The world's largest gold nugget was discovered on February 5, 1869 in Victoria, Australia. This finding is truly astonishing. Imagine, the weight of a gold nugget is roughly equivalent to one adult.
Adalag two miners named John Deason and Richard Oats who found the treasure chunks. The hunk, which was later dubbed the 'Welcome Stranger', weighed 72 kg and was 61 cm long.
The two men took the lump to the town of Dunolly to be weighed at the London Chartered Bank. Unfortunately, the chunk was so large that it was off scale, and instead shattered before it could be photographed. A replica was made to perpetuate the discovery.
Quoted from BBC News, at that time the two received less than 10 thousand pounds in return, while the chunks were broken up and melted down into gold bullion. If a similar lump were found today, its value would be roughly around £2 million (Rp 36.5 billion).
These are not the only giant gold nuggets. There is another gold nugget found named Pepita Canaa which occupies the top position as the largest extant gold nugget. This gold, weighing 60 kilograms, was discovered by Julio de Deus Filho in Brazil in 1983. The nugget is currently on display in the 'Gold Room' of the Museu de Valores do Banco Central in BrasÃlia.
The advent of various technologies, played a role in several discoveries of large nuggets of gold. But there has never been anything bigger than a piece of 'Hand of Faith'. Discovered in 1980 by Kevin Hillier, this gold nugget is touted to be the largest gold nugget ever found using a metal detector. Also discovered 'Down Under', this extraordinary gold nugget is now on display at a casino in Las Vegas after selling for more than USD 1 million and was said to contain 875 troy ounces of gold.
The Troy ounce was used to weigh gold before the introduction of the metric system. This unit is still used today to weigh precious metals and gems by business people. One troy ounce is equal to 31.1 grams. This unit differs from the usual avoirdupois system, which defines 1 ounce as 28.5 grams. The price of gold sold today is in terms of price per ounce, but usually refers to troy ounces.