Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia – British treasure hunters discovered the largest gold nugget ever found in the country. The gold nugget which was later called “hiro's nugget” was reportedly worth 30,000 pounds or around Rp. 658 million. weighing 64.8 grams.

The treasure hunter was named Richard Brock, 67. He said he went on an expedition of three kilometers (km) from his home, in the Somerset area, to farmland in the Shropshire Hills.

The man who claimed to have been metal detecting for 35 years, emphasized that this discovery was the biggest. Later the gold nugget will soon be auctioned.

“I have been metal detecting since 1989 and I decided to take this trip because a previous trip to Australia was canceled during the pandemic,” he said as quoted by WalesonlineMonday (25/3/2024).

“So I drove three and a half hours to Shropshire. I actually arrived about an hour late, thinking I'd missed a number of things. Everyone there had all the latest equipment and I was on three old machines, and one of them packed up there and then ,” he said again.

He said that initially, he only found a few rusty old tent pegs with a spare detector whose screen display was faded. But after 20 minutes of scanning the ground, he found this chunk about five or six inches deep in the ground.

“I couldn't believe it – I was late, only been there a matter of minutes and this treasure – hunting expedition was supposed to last all day,” he said again.

“I couldn't look for anything else because there were landowners, excavation organizers and every other detector around me trying to spot this nugget,” he said.

Wales itself is a country that is famous for being rich in gold. Richard's discovery occurred at a site believed to be an old railway track or road, containing stones possibly dispersed from Wales.

The only previous larger examples in England were found in Wales and Scotland. The “Douglas Nugget” found in Perthshire weighed 85.7 grams while another nugget recovered from Anglesey beach weighed 97.12 grams and the “Reunion Nugget” found in Scotland in 2019 weighed 121.3 grams.

“After doing research, we've only found ones bigger than this on Anglesey, in Wales and Scotland. The last one that was claimed to be bigger in England was 54 grams, but mine was 64.8 grams, so we believe this is the biggest one found on British soil,” he added.

[Gambas:Video CNBC]

(sef/sef)