Almost gave up - and then found a strange rock that could make him rich

A gold prospector in Australia almost ignored a weak signal on his metal detector, dug anyway and found a gold nugget the size of a potato about ten centimetres deep, near the town of Tibooburra in New South Wales. The nugget weighs 1.218 kilograms, of which about 940 grams is gold, and its value is estimated at 150,000 to 160,000 Australian dollars. The finder hopes to sell it to a collector for up to 200,000 Australian dollars.

A veteran gold prospector, who asked to remain anonymous, almost walked on after getting a weak signal on his metal detector in the Australian desert. He decided to dig anyway, and about ten centimetres below the reddish earth, near the town of Tibooburra in New South Wales, he found a gold nugget the size of a potato. The discovery was made in mid-October on the Mount Stuart farm, a remote desert area in north-western Australia. The man told the ABC network that the initial signal was surprisingly weak relative to the size of the find, but at a depth of about ten centimetres the detector already "screamed". Testing showed the nugget weighs 1.218 kilograms, of which about 940 grams is gold, and it is about eight to nine centimetres long. Its odd shape earned it the nickname "the Tibooburra potato". According to the gold price at the time the reports were published, the metal in the nugget is estimated at 150,000 to 160,000 Australian dollars (about 326,000 to 347,000 shekels). The finder plans to offer the nugget to a private collector and estimates he will get up to 200,000 Australian dollars (about 434,000 shekels) for it, but this is only an estimate. Greg Spangler, owner of a gold-prospecting equipment shop in Broken Hill, told ABC that in more than 20 years of work he has come across only one other case of a nugget weighing over a kilogram. According to him, most prospectors find gold flakes or small nuggets of a few tens of grams. "There aren't many people in the 'kilo club'," he said. The area has been known to gold prospectors for more than 130 years, since the Tibooburra gold rush at the end of the 19th century. In recent years there has been renewed interest, partly because of the surge in gold prices: according to data published in Australia, the price reached a record of almost 8,000 Australian dollars an ounce in January this year, before falling to about 5,700 Australian dollars at the time of the report. Gold prospecting is currently banned on public land around Tibooburra while the authorities settle land-rights issues of the Indigenous population, while private farms allow prospecting for a fee.