First 2015 Rubies & Topaz from Treasure Valley

Posted: Thu Feb 05, 2015 2:48 pm

Prospector Al and friend Bob came over from Tn. January 31st on Saturday to prospect and I wanted to stay on dry land but they would have none of it, I showed some old gold mine pits, etc. but they wanted to hit the creek and I said to myself ok if they can you can take it I can too, water was cold but with rubber gloves was not too bad, we only had gold pans & classifiers and unless I missed a pan somewhere every pan had gold in it and at first I found a nice quartz point, then a small tourmaline and Al said you're on a roll. I said I believe I'll move over a little in the creek and get a ruby or sapphire and Al said if you do I'll get a picture of it. About 20-30 minutes I told Al better get you're camera out and he said are you kidding ? I said no and showed him a pretty nice ruby, just guessing maybe 8-10 carats and then a nice Topaz. We had a good day, Al also got 2 small rubies as well as some other nice crystals and minerals, small kyanite as well as gold. Glad they wanted in the creek. I'm going to ask Prospector Al to post some pictured here for me if he will, I'm no good at that but emailed him some. Keep looking its out there.

Posted: Thu Feb 05, 2015 3:15 pm

Very nice, can't wait to some pics. Thanks for sharing.

Dredger Joined: 04 Feb 2014 Posts: 160 Location: uwharrie

I would love to see some pics too. I just got into crystal prospecting not so long ago and I love it.

Posted: Fri Feb 06, 2015 9:26 am

If Prospector Al doesn't post any pictures, I sent some to Loki maybe he can post them. Also Prospector Al made a you tube video. He also posted some on WncRocks forum, American Rockhounds under category "Latest Finds".

Posted: Fri Feb 06, 2015 9:50 am

Hey Buck, I added your photo's to the main post. Very Happy

Posted: Fri Feb 06, 2015 3:51 pm

loki258 wrote:

Hey Buck, I added your photo's to the main post. Very Happy

Thanks, Loki

Posted: Thu Feb 19, 2015 8:50 am

Buckshot sent me another pic of the next weekends gems. I'll let him describe them, but here's the pic. Very Happy

Posted: Thu Feb 19, 2015 9:36 am

Largest ruby is Est. around 30 carats with possibly some topaz and not sure on some of the others, just pretty. A little unusual to find that many gems on a few hours of a day in two weekends back to back. There was also gold but not cleaned up the concentrates yet. Wouldn't want to be in the creek today it is below 10 degrees here. Thanks to Loki for posting the picture.

Posted: Thu Feb 19, 2015 7:35 pm

buckshot wrote:

Largest ruby is Est. around 30 carats with possibly some topaz and not sure on some of the others, just pretty. A little unusual to find that many gems on a few hours of a day in two weekends back to back. There was also gold but not cleaned up the concentrates yet. Wouldn't want to be in the creek today it is below 10 degrees here. Thanks to Loki for posting the picture.

Nice looking gemstones Buckshot!!

I'm not sure if you could even get "in" the creek with it at 10 degrees, about the best one could do would probably be get "on" the creek!!

Posted: Thu Feb 19, 2015 11:01 pm

Sorry it took so long for me to find this post or I would have posted some of the pictures. I am SO ready for Spring!

Al

Posted: Fri Feb 20, 2015 9:00 am

Nice, is this over near Franklin?

Posted: Fri Feb 20, 2015 5:06 pm

Kruzman, not near franklin but within 5 miles of Thermal City, Lucky Strike and LDMA.

Posted: Fri Feb 20, 2015 5:51 pm

Thanks, didnt know that area had much gemstones. That was a pretty nice haul. Found a couple nice garnets at thermal before.

Posted: Fri Feb 20, 2015 6:31 pm

Kruzman, in one of the history books it states that one of the Gold Mine Companies here in a report to the stock holders stated they had over $100,000 in gemstones. By the way the first Corporation in this county was a Gold Mine Corporation. However they were contemplating selling the Corp. so they might have given a liberal estimate on their value.