Biggest Gold Nuggets : National Treasures On Display?

8 out of 10 of the largest Gold Nuggets ever found were here in Australia. To me that makes Australia quite unique and to my way of thinking these giant Gold Nuggets should be National Treasures. But in typical Australian fashion we don’t seem to care much about the uniqueness of our land and many of these huge Gold Nuggets have been melted down and sold off over the years.

When I toured the Montreal Goldfields recently it got me thinking about these National Treasures so I started to do a bit of digging (metaphorically, of course) to find out where these things have ended up. Maybe as a self-confessed Gold Bug I am biased, but they would make great tourist attractions and certainly I would like to see them on display somewhere.

The biggest nugget ever found was the Welcome Stranger (3,523 oz) and was sold to the London Chartered Bank of Australia and melted. The second biggest was called The Welcome (2,217 oz) and it was also melted down by the Royal Mint and turned into Sovereigns. Please excuse me while I wipe away a tear….

We have to get down to number #3 which is The Hand of Faith (875 oz) to find a surviving nugget. It was sold to the Gold Nugget Casino in Las Vegas Nevada, USA. It is currently on display in the casino lobby on East Freemont Street. I think I have actually seen it in real life though I was probably drunk at the time so it might have just been a wonderful dream.

Beyond that we go to #5 on the list with the Normandy Nugget (820 oz) which was found more recently in 1995, but it is the largest Gold Nugget on display IN Australia. It was purchased by Newmont Gold Corporation (an American company) but is on display in the Museum of the Perth Mint based on a long term agreement. So, we don’t own it but at least we can look at it….

The other really interesting Australian nugget is the Latrobe Nugget (717 grams) because it is one of the largest clusters of cubic gold in the world. It survives on display at the Natural History Museum in London. While it might not be one of the biggest by weight it is certainly one of the big ones by uniqueness so I would still consider it a National Treasure.

So all up, of all of these National Treasures they’ve either been sold off or melted. Only 1 is actually on display in Australia and we don’t even own it. I guess that I should not be surprised by all this, but with a country as young as ours compared to others around the world it is disappointing that we don’t even recognise our uniqueness and cherish our own National Treasures.