06.17.12

The largest gold nugget ever found

What would you do if as you were casually digging around in the dirt, you came across a large chunk of solid gold? And then found out it was the largest gold nugget ever found? One lucky miner in 1869 had to answer just that.

John Deason, a Cornish miner, was nonchalantly digging around the base of a tree when his pick struck something. It was so solid that the pick broke. Confused, John continued to scrape around until he had revealed a large gold nugget.

Even with a crowbar, John could not remove the nugget from the ground. John called out to his partner and after hours of digging, the two were finally able to remove the nugget from the ground.

Quickly nicknamed the “Welcome Stranger,” the nugget weighed 2316 troy ounces and to this day is the largest nugget ever found. At the time, there were no scales that were able to weight the nugget at once, so it was actually broken into three smaller chunks with an anvil in order to properly weight it.

While its value changes depending on currency exchange rates, the nugget is valued at anywhere between 2 and 4 million dollars.