DocBeav
Bronze Member
(Title cut off: And for you home-bound hunters, sapphire mining in your house!)
Made it out to the beach yesterday for about 5+ hours and dug quite a few tgts. There had been a slight movement of sand from when I was out about 4-5 days before. It wasn't alot but it was enough to leave a fair amount of tgts on the beach or have pushed more up from the winds a day or so before hand.
The little 14K, 2 gram white gold ring, real ice, rang up at a 12.02-12.03 range and was a nice solid tone. I've found that all that .22 bullets, small aluminum and copper ring up in the same range but have just a slightly different sound but this one stood out from those and was only one scoop deep which I'm sure helped with that! The other ring is a stainless steel junker but when I first saw it in the scoop (after dark now) and held it in my hand (heavy and shiny!) I had a nice grin on my face until I turned on the flashlight for a better look, yeah, smile gone...covered in a nice layer of rust. Pretty obvious then eh? No complaints though, it was a really good hunt with plenty to dig. Total clad count was $6.07. I also pulled a 1936 wheat penny, several junk earrings and a piece of a silver bracelet that went to two other pieces I had found on that last hunt a few days back. Not much else of note but not as much trash compared to other hunts and the amt of tgts that I found. Cold and crappy out but worth it! (Sapphire info after hunt pictures)
Best of luck to everyone who is still able to go out (think we may be in the 50's-60's today even though it was in the teens the other day) and hope that those who can't still have other things to feed that treasure hunting Jones! I have a suggestion if ya wanna have some fun at home, order some sapphine gravel from Gem Mountain in Phillipspurg MT (different from the one in NC). Gem Mountain Philipsburg MT Sapphires
If you go to the "gravel store" you can buy 25lb buckets (bucket not included, they pack it in a trash bag and flat rate USPS box) and ship it. (my mail lady thinks she hates me now..wait till we order a 1/2 dozen! LOL) $36 bucks for the whole deal and you get to wash and sift it at home looking for real sapphires! If you find some good ones (and you will) you can send them to their place and they can evaluate the good stones, heat treat and cut the ones that are worth it (for a price of course) and you could end up with some nice cut sapphires at the end of it all some of which could be quite valuable when finished.
It's something the whole family can do and my wife and I sometimes spend hours in the kitchen picking through the washed gravel. So far we have done 3-4 of the boxes over the last two years and one of their "mega jugs" that are seeded so you will definitely find a nice one in those. All total so far we have found about 38.9 grams of sapphires and 14 grams of those are ones that are 1/2 carat or bigger. I have contacted the mine and they say to just send all of them (or at least ones BB sized or bigger) and they will evaluate them and let us know what ones will be good to treat/facet and will call to discuss price and whatnot. It could take weeks to get it all done but it's their slower season compared to summer.
What we usually do is get out the gold pan and a 1/2" classifier/sifter, dump a scoop or two into the pan, sift and wash the gravel in the deep sink (break up those dirt clods!) in garage then pick through/rewash in the kitchen while looking for those little beauties. We get little small Tupperware containers and use chopsticks or bamboo skewers (works better with these as they have a point) and then just pick through and find em. I always dump the checked material in a bucket to check it again a second time and have found several that we missed on the first go-round. The pictures below are of all the ones we found, not just the one box. One circled in red is just to compare size vs penny and the other stones.
I hope it's ok with the mods that I put the link to the site there so you can look up the info. I know there are other places you can get gem and paydirt buckets but not sure there are too many for sapphires!
Made it out to the beach yesterday for about 5+ hours and dug quite a few tgts. There had been a slight movement of sand from when I was out about 4-5 days before. It wasn't alot but it was enough to leave a fair amount of tgts on the beach or have pushed more up from the winds a day or so before hand.
The little 14K, 2 gram white gold ring, real ice, rang up at a 12.02-12.03 range and was a nice solid tone. I've found that all that .22 bullets, small aluminum and copper ring up in the same range but have just a slightly different sound but this one stood out from those and was only one scoop deep which I'm sure helped with that! The other ring is a stainless steel junker but when I first saw it in the scoop (after dark now) and held it in my hand (heavy and shiny!) I had a nice grin on my face until I turned on the flashlight for a better look, yeah, smile gone...covered in a nice layer of rust. Pretty obvious then eh? No complaints though, it was a really good hunt with plenty to dig. Total clad count was $6.07. I also pulled a 1936 wheat penny, several junk earrings and a piece of a silver bracelet that went to two other pieces I had found on that last hunt a few days back. Not much else of note but not as much trash compared to other hunts and the amt of tgts that I found. Cold and crappy out but worth it! (Sapphire info after hunt pictures)
Best of luck to everyone who is still able to go out (think we may be in the 50's-60's today even though it was in the teens the other day) and hope that those who can't still have other things to feed that treasure hunting Jones! I have a suggestion if ya wanna have some fun at home, order some sapphine gravel from Gem Mountain in Phillipspurg MT (different from the one in NC). Gem Mountain Philipsburg MT Sapphires
If you go to the "gravel store" you can buy 25lb buckets (bucket not included, they pack it in a trash bag and flat rate USPS box) and ship it. (my mail lady thinks she hates me now..wait till we order a 1/2 dozen! LOL) $36 bucks for the whole deal and you get to wash and sift it at home looking for real sapphires! If you find some good ones (and you will) you can send them to their place and they can evaluate the good stones, heat treat and cut the ones that are worth it (for a price of course) and you could end up with some nice cut sapphires at the end of it all some of which could be quite valuable when finished.
It's something the whole family can do and my wife and I sometimes spend hours in the kitchen picking through the washed gravel. So far we have done 3-4 of the boxes over the last two years and one of their "mega jugs" that are seeded so you will definitely find a nice one in those. All total so far we have found about 38.9 grams of sapphires and 14 grams of those are ones that are 1/2 carat or bigger. I have contacted the mine and they say to just send all of them (or at least ones BB sized or bigger) and they will evaluate them and let us know what ones will be good to treat/facet and will call to discuss price and whatnot. It could take weeks to get it all done but it's their slower season compared to summer.
What we usually do is get out the gold pan and a 1/2" classifier/sifter, dump a scoop or two into the pan, sift and wash the gravel in the deep sink (break up those dirt clods!) in garage then pick through/rewash in the kitchen while looking for those little beauties. We get little small Tupperware containers and use chopsticks or bamboo skewers (works better with these as they have a point) and then just pick through and find em. I always dump the checked material in a bucket to check it again a second time and have found several that we missed on the first go-round. The pictures below are of all the ones we found, not just the one box. One circled in red is just to compare size vs penny and the other stones.
I hope it's ok with the mods that I put the link to the site there so you can look up the info. I know there are other places you can get gem and paydirt buckets but not sure there are too many for sapphires!
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