An anonymous Broken Hill prospector pulled a 1,218-gram gold nugget from the red dirt of Mount Stuart station near Tibooburra in far northwestern New South Wales in mid-October. Testing showed the quartz-flecked piece, which he nicknamed the Tibooburra Spud, contains about 940 grams of pure gold. At current spot prices it is worth $150,000 to $160,000, and the finder believes a collector could pay up to $200,000 for the intact specimen.
The man, who has fossicked for years and asked not to be identified, had spent several days on the station when his detector picked up a faint signal as he was finishing a day of searching. He almost walked past it. Once he dug down roughly 100 millimeters the machine began squealing. On the first or second scrape he spotted a bright yellow speck in the center of the hole. He kept digging. The potato-shaped nugget sat only about 400 millimeters deep.
“You dig lots of rubbish … lots of lead bullets, old timer’s nails, horseshoes, everything,” the prospector told ABC News. In video of the find he can be heard saying, “I hope this ain’t a painted rock” and then “Look at that! I can’t believe this” as the piece came free. He later added, “As they say, keep persisting… That’s f***ing unbelievable.”
Greg Spangler, who has sold prospecting supplies in Broken Hill for more than 20 years, said this is only the second nugget over a kilogram he has seen or heard of from the Tibooburra area in that time. Most finds are flakes or small pieces of a few ounces. He runs a shop at 720 Williams Street and described the result as extremely lucky. The prospector was using a high-end Minelab detector. Spangler noted that beginners often start with a Gold Monster 2000 while serious searchers swing machines such as the GPZ 8000. The finder has already left town.
Gold prices reached nearly $8,000 per troy ounce in January 2026 before easing. They remain elevated around $5,700 to $5,800 an ounce, which has drawn more people into the hobby. Spangler said the combination of higher prices, outdoor exercise, and quiet has increased interest. Prospecting around Tibooburra dates to the late 1880s. Fossicking is currently banned on the Tibooburra Common while Native Title permissions are pursued, but stations including Mount Stuart and Gumvale still allow it for a fee. The town sits about 325 kilometers from Broken Hill, near the Queensland and South Australian borders, and summer temperatures can exceed 40 degrees Celsius.
Video of the discovery, originally shared by Broken Hill Prospecting Supplies, shows the prospector brushing dirt away and holding the dirty, potato-like nugget in his hand while the red earth and scattered rocks fill the background. The piece measures roughly 8 to 9 centimeters. Spangler said the finder wants the story to highlight that good-sized gold remains in the area. The prospector’s own advice for others is simple: keep walking, keep swinging, and dig every target.
Details of the find were first reported by ABC News on October 26 and confirmed across multiple Australian outlets. The RT post that circulated the video and basic facts drew tens of thousands of views within a day. No official assay laboratory report has been released publicly beyond the figures given by the prospector and Spangler.
