Youtube clips of Australian guy pulling out huge nuggets in the outback --- Real or Fake?


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This Australian guy has all these videos on youtube that show him pulling out huge nuggets in the outback, you guys think they are real or fake?

Finding a 6 1/2 ounce gold nugget

Finding a 3 3/4 oz gold nugget

5 ounce sunbaking

Solid 3qtr oz

Gold Nuggets 34 ounces

He seems genuine and excited when he finds them so I don't know. It seems kind of ridiculous that he can just walk around in the outback with a detector and pull out huge nuggets.

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Hey Giga,

I would say they are the real deal. Looks like he does the same thing I do, hunt until you find a good sounding target and then film it hoping it was a nugget. If you searching for my username "Nuggethunting" you will see the videos I've posted. However, my nuggets are much smaller than his ... :huh:

Take care,

Rob Allison

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the area rock and landscape sure fits the bill for gold country. Makes a guy want to work the area with a backhoe. Australia is a big place. lots of places are still virgin gold placers, unworked, undiscovered, unmapped, and unclaimed. just waiting for a couple of blokes to stumble onto them.

thanks for the videos!

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I may be wrong--and there are plenty folks on the forum who can correct me--but my understanding of the gold nugget market in Aussie is that it is very different from the US...I have long been under the impression that most Aussie gold is sold for gold weight, not collectors' nugget value...Even in the US when prospectors are selling a bunch of nuggets at once, it pretty much goes for spot or less...To get the really premium price you either make it into jewelry (the very best way, IMO, 2+ x spot) or sell individual "collectible nuggets"..... Just my rambling on on a chilly AZ AM ...(only 95 @ 8AM :lol: ) ...Cheers, Unc

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What a careless idiot with that pick!! A great way to devalue your prize, is to hit it a few times with your pick.:wacko:

What's the big hurry anyways, those nuggets have been sitting there waiting to be unearthed since before mankind. I personally like to savor the moment.

Oh and it's always good practice to drag your machine behind you by the cord. :blink:

Just my thoughts....

Gus-

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What a careless idiot with that pick!! A great way to devalue your prize, is to hit it a few times with your pick.:wacko:

What's the big hurry anyways, those nuggets have been sitting there waiting to be unearthed since before mankind. I personally like to savor the moment.

Oh and it's always good practice to drag your machine behind you by the cord. :blink:

Just my thoughts....

Gus-

Haha, yeah I noticed how he got so excited when finding that 6 ouncer that when he brought the nugget over to show the camera, he forgot he was dragging his detector along the ground. I can't blame him though, if I found something even close to that size I would probably lose all common sense for a minute.

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The video's look real enough. The country looks like Western Australia. Eastern goldfields, maybe Murchison goldfield. I wouldn't get all that excited because picking up nuggets that size is not common. Any prospector will tell you that you can pick up thousands of 1 grammers and under before being lucky enough to find anything over 2-3 oz. Whats interesting is when you listen to them talking you can hear them say they found nothing for the whole trip until that day. He returned to the spot where earlier in the day he found a 1 ouncer. My guess is they have walked over a lot of smaller gold without knowing it but still its great to see nuggets this size still being found. But I will tell you that it would be some real lucky dude who can find one of those every few months because I've only seen a few in 20 years!

@whatsforsupper

Unmapped, undiscovered and unclaimed I don't think so. Everywhere worthwhile is under some form of lease. Exploratory leases cover just about everywhere but many prospectors regard these as open ground. Truth is you still need a miners right and permit to prospect on them in Western Australia. Some other states you need the lease holders written permission. Most don't bother because there's usually nobody there and if the mining companies are drilling they usually turn a blind eye. But there are patches of alluvial undiscovered for sure. You still occasionally hear stories of big ones. I read about one american finding a 2000 oz patch in 2005 I think but thats a really big patch. Most are only a few ounces.

Uncle Ron is right. Most gold is sold at gold price or a little above. Really good looking nuggets can get you a premium. If you got overseas buyers you can also get a good price.

Watching those vids really make me want to dump everything and head out to do it full time again.

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This aint WA this was filmed in western NSW. Didnt C Goulson go to the same general locale a few months ago?

Hey Gigahertz21 I wished you fetched prices like you mentioned for big gold but alas not in oz except maybe selling on ebay to the US.

