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Your RMM Finds (Remote Mining Materials)

This page is dedicated to those of us who at times purchase buckets, bags, boxes of mined materials from various mines. We do this as part of our addiction to certain types of rocks or gems and cannot get there in person to mine it ourselves. This is a place to post pictures of your finds and treasures. Tell a bit about the RMM if you like and to share where it came from.

This is not a place to complain or make any type of rude or unacceptable statements about the mine or your finds. Just answer the simple question, would you purchase again.

*Origin of material:* El Dorado Sapphire Mine Where Purchased: Gold Fever Rock Shop, Helena MT *Type of Gem or Mineral desired:* Montana Sapphires *Description of finds:* After searching the material we did find a total of 22.13 cts of multicolored Sapphires. The largest being 3.26 cts. Unfortuniately it is not gem quality as there are to many inclusions and flaws in the stone. Several of the smaller stones, less that a carat in size may be facetable. We did also find 4.71 cts of garnets none being facetable. *Cost of material (optional): $120 includes shipping* *Would you purchase again? Yes/No/undecided:* undecided
Origin of material: Gem Mtn Gemstone Mine NC Where Purchased: Gem Mtn Gemstone Mine, NC Type of Gem or Mineral desired: Mixed Gemstones for faceting, cabbing and tumbling Description of finds: I did purchase 2 - 4 gallon buckets of material. One for Jeff to search and one for me. We did find many different gems including emeralds, rubies, sapphires, amethyst, citrine, quartz, topaz - clear, blue and brown, aquamarine, sodalite, schorl (black tourmaline), kyanite, quartz - crystal points, clear, smokey, and rose, amazonite, adventurine - green and orange, moonstone, I think that is about it. I haven't searched the finds for faceting and cabbing material. I know there will be some for sure. Cost of material (optional): $50 per bucket not including shipping. Shipping is expensive. *Would you purchase again? Yes/No/undecided:* Yes	Jeff's finds My finds 1/2" minus material Total sorted finds, both buckets.
Origin of material: Unknown Where Purchased: Gold Fever Rock Shop, Helena MT Type of Gem or Mineral desired: Garnet Description of finds: I did purchase, for fun, a Winter Garnet Gravel box when ordering the El Dorado Sapphire material. I did find 21.82 cts of garnets none really of facet grade. The box did come with a .65 ct cut garnet. Cost of material (optional): $29.99 shipping included Would you purchase again? Yes/No/undecided: No	Winter Garnet Gravel Finds
*Origin of material:Capistrano Mining Company, Mine run gravel from Montana and San Benito County, California* Where Purchased: online, www.capistranomining.com *Type of Gem or Mineral desired: Benitoite, Montana Sapphire* Description of finds: This is my second purchase from this company. Purchased 2, 5 pound bag of Benitoite Gravel. Found a few pieces of crossite included benitoite with some neptunite, 1 small triangle floater and 2 cuttable crystals, one about 1 carat. Still need to try and etch some piece to see if there is anymore under the natrolite. No salting here, mostly dirt covered. Strongly recommend using shortwave UV light after washing , makes hunting much easier. Also purchased 1, 10 pound bag of El dorado Bar Sapphire Gravel. Fairly clean gravel, not a lot of dirt. Easier to search after a quick rinse. Lots of great missouri river rock and fossils. They tell you that they add to this bag 25 carats of sapphire to enhance your hunt, we found 37.5 carats of sapphire, 10 carats of garnet. about 20 carats of sapphire of 1 carat and above. 18 carats of facetable sapphire including one 3 carat blue piece. Don't mind the add, would rather know I am going to find something then spend a lot of money and find nothing at all. Not all their bags are salted. They let you know which ones are. Both bags, very nice material. *Very helpful business owner, quick to answer any questions.* Cost of material (optional): 5 pound Benitoite bag is $75 plus shipping. 10 pound Montana Sapphire bag, $55 plus shipping. Both shipped in same box for $9.80 *Would you purchase again? Yes/No/undecided:* YES. Just did, placed my third order.	Add Photo here. Best fit is to shrink the photo 13 times Will post photos later.
*Origin of material: Oceanview Mine* *Where Purchased: Simon King, Oceanview Mine* *online http://www.digforgems.com/* 1-619-444-3731 *Type of Gem or Mineral desired: Tourmaline, Kunzite plus other gems* *Description of finds: I did order 6 bags of mine material. The material was packaged in 2 boxes and arrived in pretty good shape. I have kept the finds seperate as per box, not per bag.* I was very please with the amount of Tourmaline we did find in the material. Lots of green and pink but some very nice pieces of blue which I had never seen before. Also one box had several very nice pieces of Kunzite and the other box we only found 1 piece. There are some gems I will need help to identify, hope this can be done by the posted pictures. Cost of material (optional): Bags are $30 each. However you buy 5 you get an additional one at no charge. Total cost with shipping (Shipped in 2 Priority Mail boxes) $170.00 *Would you purchase again? Yes/No/undecided:* YES Box #2 This is just the Gems, there was a near full try of Black tourmaline crystals and in the matrix.	Box #1 Box #1 Box #2
