giant nugget was unearthed by a miner in a dry creek bed in the Normandy region of Australia near Kalgoorlie in 1995. The Newmont Mining Corporation currently owns it and sits on display at the Perth Mint in East Perth, Western Australia.
5. Ironstone’s Crown Jewel nugget
Jamestown, California
44 pounds
Ironstone's 'Crown Jewel' rounds out the top five largest gold nuggets still around today and has the added distinction of being the world’s largest piece of crystalline gold, which happens to be the rarest and purest type of gold on Earth. Astonishingly, the "Crown Jewel" boasts 98% pure gold! Believe it or not, this one-of-a-kind specimen was initially mistaken for a piece of junk metal when it was first discovered by the Sonora Mining Company on Christmas Day in 1992 in Jamestown, California.
The Crown Jewel was purchased by the Kautz family, proprietors of Ironstone Vineyards in California, for an undisclosed amount in 1994. Its current projected gold value is estimated to be around $1.2 million. The Crown Jewel is publicly displayed at Ironstone Vineyards in a walk-in vault in the Heritage Museum and Jewelry Shoppe.
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