History and ranking of the largest gold nuggets in the world
Now it is difficult to say which nugget was the largest in history. The fact is that there is not information about all the pieces found, because they were often melted down in the past, and data about them was not preserved. Information about some nuggets has now reached us only in the form of legends and myths, while others have been preserved and have documentary evidence. What was the largest gold nugget in the world?
Australia's largest nugget
In order to figure out which nugget was the largest in the world, you need to understand what is meant by this word. The fact is that gold in nuggets is not always pure; it can have inclusions of silver, quartz and other metals. Nevertheless, such gold will be called native.
Nuggets are mined both in placer deposits and in mines. And geographically the largest of them were discovered in Australia. It turns out that this continent is extremely rich in precious metal.
List of largest specimens
It is officially recognized that the largest native gold was found 145 years ago in Australia by Bernard Halterman. He came to this country in search of a better life and by that time had been developing alluvial deposits for several years.
At first he was plagued by failures, but in 1871 he began working at the Hill End mine.
And on October 19, 1872, together with his partner, he discovered an incredible find - a gold slab weighing 235 kilograms, but, as it turned out later, there was only a little more than 80 kilograms of gold, the rest was quartz. The weight of the nugget was documented and it was melted down.
All that remains are photographs taken by Holterman. Naturally, the prospector gained money and fame. True, now scientists are of the opinion that it was not a nugget, but a piece of vein: due to the large amount of quartz.
But the largest pure gold nugget is “Welcome Stranger”. It weighed significantly less, only 70 kilograms, but, unlike the previous one, the piece of gold consisted of pure metal.
This find belongs to prospectors John Deason and Richard Outus. And this happened in Australia on February 5, 1869. They were working in the vicinity of the city of Moliagula and accidentally came across a nugget while pulling a cart out of the mud.
Having stumbled upon something hard and hit it with a pickaxe, they decided to dig up the object. It later turned out that it was gold. The find was so large that they could not weigh it completely; they simply did not find such scales. So they sawed it and then melted it down.
Another notable nugget, the Hand of Faith, is famous for being the largest gold nugget found using a metal detector. And its origin is also Australian. Was found in 1980. Kelvin Hillier decided in the spring to try out his new metal detector in the tiny town where he lived. His surprise was great when, instead of a coin or a cork, he found a whole gold nugget weighing 27 kilograms and worth a million dollars.
Myths and legends regarding nuggets
There is a legend in the world that may have some credibility. It says that the largest native gold in history was found in the mountains of Afghanistan. According to historians, the size of the nugget was described as “cubit by cubit”, which by modern standards would be about two tons.
There is another case without documentary evidence, which relates to Brazil. Allegedly, in the middle of the 19th century, a nugget weighing 193 kilograms was found here. And in the 16th century, a large gold nugget was taken from America, which sank along with a Spanish galleon, but there is no information about its size.
California prospector finds 6-pound gold nugget
Other gold nuggets, whose existence can neither be confirmed nor denied, are from the Czech Republic. The first of them allegedly weighed about two tons and was found in Bohemia in 1145, and the second, weighing slightly less than a ton, was found at the Eule mine in 725. Now scientists suggest that these were blocks of quartz rich in gold inclusions, or a cluster of smaller ones nuggets.
Distribution by country
As mentioned, the largest nuggets were found in Australia. In addition to the two described above, another interesting representative of this country is the native gold “Brilliant Barkley”, which weighs more than 54 kilograms.
A considerable number of pieces of native gold have been found in Japan. Thus, few large specimens were found and only one nugget with the name “Japanese”, which weighed 71 kilograms.
America can also boast of a large number of finds. The most famous native gold was found in a grave. While an American was digging a grave for a deceased friend, he came across a stone that was later given the name "Oliver Martin". This specimen took part in exhibitions throughout America.
Nuggets in Russia
Gold nuggets are not uncommon in Russia. The largest nugget discovered here is called the Golden Triangle. It was found in the Southern Urals in 1842 by Nikifor Syutkin, who was only 18 years old at that time. Moreover, the mine in which the young man discovered it was considered depleted.
But nevertheless, finds are still being discovered there. Now the “Golden Triangle”, along with others, is kept in the Russian Diamond Fund. By the way, the find did not bring happiness to the guy; he drank himself to death on the money he earned for it.
Another giant weighing 31 kilograms was found in 1895. Two workers touched a stone in clay with a pick, which turned out to be gold. They decided not to show their find to anyone and hid it, but one of them told his wife and the next day everyone found out. Despite the fact that the workers kept silent about their discovery, they still decided to pay them compensation.
In Soviet times, nuggets weighing more than 20 kilograms were not found. Most often, finds weighed 14 kilograms, and stones weighing 18 and 15 kilograms were also found in the deposits of Yakutia.
What is unique about Russian nuggets is that they were not all melted down, but were preserved in the Diamond Fund, which is now the richest collection in the world. They are periodically shown at exhibitions. For example, in 1967, several nuggets weighing 14, 20 and 3 kilograms were shown in Moscow.
The fate of nuggets
Historically, the fate of large finds is similar to the fate of large diamonds. They were also given big names, and some of them were preserved in state museums and private collections. Throughout history, about 10 thousand gold stones weighing more than several hundred grams have been found. In total weight this turns out to be quite a significant figure.
These gold nuggets were mostly smelted and used for various purposes. They were used to create jewelry or used them in industry, for example, to make radio components for military equipment. Not counting those that were left, and you can still admire them now.
Nowadays, gold is mined industrially, but it happens that amateurs also find native metal. In 2014, a piece of gold weighing 2.35 kilograms was found in the United States.
Now such a relatively small find is estimated at about half a million dollars. In the same year, a nugget was found in the Irkutsk region. It weighed just over 6.5 kilograms and was called the “Devil's Ear.”
It was mistakenly taken for a stone and thrown into the dumps, and then found by a worker who was leveling the rock.
You can still find fairly massive native gold. Despite the fact that most of them were excavated in mines, there were also finds in placer deposits. Therefore, if you get a good metal detector and enlist support, then anything is possible. The main thing is not to give up hope.
True, a good metal detector will cost a pretty penny, but there is a chance that it can be repaid with the coins, gold jewelry and small pebbles of gold found.
The technology for extracting gold from alluvial deposits is not complicated, and there are many of them in Russia, but do not forget that any gold found, by law, will have to be given to the state for next to nothing, leaving it will be illegal.
Source: https://DedPodaril.com/zoloto/imform/samyy-bolshoy-samorodok-zolota-v-mire.html
Facts and myths about the largest gold nuggets in the world - Glitter Gem
Australia is the leader in the number of heaviest nuggets in the world. The five largest bars were discovered on the fifth continent in the 19th century during the gold rush.
The largest gold nugget in the world, the weight of which is documented, was found 145 years ago. He was found by Bernard Halterman, a German by birth who came to the country in search of a better life.
In Australia, he was developing gold-bearing veins for several years.
Failures followed Halterman until he began developing the Hill End mine in 1871. At first he came across small grains of sand. On October 19, 1872, he and his partner Hugo Beyers came across a slab, which, as it later turned out, weighed 235.5 kg. But the majority were quartz inclusions; the slab contained 83.2 kg of gold.
Bernard Otto Holtermann and the "Holtermann Plate"
The nugget was melted down. Halterman was fond of photography, and therefore photographs of him posing with the slab named in his honor have been preserved. The largest nugget in the world brought the miner money, fame and honor. True, many scientists believe that the prospector did not find a nugget, but dug a piece of a vein where pieces of gold were combined with pieces of quartz.