*Origin of material: South America (my assumption)* *Where Purchased: Mason Mountain Mine, Franklin, NC* *http://www.tjrocks.org/* *Type of Gem or Mineral desired:* Emerald, Aquamarine, Garnet, Amethyst, Citrine, Topaz, Fluorite, Smoky Quartz, but more types are available for purchase Description of finds: This was not a "dig in the bucket", but buying gemstone rough by the pound directly from the mine. I would assume this is the material that the mine "salts" their buckets with if you visit their Franklin location. Since I was interested in personally faceting some stones, the owner graciously volunteered to personally hand select some of the nicer material that might have some facetable areas in it. I was especially pleased with the crushed garnet and Grade A Emerald that I purchased. Both have a lot of facetable material, especially for the price. You really can't beat this emerald in my opinion. I purchased the large amethyst, which in retrospect was a mistake. These stones are really large, a pound was only four stones, too big to cut with my 4" blade tile saw, and very light in color, and one with a real nice chunk of clear facetable area inside is a crystal point, really too nice to cut. I asked for a variety of colors of fluorite and topaz and got them. The fluorite and smoky quartz was very nice and clean, should yield a lot of faceted stones. The topaz has a lot of internal flaws but the stones are fairly big, should be able to cut a lot out of them. The aquamarine stones are also quite large and like most aqua, very cloudy to opaque. It does look like there may be some areas of clear facetable material though, plus there were a variety of shades. Even if I only get one faceted stone out of it, it was well worth the price. I wasn't overly impressed with the citrine in terms of the amount of facetable material (lots of fractures, not a ton of colored material), but it was certainly as good or better than what I've received in dig buckets. Cost of material (optional):Total including UPS shipping was $78 (I think shipping wound up being $16, and it arrived in 2-3 days). Individually by the pound, the Grade A Emerald was $15 (a bargain considering what I found), the crushed garnet $6, large amethyst $8, citrine $6, aquamarine $8, smoky quartz $6, fluorite $6, topaz $7 Would you purchase again? Yes/No/undecided: In a heartbeat, especially the Grade A Emeralds and crushed garnet. Digging in buckets is great fun, but knowing exactly what you'll get and how much of it you'll get is too. I don't know of anywhere you can get a pound of emeralds for $15 (especially ones this nice, generic emeralds were only $9/lb.). Plus, you aren't paying all those high shipping prices for the "trash rock" in the dig buckets. You could make your own buckets for your kids to dig through at a fraction of the cost...I may just do that for my daughter's next birthday party!	Add Photo here. Best fit is to shrink the photo 13 times Aquamarine Topaz Fluorite Citrine Smoky Quartz Amethyst Emerald, this is portion that appears too opaque to be facetable Emeralds that have areas of transparent or highly translucent areas and may be facetable. Much of this are crystals still embedded in matrix rock, but this 180 gms out of the 454 gm (1 lb) lot that may have facetable stuff. Very nice yield for the small price. Portion of crushed garnet lot where pieces were either highly included or fractured, or will have to be further broken down to see if there is facetable material within. Portion of crushed garnet lot (about 62 gms) that clearly have facetable areas, including about 105 carats (17 pieces) of mostly eye clean stones
*Origin of material:* Where Purchased: *Type of Gem or Mineral desired:* *Description of finds:* *Would you purchase again? Yes/No/undecided:*	Add Photo here. Best fit is to shrink the photo 13 times
*Origin of material:* *Type of Gem or Mineral desired:* *Description of finds:* Cost of material (optional): *Would you purchase again? Yes/No/undecided:*	Add Photo here. Best fit is to shrink the photo 13 times
*Origin of material:* Where Purchased: *Type of Gem or Mineral desired:* *Description of finds:* Cost of material (optional): *Would you purchase again? Yes/No/undecided:*	Add Photo here. Best fit is to shrink the photo 13 times
*Origin of material:* *Where Purchased:* *Type of Gem or Mineral desired:* *Description of finds:* Cost of material (optional): *Would you purchase again? Yes/No/undecided:*	Add Photo here. Best fit is to shrink the photo 13 times

