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The largest gold nuggets ever found (and where they are now)

By Raquel · Updated 19 October 2026 · 4 min read

The largest gold nugget ever found weighed 78 kilos and lay just three centimetres below the ground. Almost all the giants were melted down; only a few can still be seen today.

1. Welcome Stranger (Australia, 1869): the largest ever

On 5 February 1869, two Cornish miners, John Deason and Richard Oates, found a nugget at Moliagul, in Victoria, Australia, lying just three centimetres below the surface. It weighed 78 kilos gross and held about 71 kilos of gold. Most authorities consider it the largest gold nugget ever found.

There were no scales in the area big enough to weigh it, so the Dunolly blacksmith split it into three pieces on an anvil. The bank advanced the finders £9,000 and the nugget was soon melted down: the ingots went to Melbourne and from there to the Bank of England. Today only replicas remain, such as the one in Melbourne’s Old Treasury building, along with an 1897 obelisk near the find site.

2. Welcome Nugget (Australia, 1858)

Eleven years earlier, in 1858, a group of miners dug up the Welcome Nugget at Bakery Hill in Ballarat, also in Victoria: 69 kilos. Because of the name, it is often confused with the Welcome Stranger. It met the same fate and was melted down in London in November 1859.

3. The Canaã nugget (Brazil, 1983): the largest that survives

During the Serra Pelada gold rush in the state of Pará, a garimpeiro found a 60.8-kilo nugget containing about 52 kilos of gold on 13 September 1983. It was part of an even larger block that broke as it was being dug out. It is the largest natural nugget still in existence and is on display at the Museum of Values of the Central Bank of Brazil in Brasília.

4. Hand of Faith (Australia, 1980): the largest found with a detector

Kevin Hillier found it in 1980 at Kingower, Victoria, using a metal detector. It weighs 27.2 kilos (875 troy ounces) and is the largest nugget ever found with a detector. You can see it at the Golden Nugget casino in Las Vegas.

Other giants

• Sierra Buttes (California, 1869): 49.5 kilos, one of the largest of the California gold rush.
• Lady Hotham (Ballarat, 1854): 36 kilos, named after the wife of Governor Charles Hotham.
• The Golden Eagle (Western Australia, 1931): 35.3 kilos; it was bought and melted down by the state government.

Why were almost all of them melted down?

In the 19th century a nugget was, above all, money. Miners needed to be paid, banks bought gold by weight and hardly anyone thought of its value as a one-off piece. That is why the largest nuggets of the Australian and Californian gold rushes became ingots and coins, and today we only know them from engravings, photographs and replicas.

That is exactly what makes a natural nugget valuable: it is unique. It formed over millions of years, and once it is melted its shape is gone forever. We explain more in how much a gold nugget is worth.

Victoria’s Golden Triangle

Look at the names: Moliagul, Dunolly, Kingower… Several of the world’s largest nuggets came from the same region, Victoria’s so-called Golden Triangle in south-eastern Australia. Nuggets are still found there today, with a detector and a lot of patience. We have a guide to Australian gold nuggets and the Golden Triangle.

Our Victorian nuggets come from the same ground, though on a different scale: they weigh tenths of a gram or a few grams. For comparison, the Welcome Stranger held as much gold as about 280,000 nuggets of 0.25 grams. To get a feel for what each weight means, see gold nugget sizes and weights.

Written by Raquel, Gold Nuggets Minerals

Raquel selects, weighs and photographs every nugget we sell. Gold Nuggets Minerals S.L.U. is a small company in Zaragoza, Spain, specialising in native gold. On Catawiki we have sold more than 120 nuggets, with 100% positive feedback and the Top seller badge.