The second largest nugget was also found in Australia three years earlier. Prospectors John Deason and Richard Oates found it not even in the mine, but literally on the road. Their cart got stuck in the mud and, while pulling the wheel out of the swamp, they came across a hard boulder. A pick and a shovel went into action, and literally within a few minutes the prospectors realized that they had stumbled upon native gold.
In the mining town there wasn’t even a scale to find out the total mass of the nugget. Then the miners sawed the piece into several parts. The total weight was 70.9 kg. The find was called “The Welcome Stranger.”
It is noteworthy that both discoveries were made when the gold rush was coming to an end. Gold deposits in Victoria have been mined for 20 years.
So, back in 1850, miners from the Ballarat mine mined so much gold that they decided to celebrate this event in Melbourne.
The party was apparently a success, because all the officials and police officers of Melbourne, who were haunted by the thought of wealth, went after the prospectors to mine gold.
Due to the gold rush, Australia's population tripled and regulations on gold mining were tightened. When Holterman, Deason and Oates decided to start mining gold in the late 60s of the last century, it was far from an original idea: many of the miners had long ago given up panning for gold, believing that the mines were depleted.
The “Desired Nugget” weighing 68.8 kg was found in the Ballarat mine in 1858, and the “Brilliant Barclay” (54.2 kg, 1857) was also found here. Ten years later, despite the fact that the place was dug up far and wide, the “Canadian” nugget weighing 50.2 kg was found here in Ballarat.
The most interesting thing is that in the 1980s, when metal detectors were invented, amateurs took the time to visit the developed old mines.
And here again nuggets were discovered! The largest piece of gold, weighing 27 kg, was located at a depth of only 15 cm. One of the recent finds occurred again in Ballarat.
In 2013, an Australian found a nugget weighing five and a half kilograms here.
Nuggets: myths and legends
Speaking about nuggets, reliable information about which is difficult to establish, it is worth mentioning the Afghan find.
The largest gold nugget, according to Ahmed al-Biruni (a Persian encyclopedist), was found in the mountains of Afghanistan. The dimensions of the nugget were “elbow to elbow”.
In modern terms, the weight of such a nugget should be about two tons. The scientist did not mention when the discovery was made.
Even the largest nuggets were found in the Czech Republic. One allegedly weighed more than two tons. It was found in Bohemia in 1145, another allegedly weighing 960 kg was discovered at the Eule mine in 725. It can be assumed that these were blocks of quartz with rich inclusions of gold or an accumulation of small gold nuggets, the total mass of which in this case appears as the mass of one large nugget.
Also, a huge piece of gold weighing 193 kilograms was found in Brazil in the mid-19th century. Since it was immediately melted, reliable information about it did not reach us.
Another huge nugget was brought from America in the 16th century. It sank along with the Spanish galleon. There is no exact information about his weight.
Nuggets in Russia
The largest nugget, the “Big Triangle,” was found in the Southern Urals in 1842 by 18-year-old Nikifor Syutkin in the Miass River basin. The mine was already considered depleted, but nevertheless, native gold is still found in this place today.
Nugget "Big Triangle"
Nikifor was paid more than a thousand rubles for the nugget, but the find did not bring happiness to the guy: he simply drank himself to death.
Nuggets are also found in the Krasnoyarsk Territory. One of the giants weighing 31 kilograms. It was discovered in 1895. Two workers accidentally touched a stone lying in the clay with their pick, and it suddenly flashed with a familiar light.
The workers decided not to show the huge piece of gold they found to anyone and hid it in the mine. But one of them, drunk, spilled the beans to his wife. The next day, everyone knew about the find, and the nugget was seized by the mine security. Although the workers tried to conceal the find, they were still given compensation of two thousand rubles.
In Soviet times, large nuggets weighing more than 20 kg were not found. Most often, for some reason, prospectors were lucky with 14-kilogram gold nuggets. “Big Tyelginsky” in the Chelyabinsk region, “Campaign named after Kalinin” - in the Southern Urals, “Golden Giant” from Magadan were found at different times, but had the same weight!
Nuggets weighing 18.15 kg were also found in the deposits of Yakutia.
In the 90s, gold miners found gold nuggets weighing over 30 kilograms in old dumps. Thus, the largest ingot weighing 33 kg in the entire history of the Russian Federation was found in the Khabarovsk Territory, and a nugget weighing 20 kg was found on the coast of the Chukchi Sea.
Subsequently, the native gold was transferred to the Diamond Fund of the USSR, where it is still stored. The collection contains 100 exhibits weighing more than 200 kilograms. There is no such unique collection in any country in the world!
In 1967, an exhibition was even held in Moscow, where unique exhibits were presented: nuggets “Horse Head” (14 kg), “Hare Ears” (3.34 kg), “Camel” and others. Mephistopheles nugget is surprising , not because of its 20-gram weight, but because it resembles the profile of the person after whom it is named.
Gold nuggets are found all over the world. They are also found in Africa, Brazil, and many nuggets were found in the USA and California. But finds weighing more than ten kilograms are extremely rare.
Scientist V. Sobolevsky calculated that there have been no more than forty such finds over the past 150 years.
5 BIGGEST GOLD NUGGETS IN THE WORLD
Source: https://kabirski-store.ru/drugoe/fakty-i-mify-o-samyh-bolshih-samorodkah-zolota-v-mire.html
The largest gold nugget in the world
Since time immemorial, humanity has been asking itself the question: why do people die for metal, and the price of life is much less than the price of gold. Gold mining has always been a labor-intensive and sometimes dangerous activity. The Ural tales of Pavel Bazhov “The Malachite Box” are perhaps the best work about the beauty of mining and the defenselessness of the human soul.
But there is another interesting topic: can there be too much gold?
So much that one person without special technical devices cannot carry it? Indeed, such large nuggets existed in nature - up to 70 kg: only strong people were destined to lift them. From 2 to 70 kg - in total, several thousand such nuggets were found in various gold-mining countries.
When developing deposits, gold particles of different sizes are encountered: both fine and dusty. 2 mm is already large gold. Weight of more than 5 grams allows us to call such a piece a “nugget”.
The largest pieces of gold were found in Australia in the 19th century. This country is considered the leader in the number of large fragments of gold found: several hundred of them weighed more than 2.5 kg.
However, large nuggets were found in other places: Japan, Russia, North America, Brazil. But not everyone was going to store them: most were waiting to be melted down. Nevertheless, in Russia, amazing finds have found a place of honor in the Diamond Fund: it is a state property, carefully protected, but still on display for public viewing.
List of largest nuggets
The largest nugget was found in Australia. The “Holterman Plate” included gold and rock debris and weighed 285 kg.
This rarity was not preserved; it was melted down. more than 93 kg of pure gold . Sometimes they try to challenge the primacy of the “Plate” among nuggets: it is difficult to argue that the piece of gold was whole and not several nuggets in one vein. The pieces of metal were held together into one piece by layers of quartz.
- Although the Australian “Welcome Stranger” had a spectacular name, it did not remain in its original form. Its weight was about 70 kg. It was divided into parts and melted down.
- An equally large nugget was found in 1901 in Japan; the “Japanese” weighed 70 kg. For this country, such a large “stone” was truly unexpected.
- Nugget “Desired” – 69 kg (1858, Australia).
- “Brilliant Barkley” - more than 54 kg (1857, Australia).
