Aussie Man Finds Gold Nugget Worth $141,000 After Wife Kicked Him To The Curb For Being A Curmudgeon

A couple in Australia reportedly got in an argument that ended with the wife sending her husband outside to work out his anger, and while kicking rocks in exile he stumbled upon a nugget of gold worth $141,000.

It wasn’t just a completely serendipitous happenstance that brought ol’ Mick Brown to the massive hunk of gold, he’s actually a lifelong ‘prospector’ who uses his metal detector as a way to relieve stress.

Stateside we’ve long been told by celebrities from Louis C.K. to Miley Cyrus that a daily regiment of masturbation is the best way to tackle stress, but seeing as this man is now $141,000 richer from heading out back with his metal detector I think we need to reconsider that whole ‘masturbation as a stress-relieving hobby’ argument.

Yahoo! New Zealand reports:

Australia correspondent Donna Demaio says he’s actually a gold prospector and has been doing it for years… so his wife sent him off to do it.

The lump of gold, which was about 15 centimetres below the surface, set off the detector’s alarm. At first he thought it was less-valuable copper.

“I thought, ‘bugger me, it is, it’s bloody gold,” Brown told Fairfax.

“I just dug it up, 87 ounces of the good stuff.”

He hopes the find, which he has called the “fair dinkum nugget”, will fetch more than the estimated $141,000, and he told Fairfax he hopes to pay off debts and buy his children a spa.

‘Bugger me, it is, it’s bloody gold’ is easily the greatest reaction in history to any man finding a gold nugget worth $141K.

Weighing in at an astounding 2.7kgs, this is easily a life-changing find for this Aussie. It is NOT however among the ranks of the biggest golden nuggets found in Australia.

In my quest to learn more about prospecting and nuggets of gold I stumbled across what is known as ‘The Pride of Australia’, which is actually a pretty shitty name in hindsight because it was stolen and has never been recovered.

From SBS Australia:

This attractive nugget was found at Mosquito Gully near Wedderburn in June 1981. It weighed 256 ounces and is second only in size to the Hand of Faith amongst those nuggets found by metal detector. It was purchased for $250 000 by the State Bank of Victoria as a gift to the people of Victoria for the State’s 150th anniversary in 1985. It was displayed in the State Bank, then in the Museum of Victoria, until it was stolen in a smash and grab raid on its case in August 1991. Its fate is unknown.

To put that in perspective, the golden nugget just discovered by Mick Brown has been weighed at 87-ounces and is worth $141,000 in today’s dollars. Whereas ‘The Pride of Australia’ weighed a ridiculous 256-ounces, or roughly 2.94 times the size of Mick Brown’s find. In today’s dollars that’d be worth roughly $414,540 USD, and that’s all from a hunk of gold that someone found in a goddamn gully!

Needless to say next time bonuses come around I’ll be investing in a metal detector.

[Yahoo! NZ]