A man wearing a large backpack walked into a gold prospecting store about an hour south-west of Melbourne in Geelong, Australia. Darren Kamp, the owner of the store who valued and bought the specimen, said it was the biggest he’d seen in his 43-year career.
“I was just gobsmacked… It’s a once in a lifetime find,” he told the BBC.
The man, who wishes to remain anonymous, made the discovery while metal detecting in Victoria’s goldfields, the region at the heart of Australia’s gold rush in the 1800s.
Australia is estimated to have the world’s largest gold reserves and many of the world’s biggest nuggets were found in Australia.
The unique nugget is part of a larger find of several gold-bearing rocks containing 2.6 kilos of gold worth over $163,000 based on current spot price.