Australia’s Golden Triangle may owe its name to its abundance of grain, but since the 1800s it’s been equally fertile ground for gold diggers.
It was recently the site of a unique discovery, a 10 pound piece with 83 ounces of gold inside. It is estimated at over $160,000. The prospector, who found it in late 2022 and wishes to remain anonymous, arrived at the Lucky Strike Gold prospecting store in Geelong, a town southwest of Melbourne, unaware of the value of his loot.
Darren Kamp, who works at Lucky Strike Gold and managed the transaction in December, had never seen a nugget of such size and value.
“I was just stunned,” Kamp told Australian TV show Nine News. “He dropped it in my hand and said, ‘Do you think it’s worth 10,000 Australian dollars ($6,707) in it?’ I looked at it and said, “Try 100,000 Australian dollars ($67,073).”
Darren Kamp, who works at Lucky Strike Gold, holds the gold. Photo courtesy of Lucky Strike Gold.
Kamp’s disbelief doubled when the man told him there was another half he had left at home. “‘Wow,'” Kamp said, the man told him, “‘the wife is going to be happy with this,'” adding that he was looking forward to spending the money on his family. “We are looking for a buyer to give this special nugget a good home,” Lucky Strike Gold told Artnet News via email.
In another twist, the find was made using a Minelab Equinox 800 metal detector, which retails for less than $1,000 and is generally considered a bit of a bargain kit. (In recent years, other amateur metal detectorists have discovered artifacts from medieval coins For viking jewelry For a 16th century pendant with links to Henry VIII.)
Although a discovery of this size is rare, Australia has some of the largest gold reserves in the world; gold deposits in the Ballarat and Bendigo areas of Victoria were the sites of multiple gold rushes in the 1850s. Some of these discoveries have continued to the present day, and in 2020 a pair of gold diggers have found two nuggets worth $250,000 in Victoria’s historic goldfields.
Follow Artnet News on Facebook:
Want to stay one step ahead of the art world? Subscribe to our newsletter to receive breaking news, revealing interviews and incisive reviews that move the conversation forward.