- “Canadian first” – 50 kg and “Canadian second” – 40 kg (1868, Australia).
- Brazil surprised the world in 1983 with a 50 kg nugget. It is kept in a museum in the capital of the state.
- "Oliver Martin" was found in the USA in 1854, weighing 36 kg. We managed to find him under the most unexpected circumstances. He was stumbled upon by a man who was digging a grave near a mountain range. A chance discovery gave him the opportunity to dramatically change his life. In California at that time, other large pieces were also found - up to 30 kg.
Nuggets found in Russia
A Ural nugget weighing more than 36 kg is Russian pride. The "Great Triangle" was found in 1842. And it wasn’t melted down! It was dug up at a three-meter depth near Miass. Pieces of gold up to 3 kg have been found here before.
And you can admire the “Triangle” (for a long time it was the largest piece of gold that has not been melted down) in one of the Kremlin museums, the Diamond Fund. Unique gold finds from the Urals, Kolyma, Yakutia, Krasnoyarsk Territory, and Irkutsk Region are displayed here.
- "Bull's head" was found in the Krasnoyarsk region in 1898, weighing about 32 kg. This is one of hundreds of gold nuggets offered to visitors of the Kremlin exposition.
- the “Horse Head” with your own eyes in the Kremlin Museum. Almost 14 kg of gold, shaped like an animal's head, were found in the Ural deposits in 1936.
- "Dolphin" - more than 10 kg, became the property of the state in 1958. It was found in the Bodaibo deposit (Lena River).
- “One-humped camel” is a Russian rarity. It is also kept and shown to tourists. Weighing more than 9 kg 300 g, a very beautifully shaped huge piece of precious metal was found in Kolyma in 1947.
- “Mephistopheles” - and this outlandish piece of gold was not modified. Of course, it is not as big as its brothers. It weighs just over 20 grams and was found in Kolyma in 1944. But its amazing, almost artistic form reminds us of the theme: so why do people die for metal? It is surprising that this truly jewelry piece has not been touched by the hand of a master.
Other famous gold nuggets
Among the Russian nuggets, we should mention “Big Hole” (3 kg), “Hare Ears” (3.3 kg).
The Russian collection is the largest in the world. Another remarkable fact is that these nuggets are made of high-carat gold, without inclusions.
In modern foreign photographs, as a rule, there are dummies - copies of unique finds. It is known that in the United States, a 16.4 kg nugget is put on public display in California, and 27.7 kg in Nevada. And in Australia at the Mint - 25.5 kg.
Source: https://finhelps.ru/samyj-bolshoj-samorodok-zolota-v-mire/
Native gold: what the largest gold nugget in the world looks like
Hello!
The development of primary deposits provides up to 97% of the volume of gold mined in the world. As a rule, they contain precious metal mixed with ores. To obtain it in its pure form, it is necessary to carry out a number of additional operations.
A more rare occurrence is native gold extracted from the depths with a minimal amount of impurities. However, it is precisely this that is most valued by private miners.
What is a gold nugget
A gold nugget is a pure or minimally ore precious metal. It can have different shapes and sizes. Particularly large specimens weighing up to a hundredweight, and sometimes more, are valued.
How are gold nuggets formed and where can you find them?
Precious pieces of rock are formed in the bowels of the earth. It takes a long time for native gold to form. The exact conditions of the precious fragments are unknown to scientists to this day. There are several versions of this process. The most popular are:
- Gold grains are attracted to ore deposits.
- Native gold is the remains of ancient large veins that have been destroyed.
Some characteristic features allow us to determine the likely locations of pure precious metal ingots:
- proximity to the junction of tectonic plates or traces of volcanic activity;
- area of occurrence of ore or placer gold;
- lack of nearby silver mines.
Review of the largest finds
How much do the largest nuggets mined from the depths weigh? Depending on the luck of the miners, you can find ingots whose weight varies from several grams to tens of kilograms.
The most successful finds end up in the book of records and participate in specialized exhibitions. Subsequently, they are either sent for remelting (in 95% of cases) or left as a visual aid.
In the world
In world practice, the largest nugget is the “Holterman plate”. It was discovered in 1872 in Australia at one of the quartz mines. The weight of the found cobblestone was 250 kg, of which 93 kg was pure gold. It was later melted down to make jewelry.
Since the block for the most part did not contain native gold, but quartz inclusions, scientists are still arguing whether it can be called a nugget. Many agree that it was just a piece of vein. However, even in this case, it remains the largest in the history of gold mining.
A few years earlier, in 1869, the record holder was the “Welcome Stranger,” which was found right on the road. Two fellow miners returning from work discovered a lump of native gold in the mud where their cart was stuck.
Weighing showed that the weight of the ingot is 71 kg. It is noteworthy that to determine the mass of the block it had to be cut into several parts due to the lack of suitable scales.
No less remarkable was the discovery of a piece of native gold in California (USA). While digging the grave of his comrade and colleague, a local town prospector came across a large cobblestone. After extracting the stone to the surface, it turned out that it was in fact native aurum. Wanting to pay his last respect to his comrade, the miner named the 36 kg nugget after him - Oliver Martin. Subsequently, the stone was sold for 22.7 thousand dollars.
In Russia
Like Japan, Russia is considered a country rich in gold, but most of it is represented by medium and small placers. However, there are also impressive representatives. The most famous of them is the Russian Precious Triangle. The native block was discovered in 1842 in the Southern Urals. In addition to its size, the stone has one more feature - it was found by an 18-year-old guy in a mine that until that moment was considered completely exhausted.
Another representative of especially large native gold ingots was discovered in 1895. His weight was 31 kg. The mass of subsequent finds did not exceed 20 kg.
Conclusion
Although a lot of time has passed since the last major finds, the chance of discovering new native stones is high. Many prospectors stock up on metal detectors and explore open-pit mines in search of a precious piece of nugget. The main thing to remember is that gold mined by any means is subject to transfer to the state.
You can get other interesting information about existing deposits, methods of gold mining and other useful information from our articles. To do this, subscribe to our accounts on social networks.
Source: https://zhazhdazolota.ru/vidy/samorodnoe
The largest gold nuggets in the world
Statistics claim that throughout history, man has mined over 162 thousand tons of gold, and half of this amount has been produced in the last 50 years. A gold nugget is a naturally formed clot of gold, randomly formed in the depths if certain conditions were present. By the way, the first metal that succumbed to man was gold.
How are gold nuggets formed?
The smallest crystals of gold collected from different levels of occurrence agglomerate underground and, in an unknown way, seem to be sintered, resulting in the formation of nuggets of different sizes (from several grams to tens of kilograms).
Currently, most of the available gold deposits have been depleted, and there is a lot of it only in inaccessible or completely inaccessible places on the planet. In general, industrial gold mining leads to very negative impacts on the environment, which cannot be avoided.
The largest gold nuggets in Australia (and also in the world)
1st place – “Holterman Plate” (93.3 kg of pure gold)
This is the name of the nugget mined in 1872 in Australia. It was not a pure piece of gold, but a conglomerate of gold and quartz. That is, they managed to extract a huge piece (286 kg) of a gold-bearing vein, but after melting it turned out how much the largest gold nugget weighs - there were only 93.3 kg of this metal. Of course, this find was not preserved.
However, the “Holtermann Plate” is the largest piece of gold in the world (93.3 kg of pure precious metal from a 286 kg gold-bearing vein).
