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Apr 8 2009, 2:06 PM EDT by TallTomSr

Thread started: Apr 4 2009, 11:33 AM EDT Watch

I was just looking at the information on the Navajo field in Arizona & was reminded of the great diamond hoax. For those of you who are not familiar with this - it is a wonderful story.

In 1872, an outcrop in NW Colorado, was 'salted' with rough diamonds & other gems. The event left its imprint in the form of geographic place names throughout much of the West. The hoax scamed former Civil War generals, a U.S. Senator & two presidential candidates & was promoted following discovery of diamonds in South Africa, when the primary source rock for diamond was still considered to be sandstone.

The site of the hoax is a sandstone outcrop, 2 miles south of the WY border in what is now known as Diamond Field Draw in Moffat County, CO. The outcrop was salted with 80,000 carats of rubies & pyrope garnet & a large number of diamonds.

The two principals of the scam, Phillip Arnold & John Slack, took $12,000 of uncut gems to San Francisco for appraisal. The stones where valued at $100,000. The same stones were later appraised at Tiffany's of New York at $150,000. The Laramie Daily Independent stated $250,000,000 in diamonds were on the ground. The San Francisco Chronicle reported, "... the value of the property was far beyond that of any mining property ever discovered on the coast, not excepting the famous Comstock lode."

$200,000 was paid as an advance towards the final purchasing price of $650,000 for the diamond fields. Some of the cash was used to purchase 10 lbs of rough diamonds & other gems in London & nearly 50 lbs of "spinel, rubies, sapphires, and garnet" from Indians at Fort Defiance, AZ.

The first time I visited this site, we found the old sieve tailings from the 40th Parallel Survey. I panned 4 diamonds, 17 rubies & 24 pyrope garnets left behind from the hoax.

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DiamondProspector

Lost TREASURE found!!!!

Feb 13 2009, 11:09 PM EST by aubreyreynolds9@gmai

Thread started: Feb 1 2009, 5:54 PM EST Watch

Talk about lost treasure - how about finding the two largest colored gemstone deposits on earth. A new book describes the Grizzly Creek iolite - ruby -sapphire -kyanite deposit with gemstones that weight as much as a million carats in the rock outcrop, and the Sherman Mountain iolite deposit with >1 trillion carats! and the Cedar Rim opal deposit with giant opals up to 100,000 carats near US287!

Just came across a new book on Booksurge (and Amazon) which describes some fabulous gem localities including opals >100,000 carats, iolite >1 million carats and more. I followed up on a couple of localities and I have a few thousand peridots, garnets and emeralds. HIGHLY recommended - Gems, Minerals & Rocks – A Guide for Rock Hounds, Prospectors & Collectors

(http://wygemstones.blogspot.com)

The book even describes ways to use the internet to find diamond deposits.

http://gemstonehunter.blogspot.com/

http://discussionsondiamonds.blogspot.com/

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AdventureGuide

Lost Spanish Gold at Treasure Mountain in Colorado (page: 1 2)

Jan 30 2009, 5:57 PM EST by AdventureGuide

Thread started: Jan 13 2009, 3:53 PM EST Watch

The real story of Treasure Mountain...
http://www.travelsos.net/colorado-journeyer/index.cfm?var_file=www/treasure.htm
I actually know one of the descendents who wrote a whole book on the story... Citidel Mountain... he's made several expeditions to the area as have many many others. I had an Uncle who summered up there looking for the lost Frenchmens gold. He was an expert prospector and dowser... nope, never found it.
However the story goes on that a couple of lost in a snowstorm cowboys sheltered in a cave up there and found the cache. They were only able to take 2 of the bars of gold with them, due to the weight, to Red Cliff and straight to the assay office. The bars were reciepted and noted that they still had the spanish mint marks. One was sold and the other supposedly resides in the Colorado State Museum.
The two cowboys spent years looking for the cave again, but naturally as with all good lost treasure story's, they never found the gold again.

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RE: Stolen freshly minted gold coins, near Virginia Dale Colorado
By: AdventureGuide, Jan 30 2009, 5:57 PM EST

Howdy All,
Here is the tip of the iceberg version of the story of Jack Slade and the stolen treasure of Virginia Dale:
Bandit gangs regularly terrorized the stage lines, several areas were well scouted to work, one is along the famous Overland Trail in Colorado. The gang felt so comfortable in the remote landscape they even went so far as to build a cabin at the top of "Robber's Roost", about a mile to the northeast of the Stage Station. The hideout was well placed, with a great 360 degree view,hard to sneak up on, and it was very difficult to climb because of the rim of shale, practically perpendicular cliffs. It was a widespread rumor that Jack Slade, the Station Master at Virginia Dale was the leader of the gang, he was known to have a close connection to some of the bandits.

A gold shipment of over 200 lbs that amounted to $60,000 in freshly minted coins $2.6 million today was being shipped by the US Government, the shipment represented several months of back pay for soldiers at the fort. Masked men ambushed the stage, and made off with the entire payroll about a mile north from the Virginia Dale station. The robbers were killed by the US Cavalry, the troopers eventually foud the iron strong box in a nearby creek, broken open and empty. The stage line suspected Slade was the mastermind, but were unable to prove it. The owners of the stage line felt they had no choice and fired him.

Everyone thought it was strange that Jack went very meekly, it may have been that he was tired of the job, maybe he simply had stollen enough money and thought it was a good time to move to Montana. Because of this suspicious behavior he remained under the watchful eye of the overland stage coach company's agents. Jack never recovered his loot because he died pennyless a few short years later when he was hanged for horse robbery in Virginia City, Montana, on March 10, 1864.
Happy Trails,
Johnny

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