World Stamp Today:
FEBRUARY 26, 2019
The Welcome Stranger Discovered 1869 stamp, designed by John White of Australia Post Design Studio was released on February 26, 2019.
The stamp highlights the discovery of the largest alluvial gold nugget ever found.
It was in the middle of the 19th century when the Victorian gold rush attracted many people from all over the world who wanted to make a fortune.
On February 5, 1869, Cornish miners John Deason and Richard Oates struck gold near the town of Moliagul with their discovery of a massive nugget known as the Welcome Stranger.
Measuring approximately 61 centimetres by 31 centimetres, the nugget lay only three centimetres below the surface, near the base of a tree in Bulldog Gully goldfields.
It had a gross weight of over 100 kilograms and after trimming was taken by spring cart to the London Chartered Bank in nearby Dunolly, where it had to be broken on an anvil to fit on the bank’s scales.
The smelted nugget yielded 2,284 troy ounces (71 kilograms) of gold, for which the bank paid Deason and Oats £9,583 (today’s value would be nearly $4 million). Converted into ingots, the gold was brought to Melbourne, then loaded on the Reigate steamship for the voyage to the Bank of England.
An obelisk was erected near the spot in 1897 that commemorated the discovery of the Welcome Stranger.
Replicas of the nugget are found at Museum Victoria, Melbourne and the Natural History Museum, London.
(Concept and research: Richard Allan Uy) All rights reserved
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