An amateur gold hunter Down Under hit pay dirt in March when he stumbled on a massive nugget worth a cool quarter million.
The finder, who wished to remain anonymous, was scanning Victoria’s “golden triangle” between St Arnaud, Bendigo, and Ballarat when he heard his detector sound.
The man brought the gold specimen to gold expert Darren Kamp, operator of Lucky Strike Gold Prospecting in Newcomb, to have it appraised.
“He came into our shop and was asking some basic questions about pin-pointers and other equipment and he pulled a rock out of his backpack and said, ‘Do you think there would be $10,000 worth of gold in this?’” Kamp told The Epoch Times. “He dropped it into my hand.
“Gold is very, very heavy and the rock was dirty, so although you could see some gold on the outside, the weight of the rock told me there was a hell of a lot of gold on the inside.”
He said, “My hand dropped under the unexpected weight and my wife says that my jaw dropped with it. I said to the guy, ‘Try $100,000!’”
Surprised, the finder told Kamp that this was just half the rock.
“What do you mean?” Kamp said.
The man said, “I have the other half at home.” He had split it in two expecting to find a nugget inside.
The gold-bejeweled quartz rock specimen weighs 10.14 pounds (4,600 grams)—very heavy for its size as it contains 91 ounces (2,580 grams) of the precious yellow metal inside.
After performing specific gravity and water displacement tests to calculate the content, Kamp said it’s worth 245,000 Australian dollars (US$164,000) in today’s value. Meanwhile, gold prices are only on the rise, having hit record highs in Australia last month.
The prospector sold the nugget to Lucky Strike, splitting the proceeds with his two grown children, according to Kamp.
Gold: A Profitable Side Hustle?
The “golden triangle,” famous for its prosperous gold rush during the 1850s, once yielded nuggets known for their purity and size from alluvial soils, streams, or riverbeds.Today, with spiking interest rates and inflation, Lucky Strike has seen a surge in patronage from those hoping to supplement their incomes by hunting for gold.
As for the Victorian detectorist, he used a Minelab Equinox 800 metal detector, a rather inexpensive unit costing AU$1,200—great for hunting coins, Kamp said, but not great for finding gold.
For that reason, Kamp believes there is likely still more gold hidden there that the man couldn’t detect.
“He is intending to go back there with a detector more suited for the purpose to see if we can find more,” Kamp said.
Speaking of specific details about the location, Kamp usually doesn’t ask, as it could cause a rush to the area.
Rather, gold prospecting etiquette calls for restraint from piling in until the prospector is done.
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