Lucky L has the best general advice in his last post. "Take the time to learn your local areas and make it happen!" It is good to dream of foreign shores though.

I never get tired of watching gold come out of the ground. Good stuff.

Cheers

Curley

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Hematite: I stand corrected. thanks.

What I like is the story of the guy who discovered the Hand of Faith, now located in the Golden Nugget Hotel in Las Vegas. weighing something like 80 pounds. was a fossicker for 2 years, looked all over the area and region; lived in a trailer in the outback. 2 years down the road, a huge windstorm blew and knocked the trailer off the jacks. In resetting the trailer, one of the jacks was on a big rock that didn't allow trailer setting without moving the rock. the rock? The Hand of Faith (named because it looks like the clasped hands in prayer). Moral of the story, sometimes it pays really big to check out your own backyard first, before moving onto 'greener' pastures.

Giga- I've been there with the pick and the nugget. oh well, probably gave it some 'character'

A of of fossickers from OZ sell their stuff on Ebay for better prices.

related links:

http://www.goldennugget.com/downloads/pressreleases/08-09-02%20Golden%20Nugget%20Laughlin%20welcomes%20Hand%20of%20Faith.pdf

http://www.geocities.com/mrgoldnugget/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hand_of_Faith

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Hematite: I stand corrected. thanks.

What I like is the story of the guy who discovered the Hand of Faith, now located in the Golden Nugget Hotel in Las Vegas. weighing something like 80 pounds. was a fossicker for 2 years, looked all over the area and region; lived in a trailer in the outback. 2 years down the road, a huge windstorm blew and knocked the trailer off the jacks. In resetting the trailer, one of the jacks was on a big rock that didn't allow trailer setting without moving the rock. the rock? The Hand of Faith (named because it looks like the clasped hands in prayer). Moral of the story, sometimes it pays really big to check out your own backyard first, before moving onto 'greener' pastures.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hand_of_Faith

I think you will stood corrected again W4S. That is a very good story about Kevin Hillier finding the hand of faith nugget albeit untrue. It was found with a metal detector and it was dug up not specked.

Check out your own link as posted above.

Cheers

Curley

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This aint WA this was filmed in western NSW. Didnt C Goulson go to the same general locale a few months ago?

Hey Gigahertz21 I wished you fetched prices like you mentioned for big gold but alas not in oz except maybe selling on ebay to the US.

Lucky L has the best general advice in his last post. "Take the time to learn your local areas and make it happen!" It is good to dream of foreign shores though.

I never get tired of watching gold come out of the ground. Good stuff.

Cheers

Curley

Thanks Curley for clearing that up. Sounds good. I'm in NSW atm and hope to spend 3-6months of next year prospecting here. Hope I find some rippa slugs like that.

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The hand of faith nugget is a great example of smacking a nugget with a pick. According to Steve Wynne the nugget was found with a metal detector in the bottom an old prospect hole covered with less than a foot soil and if you look at the nugget close you will notice there is an half inch deep almost perfect square hole (dent) from prospectors pick. the only thing that could not be verified was whether the dent came from the finder or the original prospectors thinking it was bedrock. :) Take care AzNuggetBob

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I'm not sure where those videos were taken but I had originally thought they were from Western Australia. They MAY however have been filmed in the North Western corner of the state of New South Wales as the region there does have similar plants and geological detail. It's not impossible for him to find a large number of the multi-ounce nuggets. Quite a few Aussies specifically target these larger nuggets in order to make a living and they spend three months a year digging around $80K to $200K worth of gold and then kick their feet up on the beaches for the rest of the year. One chap I know tends to keep all the fist sized nuggets he finds and sells everything larger and smaller to the Perth Mint - who in turn melt it down for bullion or re-sell the nuggets at a premium if they're large enough.

Pic of my wife with the Hand Of Faith Nugget replica below.... note that the Casino on Vegas (which had been exhibiting the Hand Of Faith for years) was displaying a fake replica behind bullet proof glass and two guards. The original was discovered in a vault beneath the casino by two of the men buying the casino. There was another large nugget found right near where the Hand Of Faith was dug and is believed to be part of the same reef mass. I think they titled it "foot of faith" or something unimaginatively similar.

large.jpg

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