Photo courtesy of Facebook and Finders Keepers Gold Prospecting store.
An anonymous gold hunter has discovered a 1.4 kilogram gold nugget near Kalgoorlie, Western Australia. The hobbyist reportedly found the lump of gold in saltbush flats near the town, approximately 18 inches below the surface.
The nugget – weighing 45 troy ounces – is worth £45,132 based on the live spot price, which equates to A$83,125. While there are several such finds each year, the size of this nugget and the rarity of it could mean that the value surpasses $100,000 if the item goes to auction.
Photo courtesy of Facebook and Finders Keepers Gold Prospecting store.
Photos of the gold were put online by Matt Cook – the owner of Kalgoorlie’s Finders Keepers Gold Prospecting store. The anonymous hobbyist is believed to have bought his kit from Cook’s store and returned to the shop to show off his find. Cook posted on the shop’s Facebook page about the exciting find and hinted that this was a payday for the experienced prospector.
The nugget was found in an area just outside Kalgoorlie known as the Golden Mile; a site with sizeable gold reserves that experienced the first major gold rush in 1893. Since then Western Australian gold mining has opened up, with the Goldfields Highway (a staggering 495 miles) cutting southeast to northwest across the state and through the gold mining fields.
