A buzz of excitement swept through the historic gold mining state of California, US, at the end of October, when a recently discovered 75 oz gold nugget was put on show and sold for about $400 000.

According to the San Francisco Chronicle, the rare clump of gold, which has been christened the Butte Nugget, having been found in a rugged area of Butte County, in northern California, was discovered in July but details relating to the lucky metal-detector-bearing prospector and the exact location of the discovery are being kept secret to prevent scammers and treasure seekers from taking advantage.

Measuring 17.5 cm × 10 cm and weighing a little over 2.5 kg, the Butte Nugget is believed to be the largest nugget discovered in the original Gold Rush country in modern times.

The nugget was put on display on October 23 at the yearly San Francisco Fall Antiques Show, the longest-running and most prestigious on America’s West Coast, whose theme this year was, most appropriately, The Rush of Gold, in homage to the 1849 gold rush.

However, after being on display for just 24 hours, the nugget was sold to what has been described as a “prominent Bay Area collector”, who specialises in historical items, for an undisclosed amount – believed to be in the region of $400 000.

Interestingly, if melted down as ordinary gold, the nugget would only be worth about $85 000, but, given the rarity of large nuggets, as well as its connection to California’s historic Gold Country, it is hardly surprising that such an inflated price was paid.

While the Butte may be considered the largest nugget discovered in modern times, at least in California, its size pales in comparison to the whopper nuggets discovered during the Gold Rush era. In fact, the largest nugget ever discovered, the Welcome Stranger, was an astonishing 30 times bigger than the Butte nugget.

The Welcome Stranger was discovered by a Cornishman by the name of John Deason and his friend, Richard Oates, towards the end of the Australian gold rush, in 1869. The story is told that it was while resting in the shade of a tree and absent-mindedly digging at the ground near Mount Moliagul, in Victoria, that the two men discovered the enormous nugget barely 3 cm below the surface. The nugget weighed a gross 2 520 oz, equivalent to 173 kg, and returned 2 284 oz when discarded of impurities.

Deason subsequently sold the nugget to a branch of the London Chartered Bank in Dunolly for the princely sum of £9 436. It is estimated that, today, the Welcome Stranger would have been worth well over $3-million.

Unfortunately, the Victorians were scarcely interested in the inherent worth of the gold in its natural nugget form. Thus, the Welcome Stranger was soon melted down into ingots.

Until the discovery of the Welcome Stranger, the title of ‘largest nugget’ belonged to the similarly named Welcome Nugget, which was also discovered in the richly auriferous region of Victoria, Australia. The dazzling lump of gold, weighing 2 217 oz, was discovered by 22 Cornish miners at the Red Hill Mining Company site, in Ballarat, Victoria, in 1858. It was originally sold for £10 500 and found a home in Melbourne for a few months before it was resold to the London-based Royal Mint in 1859 and melted down into gold sovereigns.

The largest nugget ever discovered in California weighed 1 593 oz, a size 20 times greater than that of the Butte Nugget. It was discovered on Sierra Buttes, a dominant peak in the northern Sierra Nevada mountains, by a small group of die-hard gold diggers in August 1869. It, too, was sold to a San Francisco investor for some $13 500. However, like many of the early nugget discoveries, it was eventually melted down into ingots.

Fortunately, today, we have more appreciation for the rarity and beauty of gold nuggets and are more inclined to celebrate such geological treasures rather than melt them down into ingots or coins.

Take, for instance, the Canaã Nugget, also known as the Pepita Canaã, which is understood to be the largest nugget discovered in the modern era and is on public display. Weighing a substantial 973.1 oz, the nugget was discovered in September 1983 by miners working in the Serra Pelada mine, in the state of Para, Brazil.

If the mine’s excavation report is to be believed, the Canaã could have formed part of a much larger nugget, allegedly weighing over 5 000 oz. However, the report indicates that the much larger nugget either broke during the extraction or crushing of the ore. (Interestingly, this story is not dissimilar to that of the Cullinan Diamond, as there is a theory that the gem was actually the smaller part of a much larger stone. However, that fantastic legend is a story for another day.)

The Canaã is on display at the Banco Central Museum, in Brazil, along with the second- and third-largest nuggets in existence, weighing 1 506 oz and 1393 oz respectively. These were also found in the Serra Pelada region.