A failed metal detector didn’t stop you from finding a unique gold nugget

No one has found such large pieces of precious metal in England.

A man has found the “largest gold nugget in England” despite his metal detector failing. A treasure hunter struggling with faulty equipment has discovered a gold nugget believed to be the largest ever found in England.

Briton Richard Brock discovered a gold nugget weighing 64.8 grams (2.3 ounces) in the hills of Shropshire near the border with Wales, auction house Mullock Jones said recently.

According to CNN, the nugget is approximately the size of a British 50 pence coin.

The find, dubbed the Hiro Nugget, is estimated to be worth between £30,000 ($38,000) and £40,000 ($50,700), according to Malloch Jones of Shropshire, who is handling the sale.

However, luck seemed to be running out for Richard Brock, whose equipment nearly failed him on the day of the excavation.

When Richard Brock arrived at the site in Shropshire in May, he discovered his metal detector was faulty, according to a press release from Malloch Jones.

With his hopes fading, the treasure hunter turned to older equipment. At first he only found a coin of small value, but five minutes later he made a shocking discovery, the auction house said.

“It just goes to show that it doesn’t really matter what equipment you use, as long as you follow the find and are alert enough to what might be lurking beneath the soil, it makes all the difference,” Brock said in a press release.

The nugget is considered a “rare find,” auctioneer Ben Jones of Mullock Jones told CNN on Thursday. How he got to the excavation site remains a mystery.

Parts of the Shropshire hills were once under a prehistoric ocean and pieces of coral are often found there, according to the auction house.

“The site does have an old road/rail line running through it and there are remains of Welsh stone inside,” said auctioneer Jones, adding: “So there are many theories as to how it got there.”

The auction for the unusual find ends on April 1, CNN notes.

Although the Hiro Nugget is believed to be the largest discovered to date in England, several previous finds in other parts of the United Kingdom dwarf its size.

The record holder is the Reunion nugget weighing 121.3 grams [4,3 унции]found in Scotland in 2019.