2nd place – “Welcome Stranger” (70 kg)
This piece of gold was found by two prospectors in 1869, all in Australia, near the town of Moliagul, located in the state of Victoria. In a small town, everyone knew each other because they were doing the same thing.
Richard and John found the nugget by accident - while rescuing their cart from the mud, they came across a stone that was in the way, and when they worked on it with a pick, they found out that just a few centimeters under the cart there was a decent lump of gold.
The found nugget, called the “Welcome Stranger,” turned out to be so large that there were no scales in the town on which to weigh it. Therefore, the monolith was sawn into pieces, weighed and melted into ingots for further expedition to the metropolis.
Both Australian record finds were not accidental, because the fifth continent was famous for its gold deposits.
Largest gold nuggets around the world
The photo of each contender for the largest gold nugget in the world is impressive. It is already clear that most of the largest finds were made in Australia:
- In 1858, the “Desired” nugget (69 kg) was found.
- A year earlier, the mines yielded “Brilliant Barkley” (54.2 kg).
- In 1868, the Australians were lucky to dig up another giant, “Canadian First” (50.4 kg), and a little later it was followed by “Canadian Second” (40 kg).
The tectonic feature also made Japan rich in gold, where in 1901 the Japanese nugget, weighing 71 kg, was found on the island of Honshu. Recently, a “Goliath” was found in Brazil, which pulled 50.5 kg.
There are many more gold finds around the world that are impressive in their size:
- "Lady Hotham" (30 kg).
- "Poseidon" (20 kg).
- The Heart of Gold nugget was discovered in Alaska by Nick Martinex. Among the nuggets found and registered in this state, this one became the fifth largest, weighing more than 90 ounces. It was found in the process of work, when bulldozers were shoveling the “tails” of the rock. It was a miracle that the nugget was noticed at all, since it was covered with a mineralized crust and looked like an ordinary black pebble. He could well have ended up with the dump.
The largest gold nuggets in Russia
The largest gold nuggets in our country were found in the Urals.
1st place – “Big Triangle” (36 kg)
The largest gold nugget in Russia, called the “Big Triangle,” was found in 1842 near the city of Miass. He weighed approximately 36 kilograms.
This is the largest gold nugget in the world among those that managed to avoid being melted down - the usual fate of all nuggets.
2nd place – “Bull’s head” (31.6 kg)
Russia has created the richest collection of gold nuggets in the world. At the exhibition of the Diamond Fund in 1967, about a hundred such finds were shown, collectively weighing more than 200 kg.
The Bull's Head nugget (31.6 kg) was found in 1898 in the Krasnoyarsk Territory.
No less stunning is the “Ram’s Head” nugget (7.7 kg) located in the museum’s storage room.
3rd place – “Mephistopheles” (20.2 kg)
One of the most unique exhibits of the Diamond Fund is the Mephistopheles nugget, which, despite its “modest” weight of 20.2 kg, delights visitors - it so closely resembles the profile of this character. After finding it near Magadan, people even doubted whether it was man-made? It was studied by a special commission, which finally recognized its natural origin.
4th place – “Horse head” (14 kg)
Many nuggets were found on the Sayan rivers - “Horse Head” (14 kg), “Camel” (9.3 kg), “Hare Ears” (3.3 kg).
5th place – “Irendyk bear” (4.8 kg)
The gold nugget “Irendyk Bear” weighed almost 4.8 kg. Since it is considered a national treasure not only of all of Russia, but also of Bashkiria separately, it is kept in the National Bank of the Republic of Bashkortostan.
This nugget was discovered near the village of Kuseevo, Baymaksky district, on the eastern slope of the Irendyk Mountains. In 1922, while plowing the ground, a local state farm machine operator found this treasure at a depth of only 30 cm.
He also came up with the name of the find, since its shape somewhat resembled a bear.
But this story has a mysterious background. An employee of the Institute of Geology, Sagit Yusupov, suggested that the “Irendyk Bear” is too similar to another nugget, which was found two years earlier at the Kuseevsky gold mine and mysteriously disappeared during transportation, along with the cart and the head of the mine.
Until now, humanity has not freed itself from the “gold rush”. True, gold-rich deposits are steadily depleting, and almost no new ones are appearing. But, nevertheless, the pale yellow metal continues to attract the interests of the population, especially since its cost is only growing, and this metal is among the TOP of the most expensive substances on the planet.
Do you think a person will be able to find even larger gold nuggets? Share your opinion in the comments.
about one of the largest gold nuggets in the world
Source: https://www.rutvet.ru/in-samye-bolshie-samorodki-zolota-v-mire-8497.html
Precious giants: the largest gold nuggets
Gold nuggets are rarely found in large sizes. After all, even samples weighing one hundred grams are considered a great achievement for gold miners. The smallest nuggets do not exceed ten grams in weight. Medium are those whose weight varies from ten to one hundred grams.
The mass of large pieces can reach one kilogram, and very large ones - ten kilograms. Nevertheless, nuggets whose weight exceeds this limit are considered gigantic, and their discovery becomes a sensation.
As a rule, heavier stones are found at a fairly great depth in the bowels of the earth, although in rare cases it was enough to dig just a small hole to find them.
Most often, gold nuggets are found in the territory of alluvial deposits of this precious metal. In some cases, finds weigh several kilograms. History knows about ten thousand cases of the discovery of large gold nuggets, the weight of which exceeded the ten kilogram mark.
Unfortunately, their fate often followed the same pattern: they were told to everyone, given big names, and then melted down. The only exception is the largest Russian find, which today is the largest nugget of gold not used for jewelry production.
Although history has known heavier natural stones of gold.
Return
Record gold plate
The officially recognized largest gold nugget in the world, the existence of which has been documented, is the Australian giant, found at the end of the 19th century.
At that time, the “gold rush” that was raging on the continent was gradually coming to an end, and a few desperate gold miners continued to believe in their fortune. One of these stubborn people was a settler of German descent named Bernard Halterman.
He left his homeland and moved to Australia, hoping to find a better life there.
He relied on gold mining, and for several years he unsuccessfully developed gold-bearing veins. This continued until 1871, when he began to develop a mine called Hill End. Here the gold digger smelled gold, because literally immediately he began to find the precious metal, albeit in small quantities. And already on October 19, 1872, Holterman and his partner Hugo Beyens finally stumbled upon a discovery that turned their whole lives upside down. They discovered a huge slab of gold.
This nugget was later called the "Holtermann Plate".
- Its length reached 144 centimeters.
- Width 66 centimeters.
- The thickness of the gold nugget was ten centimeters.
- This giant weighed 235.5 kilograms.
True, as scientists later found out, pure gold accounted for 83.2 kilograms in the total mass of the slab.
And the lion's share of it was quartz inclusions. Many modern scientists are inclined to believe that in fact Holterman dug up not a nugget of gold, but a massive piece of vein in which the precious metal was interspersed with inclusions of quartz. But even this reduced weight of real gold is still a record.
At the end of the 19th century, the fashion for photography flourished, and by a happy coincidence, Bernard Halterman was fascinated not only by gold mining, but also by photographs. That is why an ancient photograph has survived to this day, depicting the golden giant and its discoverer.
The gold miners failed to sell the giant nugget entirely. The slab has not survived to this day - it was melted down. After all, whatever one may say, Holterman was searching for gold for the sake of financial, not sporting interest.
Return
Other gold gems from Australia
The second largest gold nugget was also found in Australia, slightly earlier than the Holtermann plate. He managed to carry the title of “the largest gold nugget in the world” for only three years: from 1869 to 1872. But the history of this precious find is worthy of a film or a book being written about it.
