The largest known piece of gold was discovered in February 1869 in Victoria, Australia.
Miners Richard Oats and John Dyson were lucky enough to find it during a survey. The discovery weighed 72 kg and was 61 cm long.
When the nugget was taken to the bench to be weighed and photographed, it had to be split into several pieces, otherwise it simply wouldn’t fit in the frame. Each of the miners received about 10 thousand pounds, and the gold was melted into bars. According to experts, nowadays the value of such a find would be around £2 million.
Among the nuggets existing today, the first place, with a weight of 60 kg, is occupied by the Pepita Canaa, discovered by the Brazilian Julio de Deus Filho in 1983. The discovery is exhibited in the local museum.
The Hand of Faith nugget is the largest in the “Found with a metal detector” category. It is kept in one of the Las Vegas casinos, which purchased the exhibit for $1 million. It contains 875 troy ounces of the precious metal (one troy ounce = 31.1 grams).
