You are not the first to be perplexed by the mystery of the Hand of Faith. And, with a total of four Golden Nuggets now, and a fifth on the way, the plot has only thickened. Hence, the short and honest answer to your question is, we don't know! At least, not for sure, but that's not for lack of trying.
Here's the story: The Hand of Faith is the second-largest gold nugget ever to be found using a metal detector. It was discovered in 1980 by an Australian named Kevin Hillier who was prospecting behind his family's trailer home in Victoria. The Golden Nugget casino bought the 875-troy-ounce monster shortly afterwards for $1 million Australian ($870,000 US at the time), then reportedly immediately insured it for $5 million, closer to its actual value at the time, before flying it all the way to Las Vegas on a Lear Jet.
And there the Hand of Faith remained in full view, together with some other impressive gold nuggets, until April 2012, when it moved to Atlantic City. The occasion was the grand opening of the new Golden Nugget hotel-casino, which took over the former Trump Marina, and there it remained for some time, in the retail quarter, next to Choc Box. Visitors to the Golden Nugget in downtown Las Vegas, where a Hand of Faith was and is still displayed, have actually been looking at a replica.
However, the current status of the real nugget has proved hard to verify. We couldn't get hold of anyone in-the-know in Atlantic City, but when we spoke to a helpful staffer at the Golden Nugget Biloxi, they were pretty sure that they currently have the real one, located just past the front desk, which arrived for the opening celebrations back in May. If this is correct, it follows the pattern of Atlantic City, and the person with whom we spoke anticipated parting with the original come the fall, when they expected it would be on its way to Louisiana for the debut of the Golden Nugget Lake Charles.
We then called the Golden Nugget in Lauglin, where we spoke to the front desk. The lady we talked to was a new employee, but she said the Hand of Faith they have is "in a pretty small box by the front desk" and she didn't think it was the original. She explained that stories circulate among GN staff, and that no one is quite sure which property has the real one at any time. This was a theory born out by our subsequent call to the original incarnation of the Golden Nugget, downtown, when it was confirmed that they definitely do not have the authentic Hand of Faith right now, but a replica still; they assured us, however, that the real McCoy is currently to be found in ... Laughlin!
Some further investigation outside of the Nuggets' own sites and staff, namely in the direction of our friend and blogger Vital Vegas, turned out to yield the same Biloxi conclusion that our own sleuthing had led us to, in terms of the current whereabouts of the genuine article. His source suggested that the Hand of Faith would be returning to its Vegas home "at the end of the summer," however, while we're still inclined to lean toward it at least making an appearance down South before it returns here, if indeed it ever does.
One final mischievous thought that occurred to us during the course of all this was, what if none of the casinos has the real gold nugget? What with all the smoke and mirrors, and the constant moving and disinformation, the genuine Hand of Faith could have been deftly purloined years ago by some security driver, or janitor, or even by a real magician in a daring feat of sleight of hand, and the deliberate company policy of vagueness and misdirection has hidden this perfect crime ever since! That's just a foolish flight of fancy on our part at the end of a long day, however, with absolutely no basis whatsoever in any fact, or even vague rumor, so pay no heed to our silliness. We just have an over-active imagination, born of watching too many great heist movies.
The image below is of the REAL nugget, wherever it may be...
