Welcome Stranger

Two prospectors found the Welcome Stranger nugget in Victoria, Australia, in 1869. Reported weights range from about 66 kg to more than 70 kg, and it was broken up and melted down for its gold.

Quoted weights differ between sources, depending on whether quartz is included, so the figure is approximate.

Context

Museums Victoria records that John Deason and Richard Oates found the nugget on 5 February 1869 at Bulldog Gully, near Moliagul in central Victoria. It lay only a few centimetres below the surface, beneath the roots of a tree.

The nugget was too big for the local bank's scales, so it was broken up on an anvil in nearby Dunolly. Because of this, weights quoted in different sources vary. Museums Victoria describes it as around 66 kg, while other accounts give a gross figure closer to 70 kg or more, depending on whether adhering quartz is included, so treat the figure as approximate.

At the time it was valued at about 10,000 pounds. It remains recognized as the largest alluvial gold nugget on record, and because it was not preserved intact, no original specimen survives for modern weighing. The find became a symbol of the Victorian gold rushes.

Gold nugget records are hard to compare, since later finds were smaller and some large masses were found as quartz-rich lumps, so the 1869 find is generally treated as the largest single mass of alluvial gold documented.