The two friends, from Western Australia, had been prospecting for decades. But their luck struck twice when they uncovered this whopping haul recently.
A pair of “good mates” in the country’s west are reportedly now more than $160,000 richer after unearthing multiple large gold nuggets during a single prospecting mission.
James Allison, Amalgamated Prospectors and Leaseholders Association of Western Australia’s president, said the two men were trying their luck at Sandstone, a small town some 400km north-west of Kalgoorlie-Boulder, when they uncovered serious treasure recently.
Allison told the Kalgoorlie Miner the two men had been prospecting for decades, but at the end of May, they came across a one-ounce nugget worth more than $5,000. Later that same day, their luck struck again in a big way when their detector picked up a second very promising sound.
It prompted the men to dig up another piece buried at about 250mm deep and weighing 895 grams, which at today’s values puts it at a whopping $161,000, based on the Perth Mint spot price as of June. Allison said the men celebrated over a beer later that evening and continued to prospect the following day, with the incredible find making front page news on Wednesday.
Is there still more gold to be found by amateurs in Australia?
It’s certainly not the first time dedicated Aussies have hit the jackpot prospecting in the outback lately.
Tyler Mahoney, also from Kalgoorlie in WA, is a fourth-generation gold prospector. She sold a mammoth nugget for a cool $9,500 back in January 2024. Tyler, who starred in the reality series Gold Rush, told Yahoo that most of the time it’s the “small pieces of gold” she finds that end up paying her wages.
Tyler explained that the state’s long history of gold mining dates back to the 1880s, with the first gold rush sparked by the discovery of the “Golden Mile” at Kalgoorlie in the 1890s.
Sizeable nuggets are “getting harder and harder” to find, she said, meaning that it’s exceptionally “lucky” to uncover such large treasures.
Because of this, natural gold nuggets — called alluvial gold, which have broken away from their original source — can sell for about 30 per cent more than refined gold like bars, coins, or ingots. That’s because they’re rarer and more sought-after by collectors, so they come with a higher price tag.
And it’s not just those in WA who have recently uncovered gold. Last year, Angus James found $20,000 worth of gold in a single day in Victoria. Angus insists working full-time with his metal detector is bringing in more than the average wage.
He said there is still a lot of valuable metal waiting to be discovered. So much remains that he’s more than happy to share some very specific tips on how to find it.
“The Golden Triangle in Victoria is one of the best places to go looking for gold. So, Inglewood, Bendigo, Ballarat have all got places worth searching,” he told Yahoo last year.
