Gemstone hunting

[gordiesgirl]

Maggie valley and Cherokee NC have quite a few pay mines. the kids loved it.

[JCWhite]

I am actively searching for gemstones Steve. The ones attached to gold and silver round thingies.

[mlamp20412]

Steve in PR-

Same place:

13 yr old girl found 2.93-carat diamond

Charleston Daily Mail

I need to go check this place out....

[Metalman]

I have been a rockhound ,,well its been decades now ,,and have hunted gemstones both precious and semi precious in many different places .

This example came from alaska ,,its a very large garnet still in the matrix(rock) that it formed in .




I have also hunted opal and sun stones in oregon ,rose quartz in the Blackhills(back when a person could still pick up a rock there )thats no longer allowed .



Metalman

[riki727]

I'd love to know more on this subject, too, especially with having a creek on our property - what are the possibilities we could find something? And how do we know what to specifically look for? Do certain gems occur in some places and not others? Is any creek a potential spot? (deep breath)

Joe and the kids and I are constantly wading in the creek during the summer months looking for "pretty" rocks. Joe watched the pay gem mining show on tv the other night and then showed me some of the rocks he'd pulled out of our creek. They definitely had a purplish hue to them...but real amethyst? I'm skeptical. Can anyone recommend a good book on creek-style gemstone hunting and what to look for? Would make a good Christmas present for hubby.

[PAPPY]

Man nearly tosses 4.38-carat diamond - Yahoo! News

[CanUDigIt]

Hi all,
I do a little rockhounding and have done a NC trip to Franklin and Hiddenite. At Franklin, my wife found a "honker" sized ruby. They get on the loud spreaker announce your name and the weight. They also give you a button that says you found one. That was all we found all day except toward the end of the day when we bought a non-native seeded bucket and found some pretty colored rocks, not gemstones. Good day but slightly frustrating for us. The show makes it seem like they have rubies all over the ground. The truth is that only 5 or 6 people found a ruby all day out of more than 100 and many were 'squeeker" size. If you have kids that like to get dirty, you can have fun here. Many of the kids seemed to get bored not finding anything though. As a bigger sized kid, I understood. One note is that because of the makeup of the soil, the rubies are off-color and will not be red. They are more purple-ish.
Now Hiddenite was a great time though. We found emeralds from the starter buckets they give you with admission. We got the whole package of sluicing, creeking and digging. We thought digging was in a mine but they actually just give you a shovel and bucket and point to where the top of the hill is. Be prepared to hike to a spot up a steep hill and drag children up to the area. Remember, you will also need to do some serious digging. There are holes all over and you will need to drag your diggings back down to the sluice to wash it. Spend a little time before you go about emerald formation so you will know what to look for a little better than we did. I spent three hours digging holes and sweating since it was 95 and humidity was high. Needed to them go creeking to cool off. It was 20 degrees cooler and you do find some rocks that were washed down the mountain and into the stream. Bring creek shoes or flipflops. We didn't find any emerald but did find a lot of milky quartz and a few other nice colored rocks. We had more fun buying buckets and sluicing. The buckets are the five gallon ones so they take a while to get through. You can dig the $2 and $3 buckets all day and have a blast. They have rubybuckets for $5 and star ruby buckets for $10 (didn't find one), $15 corundum buckets od ruby and sapphire, and $25 beryl buckets for emeralds. They also have $50 buckets and $100 buckets w/ a guarenteed cutable stone. Most buckets are seeded despite what anyone says. We were pulling stones out of the bucket that didn't have a speck of dirt attached. We ended up with a few pounds of emeralds, a few of sapphires, a couple ounces of rubies and other other really cool stuff like quartz and soldelite. It was a rewarding day and we had lots of rocks. Now for the catch... They also have a lapidary to cut stones on site. You can bring your stone in and they will sort through them. They will let you know what couldbe facetable. There was a 22 week wait for cutting and ran about $45 a stone. Well worth it if you have a good one but are willing to wait.
I came home and tried to find a lapidary here in PA and couldn't find one close by. I then found a lapidary club an hour from my house but they just offered classes to cut your own stones. I would have joined and taken the classes but afterwards you couldn't just come and cut your own stones. It had to be during another class. This is just a hoby for me and I am probably not buying thousands of dollars of cutting equipment to cut the stones from my vacation.
Glad you read to the bottom of the post because I had to pass this along to you: Most of the stones you will get are only good for specimen rocks and not jewelry. A pound of emeralds does not mean you will get rich. This is mainly for fun. I have a vase full of emeralds on my TV along with a vase of sodelite and quartz plus misc. colored rocks. There are rumors that the stones that you get back from the Hiddenite lapidary may not be your original stones. I have heard they substitute with a cut stone and throw the rough ones back into the stream. Just something I read on another site and I cannot vouch either way. Don't let that from discouraging you from a great day. Bring clother you can throw out. The iron will stain your clothes. Next time we'll go to Hiddenite (just sluicing) and Cherokee, as mentioned by Gordiesgirl. I heard good things about it and don't feel Sheffield in Franklin was worth the extra drive from the north.

[johnj45586]

My wife and I search through tailings from mines around the Mojave desert, Joshua Tree monument and other desert areas. There is quite a bit of jade to be found on the California beaches.
We have loads of rocks piled up all over our back yard. One of these days I need to get some gemstone working tools and the proper tumbler. But in the meantime I am just banking the rocks.
There are lots of sites on the web that cover the locations talked about on the travel channel and more.
Really love those mine tailings though. They were single minded and if it wasn't the ore they were mining it went on the tailings. I have found gold, silver and gemstones in the tailings.