A dream of all prospectors is to hit it big with a gold nugget! Over history there have been quite a few prospectors who have braved the dangers and struck it rich. History is littered with gold rushes (particularly in the 1800’s) where mass influxes of people have swarmed to areas where substantial gold has been found.
From these halcyon days of people looking to make their fortune in gold there are the very rare few who struck the big time and found the biggest gold nuggets ever discovered. According to Wikipedia the list of the biggest (alluvial) gold nuggets found include the biggest nugget named the Welcome Stranger which came in at a whopping 2,520 troy ounces.
Below is a list of 5 of the biggest gold nuggets ever found.
- Welcome Stranger (3,524 ounces) 1869
- Welcome Nugget (2,433 ounces) 1858
- Canaa nugget (still in tact) (2,145 ounces) 1983
- Leg of Mutton/Canadian Nugget (2,144 ounces) 1853
- Blanche Barkly Nugget (1,743 ounces) 1857
Notable exceptions (due to impurities or only being gold specimens not nuggets)
Holtermann ‘Nugget’
RNC Minerals’ 1 ‘Nugget’
RNC Minerals’ 2 ‘Nugget’
Welcome Stranger
Found in Moliagul, Australia in 1869
The biggest on this list (by over 1,000 ounces at 3,524 ounces), this monster of a nugget was found in 1869 by John Deason and Richard Oates, two Englishmen who sailed to Australia in the hope of striking it rich in the Victorian Goldfields. At the time, the Victorian Goldfields was the home to one of the worlds biggest gold rushes (along with the California Gold Rush) and this was also the time when most of the biggest gold nuggets in history were discovered.
There were fears that as the 1860’s were ending the gold supply in the Victorian Goldfields was running out and that there were no more big finds to be had. The discovery of the Welcome Stranger put paid to those fears.
Deason and Oates found the Welcome Stranger nugget only 3cm below the ground surface. At the time there were no scales big enough to weigh this massive find so the Welcome Stranger was broken into 3 smaller nuggets to weigh.
Eventually the 3 nuggets were melted down into ingots ready to be transported to London and the Bank of England.
Welcome Nugget
Found in Ballarat, Australia in 1858
The 2nd largest nugget on this list and also the 2nd nugget found in the Victorian (Australia) Goldfields. The Welcome Nugget was found in Ballarat by employees of the Red Hill Mining Company.
A prominent part of the Victorian Gold Rush of the 1850’s, Ballarat was home to tens of thousands of prospectors hoping to strike it rich. By the end of that decade the rate of gold being found was decreasing rapidly, prospectors were digging deeper and deeper into the earth and there were fears that the Gold Rush was finished.
The discovery of the Welcome Nugget ended those thoughts.
The Welcome Nugget was discovered in a mine tunnel over 50 meters underground. Eventually the nugget was brought to the surface where it was eventually weighed then put on display for the public in Ballarat, then Sydney before being sold again and transported to England were before a brief display was sold again, this time to the Royal Mint where the nugget was melted down into gold sovereigns.
Canaa (Canaan) Nugget
Found in Serra Pelada, Brazil in 1983
The first large nugget on this list to be found outside Australia, this monster is also the first nugget on this list that is still completely intact and in fact is on display in the Banco Central do Brazil (Central Bank of Brazil).
The Canaan Nugget 1 was found by Julio de Deus Filho at the Serra Pelada mine in 1983. According to an Australian 60 minutes story and a Washington Post story, farmer and land owner Genesio Ferreira da Silva found a small sample of gold on his land (inside the Brazilian Amazon region) in 1979 and employed a geologist to see if this find was part of a much larger gold deposit on his land.
Word soon leaked and before too long thousands had appeared on this land searching for their riches. Instead of fighting these interlopers Genesio made improvements to his land (such as clearing land for an airstrip) to allow these miners the best opportunity to find gold and collect 10% of any gold found on his land.
Eventually the government commandeered Genesio’s property and took control of this gold deposit and a select few managed most of this deposit however there were many smaller prospectors who had smaller land stakes from 5% to less than 1%.
One of these smaller prospectors, Julio de Deus Filho struck the big time in 1983 on his small plot. He found the Canaan Nugget which weighed in at 2,145 ounces.
Leg of Mutton/Canadian Nugget
Found in Canadian Gully (Ballarat), Australia in 1853
Going back in time to the mid 1850’s and back to the Victorian (Australia) Goldfields, the next big nugget on this list is the Leg of Mutton (or Canadian nugget). Found in the Canadian Gully (so named after Canadian prospector Henry Ross), near Ballarat in the Victorian Goldfields, this nugget was the first found nugget featured on this list, found in 1853.
Believed to have been found at a depth of near 20 meters and weighing 2,144 ounces, the Leg of Mutton was found by a group of 4 English gold hunters, the cousins John and Daniel Evans (who had previous mining experience), William Green and John Lees .
Like many Englishmen at the time, the 4 would be gold prospectors hopped aboard a ship to Australia searching for riches and eventually made their way to Ballarat, Victoria. After finding smaller gold hauls they hit the big time in 1853.
Eventually the 4 Englishmen sold their claim in Ballarat for £300 after others heard about their big find. The 4 eventually went back to England with their Leg of Mutton nugget, which was put on display in England. The nugget was eventually sold to the Bank of England where it was melted down into gold bars and the 4 prospectors became wealthy.
Blanche Barkly Nugget
Found in Kingower, Australia in 1857
The last nugget on our list was also found in the Victorian Goldfields in Kingower, which is close to Moliagul the site of the Welcome Stranger find. Found by a team led by Scottish prospector Sam Napier. Weighing in at 1,743 ounces which at the time of discovery was the 2nd biggest nugget found.
Named after the then Governor’s daughter the nugget found its way to England and like the Welcome Stranger was put on display at the Crystal Palace and was then sold to the Bank of England and melted down into sovereign coins.
As can be seen on the list most of these large gold nugget finds were from the 1850’s-1860’s and were found in the Victorian (Australia) Goldfields (with the exception of the Canaa nugget of Brazil found in 1983).
Does that mean there won’t be any large gold nugget finds? Probably, however that doesn’t mean there won’t be any more valuable gold nugget finds. Regularly, there are some nice gold finds by everyday prospectors with their trusty metal detectors and gold panning equipment, why can’t it be you on your next gold prospecting adventure?