On September 26, 1980, Kevin Hillier was walking through a wooded area near the old Kingower school, in the state of Victoria, Australia. He was carrying a Garrett Deepseeker detector that he had bought during his recovery from back surgery. At 30 centimeters below the surface, the signal spiked.
What he pulled from the ground weighed 27.21 kilograms and measured 47 centimeters long by 20 wide: the gold nugget named “Hand of Faith”. At 875 troy ounces, it immediately became the largest piece ever found with a metal detector in all recorded history. Hillier was then living with his wife Bep and their four children in a bus converted into a home.
In 1981, the Golden Nugget in Las Vegas acquired the piece for more than one million dollars. Today it remains on display in the casino lobby. Only one larger nugget exists in the record books: the “Welcome Stranger”, about 72 kilograms, also found in Australia but in the 19th century and without a detector.