*Origin of material:* *Where Purchased:* *Type of Gem or Mineral desired:* *Description of finds:* *Cost of material (optional):* *purchase again? Yes/No/undecided:*	Add Photo here. Best fit is to shrink the photo 13 times
*Origin of material:* *Where Purchased:* Type of Gem or Mineral desired:\ *Description of finds:* Cost of material (optional): *Would you purchase again? Yes/No/undecided:*	Add Photo here. Best fit is to shrink the photo 13 times
*Origin of material:* Where Purchased: *Type of Gem or Mineral desired:* *Description of finds:* Cost of material (optional): *Would you purchase again? Yes/No/undecided:*	Add Photo here. Best fit is to shrink the photo 13 times
*Origin of material:* Where Purchased: *Type of Gem or Mineral desired:* *Description of finds:* Cost of material (optional): *Would you purchase again? Yes/No/undecided:*	Add Photo here. Best fit is to shrink the photo 13 times
*Origin of material:* Where Purchased: *Type of Gem or Mineral desired:* *Description of finds:* Cost of material (optional): *Would you purchase again? Yes/No/undecided:*	Add Photo here. Best fit is to shrink the photo 13 times
*Origin of material:* Where Purchased: *Type of Gem or Mineral desired:* *Description of finds:* Cost of material (optional): *Would you purchase again? Yes/No/undecided:*	Add Photo here. Best fit is to shrink the photo 13 times
*Origin of material:* Where Purchased: *Type of Gem or Mineral desired:* *Description of finds:* *Would you purchase again? Yes/No/undecided:*	Add Photo here. Best fit is to shrink the photo 13 times
*Origin of material:* *Type of Gem or Mineral desired:* *Description of finds:* Cost of material (optional): *Would you purchase again? Yes/No/undecided:*	Add Photo here. Best fit is to shrink the photo 13 times
*Origin of material:* Where Purchased: *Type of Gem or Mineral desired:* *Description of finds:* Cost of material (optional): *Would you purchase again? Yes/No/undecided:*	Add Photo here. Best fit is to shrink the photo 13 times
*Origin of material:* *Where Purchased:* *Type of Gem or Mineral desired:* *Description of finds:* Cost of material (optional): *Would you purchase again? Yes/No/undecided:*	Add Photo here. Best fit is to shrink the photo 13 times

gamaliel114	Latest page update: made by gamaliel114 , Aug 25 2009, 6:46 AM EDT (about this update About This Update Moved from: Treasure Hunting Wiki - gamaliel114 No content added or deleted. - complete history)
	Keyword tags: dirt purchased buckets. gravel purchased material. pocket mud RMM More Info: links to this page

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harmonyor

Mining from home...suggestions for mines that ship tailings.. (page: 1 2)

Nov 2 2009, 3:21 PM EST by pvjjh

Thread started: Dec 14 2008, 8:28 PM EST Watch

With the winter weather and my need to fill my rockhounding addictions, I was wondering if anyone has some suggestions of mines/sites that ship gem buckets... Especially any international mines that might ship gem tailings that I can wash at home.

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pvjjh

RMM - Remote Mining Material page is started

Aug 18 2008, 12:32 AM EDT by pvjjh

Thread started: Aug 5 2008, 1:49 AM EDT Watch

If any of you fellow RMM'rs want post the results of your RMM finds I did start a page to do that very thing.

The link: http://cash-and-treasures-wiki.travelchannel.com/page/Your+RMM+Finds+%28Remote+Mining+Materials%29

Paul

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RE: RMM - Remote Mining Material page is started
By: pvjjh, Aug 18 2008, 12:32 AM EDT

"Hey Paul,

Like you, I took a week off to get out of town. I can't wait for YOUR report on the Spectrum Mine and what type of feldspar - oops - sunstone you found.

I have screened 9 bags of the Oceanview mud now and they are really, really nice. The scienctist-trained part of me wants to list and weigh what I found so I won't mislead anybody. But, each bag had at least two or three tourmalines, a quartz point or 2, some aquamarine (some gemmy little pieces, some less gemmy larger chunks) and most bags had some really nice pieces of spodumene (the amethyst-colored Kunzite that they show on their web site, Hiddenite greenish color or a pink). I think I got some very small pieces of Apatite. In one bag I got a plum sized cluster of tiny schorl with matrix - a cute specimen.

There was a postal problem with the first shipment of 6 bags. Simon ships 3 very full gallon ziplock bags in a flat rate box. I only got one box. The other box was damaged in shipment and for some reason, the post office sent it back to Simon.

I purchased the other 6 bags directly from Simon this last Thursday st the Oceanview (yes, John finally relented and let Minda & I go to the Mine on the way home.) I'll put that report on the other thread.