The giant nugget was found by two fellow goldsmiths, John Deason and Richard Oates. Moreover, they discovered the jewel not in the mine, where they worked tirelessly, but by pure chance.
They were heading somewhere on their cart when the wheel of their vehicle got stuck tightly in the mud. Friends began to pull him out of the swamp when they suddenly came across a suspiciously hard boulder. Sensing something was wrong, they rushed for a shovel and a pick and quickly began to dig up a strange stone.
It only took them a few minutes to recognize it as a nugget of pure gold.
Pretty soon they pulled him out, loaded him onto a cart and headed to the town where all the gold miners lived. It is not known exactly what the size of the find, nicknamed the “Welcome Stranger,” was, but already in the city the lucky prospectors faced a serious problem.
There simply were no suitable scales to weigh the huge gold nugget. To understand how much their golden “stranger” weighed, Deason and Oates took a desperate step and sawed it into several pieces that could be weighed using the available equipment.
Thus, they learned that their gold nugget weighed 70.9 kilograms.
The fate of this unusual find was exactly the same as that of the other gold giants: it was melted down.
Australia, both before and after, has repeatedly pleased prospectors with weighty gold boulders. For example, eleven years before the story of the discovery of friends Deason and Oates on the road, in 1858, a huge gold stone was discovered in the Ballarat mine. His weight was 68.8 kilograms. This strong fellow was called the “Desired Nugget.”
Moreover, this was not the first giant natural piece of gold discovered at this mine. A year earlier, a nugget weighing 54.2 kilograms had already been found there. He was called "The Brilliant Barclay." And in 1867, a fifty-kilogram gold stone called “Canadian” was discovered in the same area.
It is noteworthy that by that time almost the entire area of the Ballarat mine had been dug up in all directions, and many prospectors were confident that there was not even an gram of gold left there.
Oddly enough, the amazing history of the Ballarat mine did not end with the finds of the 19th century. Already in the 80s of the last century, when metal detectors became more accessible to a wide range of gold prospectors, large gold nuggets were discovered there more than once. And in 2013, an Australian resident again found a large, although not gigantic, nugget in Ballarat. His weight reached five and a half kilograms.
Return
The Golden Giants drew crowds of spectators
Interesting finds were also discovered by gold miners in the United States of America, which has rich deposits of natural gold. Some of them became real entertainment for the local public. For example, in 1954, there was an amazing discovery of a golden giant in California.
A local prospector was digging a grave for his deceased friend and gold-hunting companion when suddenly his shovel came across a boulder.
When the excited prospector dug up this huge stone, it turned out that in front of him was a real gold nugget, searching for which he and his deceased comrade spent more than one year of their lives.
The weight of the Californian giant was 36 kilograms. In honor of his late comrade, the owner named the nugget “Oliver Martin.” The enterprising businessman organized a whole tour of the States. He came to different cities, where he demonstrated his weighty find to a curious public. From these demonstrations he managed to earn about ten thousand dollars. And when the tours stopped bringing him a stable income, the owner sold his gold “Oliver” for 22.7 thousand dollars.
And in the 80s of the twentieth century, in the same Australia, in the state of Victoria, a gold prospector named Kevin Hiller discovered a massive gold nugget called the “Hand of Fate.” The weight of this golden stone of an unusual shape, reminiscent of a human palm, reaches 27.2 kilograms.
Dimensions of the nugget “Hand of Fate”
| Quantity | Options |
| 47 centimeters | in length |
| 20 centimeters | in width |
| 20 centimeters | thickness |
This gold has 926 purity. To date, it is considered the largest gold nugget found using a metal detector. At first, the successful gold miner put it up for auction, intending to sell it at home, and this idea was supported by the local government. But for several months, none of the Australian rich were able to offer a decent price for the gold giant.
The federal government somewhat delayed issuing official permission to sell the precious find abroad, hoping that it would still remain on the territory of the state. Meanwhile, the value of gold began to plummet, and seeing this, the federal government gave in and issued the necessary permit.
Officials understood that further delays in completing the paperwork would result in the federal treasury receiving a smaller amount of tax for the find than previously calculated. As a result, the famous gold nugget was purchased by one of the casinos located in Las Vegas, USA. The owner earned one million dollars from this transaction.
And the huge golden hand is put on public display in a glass display case, and all visitors to the casino can enjoy the view of this giant. In 2010, in Australia, at the place where Kevin Hiller discovered his miraculous find, a monument was unveiled - this is an exact copy of the “Hand of Fate”.
Return
Russian precious triangle
In Russia, their precious finds are treated with great reverence. In our area, golden giants weighing one hundred kilograms have not been found, but they have lived happily to this day, without ending up in a furnace for remelting. The largest gold nugget found in Russia is the “Big Triangle”, discovered in the Southern Urals back in 1842. It got its name due to its geometric shape.
The weight of the Russian giant is 36 kilograms. It was discovered in the Miassyu River basin by local resident Nikifor Syutkin, who was only eighteen years old at that time. He was excavating on the territory of a mine that was considered depleted.
Although, according to some data, even today, native gold is periodically discovered in that territory, although not such large-scale specimens. For the precious find, Nikifor received more than a thousand rubles, which at that time was considered a rather impressive sum.
True, the guy did not gain much happiness or success in life after this: he quietly drank himself to death, although he would forever go down in the history of gold mining.
Later, scientists compiled a complete portrait of the “Great Triangle”:
- it was raised from a depth of more than three meters;
- its exact weight is 36.15 kilograms;
- the length of the gold nugget reaches 31 centimeters;
- width – 27.5 centimeters;
- The thickness of this precious specimen is eight centimeters.
These sizes are not the most impressive of all the giant gold nuggets found over the years in the world, but it is today called the largest surviving such precious boulder.
All other similar finds discovered in various states were either completely melted down or subjected to some kind of processing. And the “Great Triangle” looks exactly the same as it looked almost two centuries ago.
This precious exhibit is kept in the Diamond Fund of the Russian Federation.
During the times of the Soviet Union, it was not possible to find gold nuggets on the territory of our country whose weight exceeded twenty kilograms. Only in the 90s of the last century in the Khabarovsk Territory was it possible to discover a gold plate weighing 33 kilograms. It is considered the largest such nugget found on the territory of the Russian Federation. But, despite the relatively modest size of the finds, it is in our country that the largest collection of them is kept, numbering a hundred gold exhibits.
Source: https://grammzolota.ru/dobycha/samyj-bolshoj-samorodok.html
The largest gold nuggets in history
But the coolest of them are the characters of the Gold Rush program - if you haven’t watched it, then run to correct this misunderstanding.
This is not only interesting, but also educational. For example, I personally learned about the largest gold nuggets found by man
“Nugget Kanae”, Brazil, 52 kg
Large gold nuggets are not very common. Even samples weighing one hundred grams are considered rare and a great success for the miner. What can we say about gold blocks weighing several tens of kilograms, which can be discovered once every few decades.
The largest nugget to date is considered to be the “Canae Nugget,” found in 1983 by miner Julio de Deus Filho in the Brazilian state of Pará.
The entire Kanae Nugget weighs 60.82 kg, but it contains slightly less gold - 52.33 kg. It is known that "Kanae" was part of a larger nugget that broke into pieces when it was pulled out of the ground. A year after its discovery, the find was purchased by the Central Bank of Brazil.
Now everyone can look at it in the “Golden Hall” of the Museum of Money in the city of Brasilia.
