“In 1998, a miner found a GOLD NUGGET about as big as a softball in northern Alaska.”

National Geographic 5,000 Awesome Facts

Yes, in 1998 a nugget the size of fist or the size of a softball, or the size of an infant’s head as one site’s comparison, was found in the town of Ruby, Alaska by a gold miner by the name of Barry Clay while he was using a bulldozer to swift the earth. It weighed in at 20.16 lbs, and is said to be not only the biggest nugget in Alaska’s history but the total Western Hemisphere. Supposedly he buried the Gold gem in the beginning until he could figure out what to do with it, which was probably pretty smart. Well, I don’t know. It could’ve been found by another lucky guy doing the same thing he did that day.

Anyway, in 2021 the Alaskan Centennial Nugget went up for auction and sold for $750,000 to the Lead Heritage & Science auction from the individual who had bought it from Barry Clay. The total earnings of this nugget was over 2 million dollars.

Something that size is probably very unlikely to be found in Alaska today, but rumor has it that Anvil Creek in Nome, Alaska delivers some healthy size nuggets.

But who knows what might turn up? The Alaskan Centennial wasn’t discovered until 100 years after the Klondike Gold Rush, so who is to say what could be found in the year 2098?