Australian Man Literally Strikes Gold With Six-Pound Solid Gold Nugget Find Worth $135K [Video]

One Australian man with a metal detector recently struck it big. He came across a truly massive gold nugget, one big enough to net him a payday in the six-figure range. All he had to do was quit smoking.

Kerang, Victoria, resident Mick Brown was really letting his nicotine yearnings get to him, and his foul mood was bringing everyone else down, according to Science Alert. Brown decided to take his negative energy outside, where he maybe couldn’t smoke, but he could put it to good use. The treasure hunter set to scanning the bush in the neighboring town of Wedderburn, where he stumbled upon a payday that probably makes the cigarette cravings more than worth it.

Just seven inches under the soil, Brown found a massive nugget of solid gold. How massive? Brown’s find weighs in at 2.7 kilograms, or just under six pounds of gold.

The nugget isn’t the biggest gold find in Australia’s history. That honor belongs to the “Pride of Australia,” according to 9News. That nugget – if one can even call it a nugget – was discovered in 1981 in the same town, and it weighed in at 16 pounds.

In 2013, yet another metal detector-wielding Australian treasure hunter unearthed a 12-pound gold nugget, said to be worth $300,000.

Brown probably isn’t too disappointed with his find, though. It’s estimated that his solid gold find could be worth around $135,000. He’s not willing to part with it at that price, though. Brown says he wants to sell the massive gold discovery for nothing less than $200,000.

While finds of this magnitude are pretty rare, Brown’s story is sure to encourage even more hunters to take to the wilds with metal detectors at the ready, all hoping to find yet another big score. Brown isn’t going to let any potential competition in on the exact location where he found the massive gold nugget, as the fact that there have been two massive finds in the area could mean even more gold lying nearby, just under the surface.

A set of metal detecting gear and a bit of luck has gotten more than a few people into the headlines as of late. In Britain, one man late last year unearthed a trove of 22,000 4th century Roman coins that experts believed to be worth tens of thousands of pounds. In 2012, yet another amateur treasure hunter unearthed a trove of Roman-era coins. Those coins, forged from gold, were said to be worth about $160,000.

Despite the scale of his find, Brown was iffy on just how much he thinks he’ll be able to enjoy the payday the massive gold nugget will bring him.

“You know what it’s like when you’re married with four daughters,” Brown said, “you don’t get to see much of that money.”

[Lead image via Science Alert]