Mullock Jones
A metal detectorist in England found what might be the biggest gold nugget ever found in the country, worth an estimated £30,000 or around $38,000.
Richard Brock unearthed the gold nugget, which weighs 64.8 grams, in England's Shropshire Hills — despite turning up to the search late and using faulty equipment.
It was the latest spectacular find discovered in recent years by the growing community of metal detectorists attracted to the hobby.
Brock, who had traveled three and a half hours from his home to join the organized expedition last May, resorted to using an older faulty machine after his detecting kit failed to work properly.
However, within minutes of setting up his equipment, he uncovered the large golden nugget, which has been nicknamed "Hiro's Nugget."
"I actually arrived about an hour late, thinking I'd missed the action," Brock said, per a press release from auction company Mullock Jones.
Developing technology has fueled interest in metal detecting, with more sophisticated metal detectors and listening devices, GPS-aided apps for tracking routes and marking finds, and YouTube channels dedicated to the pursuit.
But as Brock proved, sometimes luck is more important than high-tech equipment.
"Everyone there had all this up-to-date kit and I bowled up with three old machines, and one of them packed in. It just goes to show that it doesn't really matter what equipment you use, if you are walking over the find and are alert enough to what might be lurking underneath the soil, that makes all the difference," he said.
His nugget has an estimated worth of between £30,000, or $38,000, and £40,000, or $50,700, according to Mullock Jones, which is handling the sale.
Brock believes it is the biggest to be found on English soil, as the previous largest find weighed 54 grams, The Guardian reported.
Jose Luque Olmedo / Getty Images
Amateur metal detectorists have been active for decades, driven by a hope to find valuable treasures or historical artifacts.
But the hobby has been growing in popularity in recent years, with one metal detector maker, Minelab reporting in 2020 that it had sold 30% more than the previous year, which had increased by 18% the year before.
The most expensive metal detector can cost $15,000, but starter models are available for a few hundred dollars.
The pastime even inspired a hit comic series in the UK called "Detectorists."
While the excitement of finding treasure is a principal motivation for metal detectorists, enthusiasts also talk about the pleasure of connecting with the past and escaping the grind of modern life.
"You can feel the centuries of people before you and you're just here for your amount of time, then you're gone. It's quite grounding," Simon Beresford, who discovered the hobby during the Covid lockdowns, told Time Out magazine in February.
While Brock celebrates his gold nugget find in England, it pales compared to one of the greatest discoveries with a metal detector.
In 1989, a man purchased an entry-level detector at Radio Shack in Mexico. He started searching the Sonoran desert, which straddles the US border, in an area rumored to contain gold.
His perseverance eventually paid off when his detector beeped one day, and he dug up what became known as the "Boot of Cortez"— the biggest gold nugget ever found in the Western Hemisphere. Shaped like a boot, it was 10¾ inches high by 7¼ inches wide and weighed more than 26 pounds of solid gold.
