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 speaker 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 200 visitors that day and many were 'squeaker" 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 purplish.
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 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 ruby buckets for $5 and star ruby buckets for $10 (didn't find one), $15 corundum buckets of ruby and sapphire, and $25 beryl buckets for emeralds. They also have $50 buckets and $100 buckets w/ a guaranteed cutable stone. Most buckets seemed 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 could be facetable. There was a 22 week wait for cutting in July and it 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 hobby 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 might substitute with a cut stone and throw the rough ones back into the stream. Just something I read on line and I cannot vouch either way. Don't let that from discouraging you from a great day. Wear clothes you can throw out and bring some towels and a pair of rubber dish gloves to save the skin on your hands. The iron in the soil will stain your clothes. Eat a big breakfast and pack a good sized lunch, plenty of water and drinks and some snacks. Next time we'll go to Hiddenite (just sluicing) and Cherokee. I have heard good things about it and don't feel Sheffield in Franklin was worth the extra drive from up north. Search NC gem mining and there are plenty to choose.
