5. Hand of Faith

The Hand of Faith is a nugget of fine-quality gold that was found by Kevin Hillier using a metal detector near Kingower, Victoria, Australia on 26 September 1980. Weighing 875 troy ounces (27.21 kg, or 72 troy pounds and 11 troy ounces), the gold nugget was only 12 inches below the surface, resting in a vertical position. The announcement of the discovery occurred at a press conference, attended by the Premier of Victoria Dick Hamer, in Melbourne on 8 October 1980. Kovac's Gems & Minerals were appointed agents for the sale of the huge nugget, by the gold nugget finder, Kevin Hillier. It was sold to the Golden Nugget Casino Chain for over a million dollars, and is currently on public display at their property Golden Nugget Casino Hotel, in Lake Charles, Louisiana.

4. Newmont's Normandy Nugget

Normandy Nugget. It was discovered in 1995 in a dry creek bed near Kalgoorlie, Australia. This area is a well know gold bearing region that has produced many large gold nuggets over the years. The Normandy Nugget currently ranks as the 26th largest gold nugget ever unearthed. Unfortunately, most of the largest nuggets ever found in history have been melted for their gold content, resulting in its current ranking as the 2nd largest in existence today, only slightly smaller than the Hand of Faith nugget. It weighs 819 troy ounces, and measures approximately 11 inches by 8 inches. Its melt value alone makes it worth well over 1 million dollars in gold value. Valued as the rare and collectable specimen that it is, it would most likely bring several times that price if sold today.

3. Golden Eagle

In early 1931, Larkinville, near Widgiemooltha, was an alluvial field of hard-won dust. “The area is useless,” a prospector said after six weeks of digging and shaking the dirt. He gave up the search for gold, removed his tools and abandoned the lease on which the Golden Eagle nugget lay buried beneath a road. James Joseph Larcombe was the next man to peg out a claim over the vacant ground. Men digging the land around him had found very little gold. Some of them were in desperate circumstances, almost starving and living only on porridge. James went to work dryblowing the old creek bed. He found some colour (small specks of gold). He almost gave up the claim, but when gold was found on a neighbouring property, he stayed a little longer.

2. Pepita Canaa

The world’s largest surviving gold nugget is the (Canaan Nugget) which was found by miner Júlio de Deus Filho in the Serra Pelada (‘Naked Mountain’) gold mining region of Brazilian state of Pará in 1983. The Pepita Canaã gold nugget has a gross weight of 60.82 kgs and contains 52.33 kgs of gold, or 1682 troy ounces of gold. The “Canaan” gold nugget was purchased by the Banco Central do Brazil in 1984, and is now on display in the “Gold Room” of the central bank’s money museum ) in Brazil’s federal capital Brasilia. Notably, the source nugget from which the Pepita Canaã nugget came was actually larger, but it split into several pieces while being removed from the ground.

1. Welcome Stranger

Nugget weighing in at 2316 oz., found on February 5th, 1869 in Moliagul, Victoria, Australia. It was discovered by John Deason and Richard Oates just 2 inches below the surface near a root of a tree in Bulldog Gully. It measured 2 ft x 1.02 ft in size. Due to the size of the nugget it could not be weighed on any scales at the time and had to be broken down into 3 smaller pieces. It was melted down shortly after finding and only recreations of the nugget made from drawings exist. One replica of the "Welcome Stranger" nugget can be found at the City Museum in Treasury Place, in Melbourne, Victoria. The other replica is owned by descendants of John Deason.

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