Gems and Minerals

My family went to the Cincinnati Gem and Mineral Show two weekends ago. There, I discovered a local faceting and lapidary club which I am in the process of joining. One old gentleman teaches faceting, and the lady president teaches cabbing. Both charge $10/class, and we'll use their equipment during classes. Best of all, the club has faceting equipment that they will rent out to a club member for dirt cheap! I think they charge $20 or $30 a month to rent the equipment, and that includes the cost of the consumables such as the laps. They said that the rental fee basically goes to cover the cost of the consumables. Seemed like a very small, laid back group of individiuals.

I've still got a ton of rough left over from my North Carolina trip, and just bought some African gem rough (mostly sapphires) off eBay, can't wait to see what that stuff looks like. It was literally dirt cheap ($9.99 plus shipping for 1000 carats of assorted rough sized 4mm to 15mm); got to figure there are going to be at least a few stones in there worth faceting. Here's a link, though I'll post some photos once I get the stuff):

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=380025629230&ssPageName=STRK:MEWN:IT&ih=025

Not sure how long it will take before I actually cut my first stone, will probably start lessons week after next. Wish me luck!

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Right now, I'll just post a little teaser message. Stayed four nights last week in Spruce Pine, NC. We went "sluicing" at a salted "mine" shop and couldn't have been happier. Then I went to a genuine dig site and in a little over an hour's time, came up with two nice emerald samples. I'll be getting photos up tonight (or soon) of our finds.

Let me whet your appetite by saying that we patronized the Rio Doce mine operation run by Jerry Call, Inc. and had an absolute blast. Jerry is part owner in a Brazilian mine operation and gets a lot, if not all, of his stuff from down there. Not sure how much stuff may be native, but some sure looked like it could have been native. Jerry has a home in Brazil but also in NC, and he is a master gemologist and has cut stones for Elizabeth Taylor and the Smithsonian Institute among others. We bought the $110 bucket, which includes the price of faceting or cabbing two stones from your finds. Faceting is normally valued at $50, and cabs at $40 at his shop, so basically pay $100 to get two cut gemstones and another $10 for a big bunch of very pretty rocks. And quite a few of those pretty rocks can be made into pretty things. So much so that in our bucket, my wife and her mother found five stones they wanted cut...a tourmaline, a garnet, a smoky quartz, a praisolite (green amethyst), and a star ruby. We paid the extra cash for the extra stone cuts and left happy. When we got back to our cabin, I thought "we should have just bought another bucket and gotten two of the stones cut for "free"". So we went back the next day and asked them if it was all the same to them, could we just buy the second bucket and pay the difference...and they were happy to do so. We actually found a bigger tourmaline in the second bucket than we had in the first (and the first one rough is over 11 carats). Can't thank Rio Doce enough!! Will post pics soon!

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I was wondering if there were any places around N. GA to hunt for treasures and If there is anyone in this area that would like to go with me?

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