A West Australian was speechless after coming across one of the world’s rarest gold nuggets.
Gold prospector Tyler Mahoney got her hands on a “once-in-a-lifetime find” after a prospector in Queensland discovered a hopper crystal — a crystal in a pyramidal shape — in almost perfect condition.
The Gold Rush star showed off the gold nugget on social media, saying discoveries like this don’t happen often.
Know the news with the 7NEWS app: Download today
“I’m holding one of the world’s rarest gold nuggets. I will never ever hold anything like this again, and I’m a gold digger; I do this for a living,” Ms Mahoney said.
“When I saw a photo of this, my jaw dropped to the floor.
“This is insane, It is one of the rarest types of gold nuggets in the world. It’s called the INCA nugget.
“It was found in Queensland by a local prospector, and it’s an almost perfect hopper crystal.”
Ms Mahoney revealed she went up against another prospector in a bidding war for the nugget and luckily won.
“If I had found something like this, I would have never got over it,” she said.
“This is a once-in-a-lifetime find, this is a collector’s edition nugget.”
Ms Mahoney explained that most gold nuggets are rubbed smooth as they travel through waterways which made this uniquely-shaped nugget so rare.
“This just does not occur in nature like this, those perfect straight lines, almost perfect rectangle, shapes like that don’t occur in nature and that’s what makes it so rare.
Ms Mahoney put the nugget up for auction, giving people around the world a chance to own the special piece of gold.
The nuggest fetched an eye-watering $15,000.