“Big Triangle”, Russia, almost 33 kg
The second largest nugget that has survived to this day was found by Nikifor Syutkin in the Southern Urals at a depth of 3.5 m in 1842. The sample has a clear triangular shape, for which it received the name “Big Triangle”. The total weight of the nugget is 36.2 kg, gold accounts for 32.94 kg. By the way, the triangle turned out to be almost isosceles: its size is 31 x 27.5 x 8 cm.
Now the “Great Triangle” is the property of the state: it is exhibited in the permanent exhibition of the “Diamond Fund” of the Moscow Kremlin, where other gold and platinum nuggets, as well as precious stones, are presented.
“Hand of Faith”, Australia, almost 28 kg
My beautiful picture
A nugget weighing 27.66 kg was found in 1980 by Australian Kevin Hillier near the town of Kingauer and was called the “Hand of Faith” for its resemblance to a human palm. It became the largest gold nugget discovered using a metal detector. The sample height is 47 cm, length is 20 cm, and width is 9 cm.
“Hand of Faith” was acquired by the American casino Golden Nugget Casino. The golden “statue” is now on display in his Las Vegas lobby. The official website of the casino claims that this is the largest nugget that has survived to this day, which is not true.
“Norman nugget”, Australia, 25.5 kg
The weight of the so-called “Norman Nugget” is 25.5 kg, but the exact content of precious metal in it is unknown - according to various sources, it varies from 80 to 90%.
It was dug out of the ground in one of Australia's largest gold mining centers in the city of Calgorie in 1995.
Five years after the discovery, the prospector sold his treasure to one of the Australian companies, and it entered into a long-term agreement with the Perth Mint Museum, where the nugget is now on display.
"Jewel of the Crown", USA, 16 kg
In 1992, a nugget called the “Crown Jewel” was found in California. It is crystalline sheet gold that was originally contained within quartz rock. Almost all of the quartz was removed using hydrofluoric acid, resulting in a nugget weighing 16.4 kg.
Today, the Crown Jewel, the largest example of crystalline gold in the world, can be seen at the Ironstone Vineyards Museum in California.
Source: https://365info.kz/2019/12/samye-krupnye-zolotye-samorodki-v-istorii
Bernard Halterman with his nugget
Many consider the largest gold nugget to be the Holtermann Nugget, with a total weight of up to 290 kg and a length of 1.4 m. The actual weight of gold in it was 93-95 kg. It was discovered by gold miner, businessman, politician and photographer Bernard Halterman on October 19, 1872 in southeastern Australia.
Gold in quartz
However, from a technical point of view, this block cannot be considered a nugget. After all, a nugget is pure metal in large form. The Holtermann plate, in turn, consisted of large pieces of gold held together by quartz. Such a block is called a vein, where pieces of gold are tightly combined with pieces of quartz. Since Holterman was a professional photographer, and at that time this was a rarity, he and his team took a series of photographs, which we can now see in all articles on this topic.
Geography of the gold rush in Australia
Have you ever wondered what prompted people to set off on long voyages to the poorly developed continent of Australia? Why did Australia begin to develop so actively and why are all the major cities on this continent located in the southwest?
The answer is simple: the Victorian gold rush, which began in 1851 and continued until the 1870s. Thanks to active excavations, the population of Australia has increased dramatically (more than 2.5 times!) due to gold miners arriving from all over the world.
Australia's Golden Triangle, located in the area between the cities of Ballarat, Bendigo and Wedderburn, has been the most popular excavation site.
The Golden Triangle of Australia is a place where large deposits of gold lie, which are still being found to this day.
Australia is considered the world leader in the weight of gold nuggets found. However, most of them were found in the southeast of the country. So take note of this. Of course, compiling ratings is a thankless task, however, it is worth noting that the largest nuggets in the world were found right here, in the states of New South Wales and Victoria.
A copy of The Desired Stranger
In February 1869, two British gold miners, John Deason and Richard Oates, were excavating in central Victoria when their pick struck something very hard near the surface of the earth.
According to another story, they were trying to pull a stuck cart wheel out of a hole. When Deason bent down to examine a large rock that he thought was interfering with his search, he discovered a nugget. It became the largest find of pure gold that people have ever seen and will ever see in the future. The nugget was 60 cm long and almost 30 cm wide.
Drawing of the Desired Stranger, published in The Illustrated Australian News for Home Reader, 1869
Deason and Oates discussed the discovery excitedly but pragmatically. The nugget had to be safely transported before anyone found out about it. They waited until sunset and, under the cover of darkness, dug up the gold and took it to Deason's house, where they placed it in the fire to burn the dirt and break up the black quartz that covered the gold.
The nugget was fired all weekend, and on Monday morning it was estimated that almost 32 kg of black quartz had broken off from the main nugget. This quartz was then taken to a local crushing machine and, after further crushing, almost 1.7 kg of gold was recovered. The gold nugget itself was delivered on a cart under Mrs. Deason's skirt to the town of Dunolly, which was 15 km away.
The largest gold nugget in the world: basic figures
Source: https://idealtourist.ru/samyj-bolshoj-samorodok-zolota-v-mire.html
Gold nuggets
Gold is a noble metal that began to be mined in ancient times. Some believe that today this material is no longer of practical value. However, even in the twenty-first century, there are cases of terrible bloodshed that are directly related to this metal. In this article we will talk about what gold nuggets are and where you can find them.
Nugget of gold
Dreams of large gold nuggets excite the consciousness of gold miners, creating in his imagination pictures of immeasurable wealth and luxury.
In Australia and Alaska, in the jungles of Brazil and the deposits of Papua New Guinea, people are finding gold all over the planet. Gold nuggets are very desirable for hunters of this precious metal. And all because very large nuggets were found in the past:
- the famous “Welcome Stranger”, who weighed 71.1 kg
- nugget “Desired”, weighing 68.4 kg
- Holtermann plate - 235.5 kg including rock
- "Blanche Barkley", which weighed 54.3 kg
- Brazilian "Goliath" weighing 50.5 kg.
There is official confirmation that the mass of several nuggets recently found in the Pyrenees mountain range in the state of Victoria reaches over 1000 ounces - 31 kg.
In addition, two nuggets discovered in the Maryborough area (Victoria) weigh 28 and 13 kg, a nugget from Yandoit weighs 56.1 kg and a nugget from Moliagul weighs 6.2 kg.
Most nuggets are found in Australia, but many large specimens have been found in other parts of the world.
Searchers have found large nuggets in South Africa, Russia, Brazil, New Guinea, and the USA. Residents of the Solomon Islands, near New Guinea, constantly find 300-gram nuggets.
Where do nuggets come from?
Some scientists believe that nuggets “grow” in the ground: particles of eroded gold from ore veins (for example, weighing 100 grams) “attract” the smallest particles of this metal from the soil and mineral-rich groundwater solutions. Further, such particles are connected to each other in a certain way, forming large nuggets.
This opinion originated with the miners of the past: in the process of exploring ore veins located near rich placer deposits (in which large nuggets were often discovered), prospectors never found significant nuggets in the veins. It was this fact that led them to begin to think that gold in this form does not come from ore veins, but “grows” in its natural location as a result of a certain chemical reaction.
However, scientists now know that gold actually has the ability to “grow.” There are a large number of documented finds of gold in crystalline form, which "grew" in a number of carbonaceous formations. Most of the nuggets were found in deep placers in deposits near the Australian city of Ballarat.
