Today we're going to talk about one of the biggest alluvial gold nuggets ever found, which is somehow often overlooked today.
We hear about Australia's great nuggets - the Welcome Stranger, the Welcome, the Hand of Faith, but there was a nugget which was about twice the size of the Hand of Faith which rarely gets a mention today.
The incredible Blanche Barkly nugget was discovered in Kingower in 1857, and at that time was the largest gold nugget ever discovered, weighing in at a whopping 1,743 ounces! To this day it remains Australia's third largest, after the Welcome Stranger from Moliagul, and the Welcome from Ballarat.
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The Insanely Rich Kingower Goldfield - • The Insanely Rich KING...
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Drawing of Blanche Barkly nugget - Melbourne Punch, 3rd December 1857. Source: Trove
Historical images - State Library Victoria and National Library Australia
Newspaper articles - Trove
Mining model - Carl Nordstrom, 1850s. Museums Victoria.
Gold nugget lists - website and graphic - Wikipedia and Australian Geographic.
The Hand of Faith Nugget, image source: Wikimedia
Welcome Nugget Image source: Sovereign Hill
3 май 2023
