Largest Gold Nugget Ever Found

Most panners spend their days chasing flakes you could lose under a fingernail. Every so often, though, someone finds a lump of gold so big it makes history. This guide covers the nugget usually called the largest ever found, the other giants on the list, the biggest finds in the United States, and why the record books do not always agree.

What is the largest gold nugget ever found?

The Welcome Stranger, found in Victoria, Australia, in 1869. Victoria's government calls it the largest alluvial gold nugget ever discovered, alluvial meaning it was found in loose ground laid down by water, the same kind of deposit panners work.

Its exact weight depends on which source you read. Victoria's government gives a calculated weight of over 62 kilograms. The State Library of Victoria says that even after pieces were broken off and given to friends, it still weighed 2,332 ounces, which is more than 70 kilograms. Both agree it is the largest on record.

Who found the Welcome Stranger?

Two miners, John Deason and Richard Oates, found it near the small town of Moliagul. According to the State Library of Victoria, the nugget was so large that it had to be broken into three pieces before it could be weighed.

What are the other largest gold nuggets?

The Welcome, Australia, 1858

Before the Welcome Stranger came the Welcome. A group of 22 miners dug it up at Ballarat, also in Victoria. The State Library of Victoria gives its weight as 2,217 ounces, or 63 kilograms, and says it was the biggest nugget anyone had found up to that time.

The Hand of Faith, Australia, 1980

A prospector using a metal detector found this one in Victoria in 1980. It weighs 27 kilograms. The State Library of Victoria calls it the largest known nugget still in one piece. It was sold the same year to a casino in Las Vegas and put on show in its lobby.

Brazil's largest nugget

Brazil's central bank holds what it calls the largest nugget ever found in Brazil, from the Serra Pelada mining area in the state of Pará. The bank gives its weight as about 60.8 kilograms, of which about 52.3 kilograms is gold, and keeps it in its own museum. By weight that is far bigger than the Hand of Faith, so whether the Hand of Faith is the largest intact nugget depends on whose list you read.

What is the largest gold nugget found in the United States?

There is no single answer, because two official sources disagree. We give you both.

Carson Hill, California, 1854

California's Office of Historic Preservation, in its listing for Carson Hill, says the largest gold nugget in California was found there in November 1854 and weighed 195 pounds troy. That works out to about 2,340 troy ounces, close to the Welcome Stranger. The listing does not say whether it was a water-worn nugget or a mass of gold broken from a vein, and that makes a big difference when comparing it with nuggets found in gravel.

Reed Gold Mine, North Carolina

North Carolina's state historic sites agency tells a different story on its Reed Gold Mine history page. Conrad Reed's find in 1799, the first documented gold find in the country, reportedly weighed 17 pounds and was used as a doorstop for three years. Later, an enslaved boy named Peter dug up a 28-pound nugget at the mine, which the agency calls the largest documented find in the United States.

The two agencies may be counting different kinds of finds, but neither says so, and we cannot settle it for them. If you see one American nugget named as the national record, know that official sources do not agree on it.

The Fricot Nugget, California, 1864

One famous California piece you can still see is the Fricot Nugget, at the California State Mining and Mineral Museum in Mariposa. The museum's brochure says it weighs 13.8 pounds and is the largest intact mass of crystalline gold left from the California Gold Rush. William Russell Davis found it in August 1864 in a mud pocket deep in the Grit Mine, near the middle fork of the American River. Jules Fricot bought it the next year, showed it at the 1878 Paris Exposition, and it was donated in 1930. Because it grew as crystals in a vein, it is better called a gold specimen than a placer nugget.

Other states

Records from other states are thinner and older. An older Oregon state brochure describes the Armstrong nugget, 80.4 ounces, as the largest of several nuggets found near Baker City. In Alaska, a 1907 photo in the state library's collections is captioned as the largest nugget found in the Copper River country, at 5,102.4 pennyweight, roughly 255 troy ounces. Treat old captions like that as claims of their day rather than checked records.

Why do lists of the largest nuggets disagree?

For a few reasons, and they explain most of the confusion you will see online.

First, the old giants were broken up before anyone weighed them properly. The Welcome Stranger was split into three pieces, and bits went to friends first, so every weight for it is partly a calculation.

Second, weights are given in different ways. Some are the whole lump, rock and all, and some are only the gold inside. Some use troy ounces and pounds, the units for precious metals, and some use ordinary ones. Brazil's nugget shows this clearly, with one figure for the whole piece and another for its gold.

Third, not every big piece of gold is a nugget in the same sense. A placer nugget is gold that was worn out of the rock and moved by water, which is what most people picture. A crystalline specimen like the Fricot formed inside a vein and was dug out of a mine. Our guide What Is Placer Gold? explains the difference.

How much is the largest gold nugget worth?

We do not give dollar values. The price of gold changes every day, and even the old sale prices for these nuggets are reported differently by different sources.

Can you still find a big gold nugget?

It happens, but very rarely. In 2006 a 110 ounce nugget, about 3 kilograms, turned up near Maryborough in Victoria less than a meter below the surface, and the State Library of Victoria notes it made news precisely because finds like that are so unusual.

For most of us, the gold in the pan is small: flakes, specks and the odd picker. California's state geologists estimate, conservatively, that only about 1 in 1,000 people who prospected in the western United States ever made a real strike. If nuggets are your goal, remember that rough, chunky gold tends to sit close to where it came from, while gold that has traveled far gets worn flat and fine. Our guide on what gold flakes look like shows what you are more likely to see, and our gold prospecting page covers how to get started.