Tourmaline from Himalaya Mine, San Diego California 2014

MrLee

Sr. Member
Mar 25, 2012
492
273
Tokyo & OC
Detector(s) used
Google Earth, BS Detector, $$
Primary Interest:
All Treasure Hunting
I went down to the Himilaya Mine for the first time last weekend and got some nice specimens, probably not worth what I paid to dig, but good experience none the less. The 2 staff were great, helped everyone clean out their troughs, answered questions politely, etc. I talked to a couple who go there regularly and they said they have pulled out some great material which is why they keep going back. Anyway, have a look.

photo 5.JPG photo(1).JPG photo 3.JPG photo(2).JPG

The last pencil is extremely clear. Almost no inclusions. I have a bunch of half inch pencils as well, one of which is also extremely clear, gem quality.
 

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Flick420

Jr. Member
Jan 14, 2011
44
18
You both look like you came out alright. I went down there with a friend a little over two years ago and worked for 3 days moving dirt. Overall we did alright and had a lot of fun, but i was somewhat disappointed for how much the costs are in ratio to the chances of finding stuff. We each came out with 1-2 really nice quality specimens, and lots of quartz, lepiodite, tourmaline fragments gemmy and ungemmy and smaller crystals.
We did become really good friends with the miners though and their boss was out of town. So we got lucky and they let us take out around 8 bags of the gravels that contain the fine crystals that collect under the screens. So we had a few days worth of fine crystal picking afterwards.

The day we got there a son and his father had been working the pile for a week and had been amazingly lucky, they had pulled out numerous large palm size specimens and large ice quartz points. I saw one they pulled out after two hours or so that was at least 3 inches long by a inch thick and had nice color zones.

We never got to get over to the Pala mine but id be really interested in heading there over the Himalaya. Im friends with the people at the pala mine on FB and they are always posting the better fines that people make and it seems like they do alot better over there. They also offer digs in the old tailing on weekends sometimes and i have seen some really nice large old stock tourmalines the miners missed back in the day.

I'm hoping to go back down that way later this year and to head to both sites.
 

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