'Mate, I found a good one.'
The massive nug was found about 2 feet below the surface of the ground.
Australian news report. An anonymous amateur prospector in southern Australia has unearthed a huge piece of gold, reportedly worth more than $300,000. The man found the 55kg nugget near Ballarat, Victoria. The prospector passed the gold on to a mining exchange in Ballarat, reportedly saying, 'Mate, I found a good one.'
If sold at market value it would be worth just shy of $300,000, but its extreme rarity would mean it be worth far more, according to Mr Kent. "If you are silly enough to melt it down, it would be worth just under $300,000 on market value but as a nugget at this size and shape, it's worth significantly more than that," he said.
The man was using a state-of-the-art metal detector, which meant he was able to find the gold relatively deep underground in an area which had been searched many times in the past. The man had only made small finds before, he said, but was a "person that really deserved it".
"A finding like this gives people hope. It's my dream to find something like that, and I've been prospecting for more than two decades," the Ballarat Courier quoted him as saying.
"I've got no doubt there will be a lot of people who will be very enthusiastic about the goldfields again, it gives people hope," said Mr Kent.
"There's nothing like digging up money, it's good fun."
Here's a map for any would-be prospectors.
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Raw Video.
The massive nug was found about 2 feet below the surface of the ground.
All text below is from the Youtube page.
This 177 troy ounce gold nugget (5,505 grams - 5.5kgs) was found by a prospector with a hand held metal detector near Ballarat, Victoria, Australia on January 16, 2013.
What a find!!! It was found at a depth of a little over 60 cm (2 ft) with a modern detector with a small coil. The prospector said it sounded like the bonnet of a car through the head phones. It was lying flat (broad side up) and he carefully dug it up. In this video it hasn't been cleaned. It is approximately 220mm long, 140mm wide and has a maximum depth of 45mm.
Ok, this nugget was found with a Minelab GPX5000 super metal detector, with an Advantage Plus 'Sadie' mono eliptical coil, and a Rooster Booster audio enhancer (used with an external speaker).The prospector said he heard the signal, kicked off about 100mm (4 inches) of leaf mulch from the surface, and thought the ground looked in original condition ie it hadn't been dug previously.
It was lying flat in the ground, and was over 60cm (2 feet) deep in the earth/clay/gravels. So this means he and his detector heard it at an incredible depth from the search coil (the disc that is at the end of the hand held detector).