Scientists were able to “grow” gold even in the laboratory, using a carbon-based crystallization nucleus as a catalyst for the process. Another evidence of the “growth theory” is the fact that nuggets found in placers were of slightly higher quality than specimens from adjacent ore veins.
For example, gold from gold-bearing deposits is found in a purity of up to 97%, and the same characteristic of nuggets found in nearby ore veins is much lower. Large nuggets are formed not only in ore veins, but also in small side branches - “wings”, which run slightly away from the main ore body. Such veins are a kind of filters.
They capture and pass through gold-rich solutions that seep through the ore body. Moving along the “wings,” the solutions create large nuggets in them.
The findings of many nuggets with traces of abrasion make it possible to say that instead of their “growth,” the reverse process occurs. The small, almost crystalline patches of gold that sometimes accompany nuggets in the surrounding clay or sediment are likely eroded from them, rather than being "attracted" as previously thought.
Where to find gold in Russia?
The most promising areas for searching for gold nuggets are the Ural, Bodaibo, Taksimo, Amur, Magadan and Chukotka. A nugget weighing 12.3 kg was found in the Bodaibo region. In Chukotka in Bilibino, not so long ago, a specimen weighing 16 kg was found. In the Amur region, on the Cuttlefish River, in the estuary part, 665 nuggets were found. The large Sami weighed 6.9 kg, on the B. River.
Chanchik discovered a nugget weighing 3.5 kg in 2000.
To correctly select the area and search site, it is necessary to find out whether nuggets that weigh more than 50-100 grams were found in this area. If nuggets larger than 50 g have not previously been found in the selected region, then there is no point in looking for them there.
Information about nuggets can be obtained from geologists who have been working in the area for a long time.
Most often, nugget placers form nodes in which there are several placer deposits. Large nuggets indicate that the place is “nugget-like”. Consequently, there are several placers with large gold. It is unlikely that all the nuggets were found during mining.
Some nuggets definitely remain, because the quality of placer mining is usually low.
Places to look
There are several options for searching for gold nuggets:
- search in technogenic placers
- search in new undeveloped areas
- search for nuggets in bedrock.
Searching for gold in technogenic placers is calm and reliable, but significant production here is unlikely. Based on the experience of seekers, searching for nuggets in technogenic placers yields approximately 20 g of gold per day from one metal detector. There is a chance of finding a nugget weighing a couple of kilograms, but at the same time, large nuggets are extremely rare. Searching for gold in new, unmined areas is a risky endeavor.
In this case, there are no guarantees that you will find anything. At the same time, there is a possibility of finding a “nugget nest” containing a couple of kilograms, or maybe tens of kilograms of gold. It is also worth noting that there are a large number of objects to search for. There are a colossal number of small unexplored streams in gold-bearing areas.
You can look for nuggets in bedrock only in cases where you have reliable information about rich large gold. The largest nugget in the world about which reliable information has been preserved was discovered in Australia - the “Holterman Plate”. It weighed 285 kg including quartz; it contained 83.3 kg of pure gold. The nugget was crushed and sold.
The largest gold nugget in Russia was discovered in the Urals; it is called the “Big Triangle” for its shape and weighs 36.2 kg. This copy is still in the Diamond Fund of Russia today.
Source: http://mail.mining-enc.ru/clauses/facts/zolotye-samorodki/
13 largest gold nuggets
A gold nugget is a naturally formed piece of precious metal. Its shape and size can be varied. Often gold nuggets have a small mass and are found in large deposits. However, there are cases when gold miners found huge blocks of metal whose weight exceeded 5 kilograms. The article presents the largest gold nuggets in the history of mankind.
Mephistopheles
“Mephistopheles” is an unusual nugget weighing 20.2 grams, stored in the collection of the Diamond State Fund of Russia. It was found by gold miners in one of the mines in Chukotka in mid-1944.
The piece of gold got its name due to its unusual shape, reminiscent of the profile of the literary character in the book “The Tale of Doctor Faustus,” Mephistopheles.
It was initially assumed that the nugget had undergone pre-treatment before entering the museum, but long-term research showed that its shape was natural and not artificial.
Golden heart
The nugget was found in Alaska by miner Nick Martinex from California. The heart-shaped piece of gold weighs 2.55 kilograms (90 ounces). "Heart of Gold" originally looked like a rock covered in a crust of crystals and minerals.
When Martinex accidentally hit it with a pickaxe, the shell split open, revealing some of the gold ore. The nugget was carefully removed from the soil, peeled, and then sold to the American Mint.
The man who discovered the "Golden Heart" says he is proud of his find and was very worried that the piece of precious metal would not break when it was cleaned with a chisel.
Since man learned to extract gold from the bowels of the planet, over 200,000 tons of pure precious metal have been extracted. If you melt it down, you will get an equilateral cube the height of an eight-story building.
bunny ears
In the Urals, near the small settlement of Leninsk, one of the largest gold mines in Russia, discovered under Alexander I, operated for many years. At the beginning of 1935, when the gold mine was preparing to close, a lonely prospector Pyotr Simonov accidentally discovered a piece of gold in the ground, the weight of which exceeded 3.3 kilograms. But the nugget was considered unique not because of its mass, but because of its shape. It resembled a hare's head with long ears.
14 most expensive Mercedes-Benz
According to the laws of that time, such a large piece of gold could not remain the property of Simonov and he had to give it to the state. The nugget was placed in the royal treasury, from where it later ended up in the National Museum of Mineral Resources of Russia. The replica of “Hare Ears” is kept in the local history museum of the Chelyabinsk region.
Camel
“Camel” is an unusual gold nugget, the shape of which resembles the outline of the body of the animal of the same name. It was found by Russian miners in the depths of a mine in Kolyma in 1947. The weight of the piece of precious metal was 9,300 grams. It was not melted down, but transferred to the collection of the Diamond State Fund, where it became one of the main exhibits. All visitors to the annual exhibition can look at the rare and unique nugget.
Horse head
In 1936, a large gold nugget of a strange shape, reminiscent of a horse's head, was found in one of the Ural mines. The elongated piece of precious metal weighed 13,700 grams. It was transferred to the collection of the Diamond State Fund of Russia.
It is located next to another uniquely shaped “Dolphin” nugget. This piece of gold was discovered on the banks of the Lena in one of the largest gold deposits, Bodaibo. “Dolphin” is slightly inferior to “Horse Head” in weight. Its weight is 10,040 grams.
Royal gem
The "Iron Jewel" or "Royal Jewel" nugget is a single crystalline gold. It was discovered in a piece of quartz rock in 1992 at mines owned by the Sonora Mining Company.
To avoid damaging the gold ore, the quartz shell was removed using hydrofluoric acid. The mass of the piece of precious metal was 16,400 grams. The nugget was donated to the Ironstone Vineyards Museum, which is located in the center of California.
It has become a symbol of the state, which became famous throughout the world for the “gold rush” of the 19th century.
Normandy Nugget
Another name for the nugget is “Solid Normandy”. It was found in 1995 by miners working at a mine near the town of Calgourie (Australia). According to the data recorded in their diaries, the mass of a single piece of gold was 25.5 kilograms. After being melted down, it lost about 20% of its weight. The nugget was sold to the management of Newmont Gold Corporation. The gold bar, obtained after melting down a block of precious metal, is in the private collection of the Perth Mint.
