Stone

[Lucky Eddie]

Found this a little while back while panning a local river looking for signs of gold.

Found zero gold - but got all excited that this MIGHT be a rough diamond.

after scratching some glass with it - I did some "internet research" and discovered that it you look thru a 20 x loupe and can see little triangle crystalline structure like this:-

That it MIGHT be a diamond.

Then came the bad news.

I took it to the local jeweler, who 'tested it' with a diamond test pen thingy and it didn't test as a diamond!. (rats).

Jeweler said it MIGHT be topaz maybe!

Sent it off to a local guy to facet it - just for the heck of it!

He tells me it's not Topaz either.

It's actually part of a clear quartz crystal!

Came up pretty well all considered!

I am sourcing a couple emeralds to have cut to match, and will get it set into a 9 ct gold ring for my Daughter In Law.

Who'd have thought quartz crystal would come up so nice when faceted?

Probably not worth 20cents BUT My Eldest Lad jumped nekkid into a deep rock hole in the river about the size of a 44 gal drum bailed the water out with a 5 gal bucket removed a few house brick sized granit rocks and live crayfish from the bottom and dug the gravels out for me to pan off hoping any gold might have been trapped in the bottom after a zillion millenia!

So since his wife (My D_I_L) was there when it was found I figure she should get a ring set with it...since her hubby found it.

Going to add a couple emeralds since those are her birth stone.

I am just chuffed I s'pose that quartz could cut and polish up like this.!

There you have it... I'll post a pic of the ring to this thread when its completed.

Cheers

 

Amazon Forum Fav 👍

How to Research for Treasure Hunting and Metal Detecting From Lead Generation to Vetting - Grab it through Amazon!

[OBN]

Love to see the final product!! VC you can do this!!

 

[PaDirtDigger]

Great post!!

 

[texjim]

Nice

 

[Greastart]

I think it's great. Whodathunkit? I'll bet the D I L thinks so too!!

 

[Garrett424]

It's freakin' beautiful. Looks like a diamond in that last shot.

Congrats on a really nice find.

I have a nice quartz crystal point I found last year after a small flood along my local (and favorite) river. It's about 1/2" wide by maybe 2 1/2" long. You really got me thinkin' about that stone now.
I'll bet it could be turned into something really amazing with a little work.

 

[Lucky Eddie]

For what it's worth - there's about 5 hours work to facet a quartz like that, and i was "lucky" that i was only charged $20 "as a favor" to have it cut/polished.
Normally that would cost around ~$50 to have done (@$10.00/hr).

The thing is a cut quartz crystal isn't worth that much.... its not a rare gen stone.. its common and thus quite cheap - (much the same as Amethyst is also plentiful and cheap) BUT - if you don't consider the actual "cost/value" of the finished gem and just want something that LOOKS beautiful, then a 1 carat stone like that for $20 - $50 isn't too much of a hit to the hip pocket!

If its "just a clear stone" that you want, Cubic Zirconia is cheap as chips relatively speaking.

There are quite a few "semi precious" stones that look fantastic when cut!

It's a shame I guess that more "dress jewellery" isn't made with cut semi precious gem stones!

Where it can get out of hand quickly is having them set - even a 9 carat cast ring with setting is around $300!

It all depends on what you value, I guess!.

Amethyst, emeralds, ruby's, sapphires, etc aren't that expensive to buy or have cut.. it's just that, without diamonds...when you add in the cost of the gold ring and setting - the value of the end jewellery piece isn't as high is all.

For this reason you often see the cheaper semi precious stones set in sterling silver rings.

I guess I am just trying to show that not everything that you consider treasure has to be a gold coin gold ring or found with a metal detector to be treasure. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

I admit that the TV show on our "man channel" with all the US prospectors mining aquamarine on Mt Antero etc have inspired me to start thinking about what semi precious stones i might be able to find locally.

The wife was stunned by how well the quartz crystal came up when cut/polished.... it was our 34th wedding anniversary yesterday & she informs me that 34th wedding anniversary is a "Opal Anniversary" so i am on the lookout for some nice black opal...

Daughters Birth Stone is Amethyst...

Suddenly I am the darn "Jewellery Genie"...of the family!

 

[NaturalJWL]

I have had cut stones set in an existing setting I found fairly cheap at a pawn shop....Example I found a 14k ring with a cheap stone (discount item) that would match a star sapphire I had, swapped stones, came out with a nice ring....Ring & swap was less than $100, plus I traded for the sapphire......Benefits were good.....lol

 

[IAMZIM]

Looks incredibly cool to me! I have seen alot of faceted quartz, mostly smokey or amethyst, but it looks really good to me!

 

[Lucky Eddie]

Emeralds have arrived now as well.

Off to see the Jeweler next I guess.

Managed to pick up a nice little Dark Amethyst from Uruguay as well while at it - which I will have faceted for the daughter next - it's the rough one on the left & will be cut same as the center one!.

Lottsa fun this stuff.

 

[NEPADIGGER7]

Cool find man!

 

[against the wind]

That's a cool hobby all by itself.
Great post.

 

[Lucky Eddie]

12.40ct nicely saturated piece of Uruguay amethyst rough
The final stone went 4ct with a diameter of 10.1mm. That's about 32% recovery. The end result was quite nice with all 'meets' lining up and good brilliance with flashes of blue.


Amazing what you can do if you break enough purple glass bottles!.

Photographed in 3 different lighting situations!.

 

[Old Dude]

Great thread. That Quartz is pretty darned amazing to my untrained eye. I can imagine the excitement if I ever found that set in a silver ring!