Today at my rock club, I screened 2 bags at our picnic as a demo. Everyone who had bought the mail order bags from the other tourmaline mine before thought that the two Oceanview bags I did as demos were much, much better and were a good deal, even though they are slightly more expensive at $30 per bag. While there is no guarantee on exactly how many pieces of tourmaline/spodumene/beryl/etc you'll get in each bag, in the first nine I screened, I'd say that six contained pieces adding to way over $30 (with several facet worthy pieces) and the other three bags totalled closer to $30 to $50 in value. All in all - a lot of fun to screen and more that a fair deal. ellen"

Hey Ellen, nice report! I am looking forward to getting some dirt. I will order this week. I worked the the trip report today. It was just nice to have a day off and not do nuthin'! Once I get the pics put together I will put everything on. We were successful and had a great time :-) But I am glad to be home.

i have to get pics off of 3 cameras though, it may take a bit to do. lol

Paul

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SapphireTim

My PERSONAL Montana Sapphire Success story to air Feb.28,2008 (page: 1 2 3 4)

Aug 17 2008, 4:43 PM EDT by pvjjh

Thread started: Feb 19 2008, 1:13 PM EST Watch

HOME MINING SAPPHIRES! ORDER INFORMATION BELOW!

I found SUCCESS!

Thanks to "Cash and Treasures" I was able to quit my job and start my own Ebay store. I will be appearing in a commercial on The Travel Channel most likely Feb.28,2008!

I have found the best place for MAIL ORDER home mining Montana Sapphires! I also have an Ebay store where it can be purchased directly from the mine.

This gravel is from the Season One EPISODE "Sapphires". The gravel comes from the same mine as the woman who was showcased last year. She even ships it personally to your door step! All gravel is from The Spokane Bar Sapphire Mine and The El Dorado, Helena Montana!

Here is the link!

http://stores.ebay.com/Gold-Fever-Rock-Shop

Happy Hunting and e-mail me anytime!
Tim Duttry
Ebay user ID is "gemsbytim"
duttry1969@hotmail.com

3 out of 8 found this valuable. Do you?

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RE: MANY different views and feelings about sapphire gravel.
By: pvjjh, Aug 17 2008, 4:43 PM EDT

"After having all the buckets of gravel processed, we had ensured we kept the sapphires separated as far as where they came from. Gem Mountain reviewed and graded all sapphires we had found. Very helpful staff and owner of the business/mine.

YES, Spokane Mine/El Dorado and Gem Mountain (also known as Rock Creek Sapphires) are very different, just as YOGO Sapphires are also different. While El Dorado, you may be able to few but larger sapphires - Missouri river sapphires as they are also known/called..... and Gem Mountain may provide many smaller sapphires of various colors..... but again they are just different... If one is to heat treat - also ensure you do understand these stones are different, as heat treating Missouri Sapphires is not the exact same process as Rock Creek Sapphires....

Total from 19 - 3 gallon buckets - 431 carats of sapphires. Of which 100 carats (larger than 2mm in size) where faceting grade from Gem Mountain. Cost: $268
Total from 10 - 5 gallong buckets from El Dorado - 120 carats of sapphires. Of which 20 carats were faceting grade from El Dorado, Cost: $400

What amazed me about Gem Mountain - the sapphires appear to be the same shape, sizes, colors and type of sapphires, as my family dug out of the ground in 1977 at the same site.

Total Experiance for our 1st wedding Anniversary - WE HAD A BLAST the entire weekend and will be returning to Montana for a longer vacation than 4.5 days. Finding the beautiful gems that we did, was a complete BONUS, as meeting such fine and wonderful people along the road of life truly made the weekend.

If a business is tied to one mine versus the others and is making statements about "SALTED" gravel... well ????????.. Strongly you make the trip to both places and find what you find..... as yes, it is a gamble, but then so it driving down the street.

How dare anyone say the normal gravel is "SALTED" without having made the actual trip."

First of all happy Wedding Anniversary! A first of many I am sure. :-)

Wow great report! Sounds like Gem Mtn may be the place to go. There is always a lot of luck when it comes to fee digs and resutls. I purchased some El Dorado material last month - I think they say it it equal to 175 gallons of material concentrated. I did a report on the RMM page. http://cash-and-treasures-wiki.travelchannel.com/page/Your+RMM+Finds+%28Remote+Mining+Materials%29 But I only got 22 carats with nothing of facet grade - well except maybe a couple of real small ones. A bit disappointing, the chance one takes when buying material like this, but all in all it was still fun to run. I think the next trip we plan and go on to MT will be to Gem Mtn. Just to many good reports and finds from them.

Let is know how you do on that next trip!

Paul

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