28 March 2023 , 15:05
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A man has struck gold after unearthing a golden nugget worth a whopping £130,000.
The anonymous man from Australia uncovered the 2.6kg ball of gold using nothing more than a budget metal detector.
The gold was valued by Darren Kamp, a local fold evaluator from Licky Strike God, whose jaw dropped when the expensive nugget was placed in his hands.
He said: "He pulled this rock out of his backpack and as he dropped it in my hand he said, ‘Do you think there’s £5,420( $AUD10,000) worth in it’?”
“As soon as it hit my hand I said, ‘Try £54,200 ($AUD100,000)’.”
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The nugget was discovered in Victoria’s ‘golden triangle’ between Bendigo, Ballarat, and St Arnaud.
It is a very popular area among many gold hunters.
The man used nothing more than a budget metal detector (9 News)The price of gold has also risen with one ounce (28.34 grams) of gold worth as much as £1,618 ($AUD2,984) — up from around £1,410 ($AUD2,600) at this time last year.
Five years ago, the price of an ounce of gold was only £920 ($AUD1,700).
The anonymous man told Mr Kamp that his wife would be happy, as he had only brought in half the rock, leaving the other half at home.
“It’s one of those life-changing pieces,” Mr Kamp said.
“When he dropped it into my hand my jaw dropped with it.”
The anonymous man told Mr Kamp that his wife would be happy, as he had only brought in half the rock (9 News)Mr Kamp first started out prospecting over four decades ago before moving into gold trading and valuations with his wife, Leanne.
He said he has never seen such an astonishing find, especially with just a budget detector
"It's just such an incredible find," Mr Kamp explained.
'My daughter called my girlfriend a gold digger so I uninvited her from my BBQ'
“You see big specimens found by big companies underground … but to find it with a detector, it’s the biggest one I’ve seen.”
The Geological Survey of Victorian says as much as 75 million ounces of gold remains in the ground.
Mr Kamp said he has never seen such an astonishing find, especially with just a budget detector (9 News)This is in contrast to the 80 million ounces of gold mined from the area 170 years ago during Australia’s gold rush.
Despite the stunning find, for most prospectors around the Golden Triangle, finding valuable gold pieces remains "pot luck".
Prospectors and Miners Association of Victoria vice-president, John Garcia, said he regularly finds pieces as big as 7 grams while out fossicking on the same ground the 2.6kg nugget was found on.
That is £400 ($AUD737) at today's gold prices.
Today a 72kg nugget could fetch about £3.7 Million (9 News)John said: "Quite a fair bit of gold is being found at the moment."
"Let's put it this way, the ground will never run out of gold."
Though the recent discovery of the 4.6kg rock is undoubtedly impressive, it pales in comparison to the Welcome Stranger.
That was a 72kg gold nugget found in 1869 near Moliagul, located just over 120 miles from Melbourne.
Today, such an enormous nugget could fetch about £3.7 Million ($AUD6.8m).