Guide · Gold

Gold, explained: the questions people ask

Short answers to the questions people ask about gold, each one sourced and each one leading to the full story. We add a question every time we publish one.

What is on this page?

One question per article: where gold comes from, who found it first, the famous nuggets and the places gold still works today. Each answer is two sentences from the article that owns the question, with its main source below.

The famous nuggets

The Hand of Faith nugget: the 1980 find and its casino sale

No. 104 Knuckle in yellow gold: a small face of fine nugget texture set low on a slim band — No. 104 Knuckle, whose story starts from the Hand of Faith: a render of the 3D file we cast from, not a photo.

A nugget of about 875 troy ounces found near Kingower, Victoria, by Kevin Hillier on September 26, 1980: the largest known to have been found with a metal detector. It was sold in 1981 to the Golden Nugget casino company in Las Vegas. Hand of Faith nugget: the full story.

Sources

Australian Geographic, Australia’s biggest gold nuggets (2016); every other source is in the article.