29 most expensive postage stamps in the world
Hand of Faith
A large piece of gold ore was found in early 1980 in the state of Kingover (Australia) using a metal detector. Its owner was the owner of a private gold mining enterprise, Kevin Hillier. The Hand of Faith weighed 27.6 kilograms and contained 870 ounces of pure gold.
The nugget did not stay long in Kevin Hillier's collection. Soon he received an offer to sell it to the director of a famous gambling establishment in Las Vegas. The cost of the transaction remained secret. Today you can see the “Hand of Faith” in the museum located on East Fremont Street in the old Las Vegas area.
In Japan, a very popular show involves pulling a 12-kilogram gold bar through a small hole with your hands. The winner receives it as a reward.
Big triangle
The largest gold nugget found in Russia in 1842. It was dug up by Nikifor Syutkin, an employee of the Ural gold mining company, at a depth of 3.5 meters. The weight of the block of precious metal was 36,200 grams, of which 91% was pure gold.
The nugget was named “Big Triangle” because of the shape of the ore piece. From the moment the block is extracted, it is considered the property of the Russian Empire.
It was placed in the collection of the Diamond State Fund next to large precious stones and the largest platinum nuggets found in the country.
Pepita Kanaa
A piece of gold weighing 60.5 kilograms was found in Brazil in 1983 by a miner with many years of experience, Julio Filo. When extracting a nugget from the depths of the Serada-Palada mine, it was accidentally split into two unequal parts. The ore was bought by a coin minting company.
A huge coin was smelted from it, which was called Pepita Kanaa. The weight of the product was 52 kilograms. 8.5 kg of impurities were sifted out during the process of melting down a piece of gold. The coin was transferred to the monetary museum of the State Bank of Brazil, where it remains to this day as the main exhibit.
Anyone can look at this masterpiece of the mint.
20 cheapest cities in the world to live in
Nugget Henry Share
Despite the fact that the “gold rush” came to an end a long time ago, gold miners do not stop digging in the earth in search of precious ore. In 2018, Australian miner Henry Dole decided to start excavations near the town of Kambalda. In September, luck smiled on him. In one of the walls of a nickel mine, he discovered a rich deposit of gold.
After the explosion, the floor of the adit was strewn with pieces of precious metal, the largest of which weighed 90 kilograms. Another nugget had a mass of 65,200 grams. After melting it down, a 45-kilogram ingot was obtained. It is unknown where the nuggets found by Dole went, but in the place where the lone miner was excavating, a mine was built for the extraction of minerals.
Welcome Stranger
“The Welcome Stranger” is one of the largest gold nuggets found in Australia by prospectors John and Richard in one of the private mining mines. The weight of a piece of precious metal is almost 70 kilograms.
The mass of the nugget was so large that there were no scales in the village to weigh it and determine the exact weight. A piece of ore was divided into several parts and sent to England.
There it was melted down into the largest bar of gold and placed in a public bank in London.
Holtermann plate
The “Holtermann Plate” is the largest gold nugget on the planet, which was extracted from the depths of the Earth in the fall of 1872. Gold miner Holterman and his colleague Hugo Beyens found a piece of gold weighing 235 kilograms. After melting the nugget, it turned out that it contained only 83 kilograms of pure gold ore.
The rest of the piece consisted of quartz, iron and other impurities. However, despite this, the “Holterman Plate” is recognized as the largest gold nugget included in the Guinness Book of Records. Unfortunately, the piece of precious metal has not survived to this day.
All information about him was obtained by scientists from entries in the personal diary of Hugo Beyens.
to the point
Worth sharing!
Source: https://udipedia.net/samye-bolshie-samorodki-zolota-v-mire/
Gold Nugget: Review of the 5 Largest Gold Nuggets in the World
Trade in nuggets has long gained popularity in developed countries. Thus, they are actively traded in the UAE, individual African countries, and the USA. A common purpose for purchasing such products is interior decoration. Gold blocks fit effectively into the luxurious furnishings of rich people's homes. However, nuggets are of greatest value as investment objects.
Rare pieces are the subject of competition between renowned collectors. They are ready to pay any money to acquire them.
Geologists also benefit from such profitable finds. With the help of their detailed examination, specialists are able to identify and predict gold deposits at the local level.
What is a gold nugget?
Gold nuggets are large pieces of native metals. Experts have not yet come to a consensus on which piece of gold should be called a nugget.
Some professionals call for ingots weighing more than 1 kg to be called nuggets, while others are inclined to think that a piece measuring about 4 mm rightfully deserves such a name if nature has endowed it with a unique shape and bright shine.
It was the nuggets found that became the beginning of people’s acquaintance with precious metals. They marked the beginning of the history of using gold as a material for making jewelry and other items.
The cost of nuggets is determined by their size. The larger the piece, the more expensive the price will be. Thus, the average cost of Australian nuggets ranges from $18 per gram if it is less than 6 grams, and $30 per gram for larger specimens (from 8 to 16 grams).
When determining the value of a nugget, important importance is given to such a factor as its shape. The original version made of pure gold costs several times more than a rolled copy mined from placers. Therefore, the search for such finds is justified.
Gold mining often brings good luck in the form of nuggets found. If we compare gold with other metals, then its concentration in the soil is much less than the same iron, copper, lead and others. However, scientists have found that the noble metal is also present in plants and living organisms.
1. “Holterman Plate”
The largest gold nugget in the world was discovered in 1872 in Australia. The deposit of this “giant” was the Hill End mine. The length of the find was 144 centimeters, width – 66 centimeters, thickness – 10 centimeters. The nugget was given the name “Holterman Plate”. Its mass was 285 kg, of which pure gold was about 83.3 kg. This piece of gold was used to be melted down and made into jewelry.
Nugget "Holterman Plate"
2. "Welcome Stranger"
The Welcome Stranger is the second largest gold nugget after the Holtermann Slab, which weighed 70.9 kg. It was also found in Australia and was melted down.
Gold Nugget "Welcome Stranger"
3. "Big Triangle"
“Big Triangle” - a piece of gold weighing 36 kg was found on October 8, 1942 in the Southern Urals in the Miass region. According to experts, in 1842 its cost was 28,146 rubles. This copy has survived to this day, but its price has become much higher. Today it is stored in the Diamond Fund of the Russian Federation.
Russia is the owner of the richest collection of nuggets in the world. The exhibition, held in Moscow in 1967, included at least a hundred finds, the total weight of which was more than 200 kg. Such nuggets as “Hare Ears” (3.34 kg), “Camel” (9.3 kg), “Horse Head” (14 kg) became the largest specimens.
The Mephistopheles nugget is of greatest interest among visitors to the Diamond Fund . Its light weight of 20.25 grams is compensated by its unique appearance, reminiscent of the profile of an evil spirit in Renaissance mythology. Disputes about its formation subsided several years after the unique discovery. Some experts believed that nature was unable to create such an image.
However, many studies have shown the absence of artificial processing of this ingot.
"Heart of Gold" is another large nugget found in Alaska. It became the fifth largest among all the ingots found in the state of Alaska. The initial impression of the find was disappointing. It looked more like a piece of black galli, because it was covered with a crust of minerals.
It is important to know that mining native gold without special permission is prohibited by law. All such operations are criminally punishable. If gold was found by chance, it is considered a “find”, which must be given to the state, receiving 20% of its value minus income tax.
Legal ownership only applies to bank and jewelry gold. It is also allowed to buy it, give it as a gift and perform other legal transactions with it.
Source: http://VseoZolote.ru/interesno/samyj-bolshoj-samorodok-zolota-v-mire.html
