Are Australian sapphires really worth anything?

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Hi all,
I have recently been introduced into fossicking for sapphires mainly. So far I have found a couple of biggish stones or what I may think are big. I took the stones to get looked at today in Canberra and I was told that they were worth nothing.

I'm just after a second opinion, sure it's fun to find the pretty rocks in the creeks but are they worth anything in the long run?

One of the stones I showed the man was my 9 carat parti sapphire as shown in the picture. I know that no one could tell me the value of the rough gemstone from a picture but what are people's opinions on a value?
Thanks everyone
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G'day Kyle, welcome tro the forum. The one in your hand looks pretty opaque to me and probably not worth faceting. A real gem quality stone will be very clear and a fantastic colour. 1 in every 50 - 100 will be a valuable gem. Stones like the one in your hand can look great as a cabochon cut stone though.

Australia has some of the best quality Sapphires on the planet in my opinion. Large top quality stones can be very valuable, they are also very rare to find but not impossible.
 
sapphire is graded in different ways clarity,veils,colour and so on, but to cut what could be a long explanation,for someone to look at a stone and say they are worthless is a FOOL.To him then, my 3.5 ct reddestone blue with out a blemish after i cut it is worth nothing.As i say you can't put brains in pumpkins...
 
A lot of stones will cut dark , generally darker than the rough. It's hard to come by pale blue ones , got to keep digging . Depending on what cracks or inclusions are in that stone , it may be worth cutting , if you don't mind a dark stone... I like them.if you take another photo on white paper . It will be easier to tell .hope it's a nice one ...inverell ?
 
Kingsolomon said:
A lot of stones will cut dark , generally darker than the rough. It's hard to come by pale blue ones , got to keep digging

Hi Kingsolomon,
I disagree. The colour of the stones changes enormously from one sapphire field to another. There are a couple of spots down here in Tasmania where the stones are pale sky blue to pale grey, and there are few dark stones.
 
This stone was found in grabben gullen creek NSW, right next to the parking area. I have found roughly 120 sapphires but still nothing the man thought was worth anything.
 
Hi Kyle,

I don't know what it's like up there, but down here at most 1 in 50 stones are clear enough to cut, and even less that that have a good shape or colour. It's all about volume, the more you find the more chance you have of finding a good one. A Tasmanian sapphire dug up by an amateur fossicker sold last year for $15,000, or so the rumour mill goes.
 
some people will only cut the top rate stones and so all other stones are worthless to them I say find a different cutter one who is not so snoby and you will have a different outcome. the white paper test helps to pick out stones that will be possible cutters a lot will have flaws that will reduce the dollar value but will still provide a nice stone for a ring or such you need to keep looking remember that the big one is under the next rock you dig never give up quitters don't find any thing :)
 
Hi Kyle,
I don't know who told you they are worthless in Canberra but if you bring them to the Lapidary Club in Lyons on a Thursday between 10am and 12 I would be willing to give you an opinion as to their cutting potential and possible value. But as noted if they are opaque or full of cracks or inclusions, which would be as high as 99% from Grabben Gullen, value is the fun of finding them.THe white paper test is a good indication of the colour a sapphire will turn out. I have cut a number from Grabben Gullen,
pics on this site somewhere and seen a 10c cut green that was the best green I've laid eyes on. Now I'm off to North Queensland for August but be back at the Club next month.
Cheers Ted
 
mfdes, here's and article you might find interesting.

http://www.australiansapphire.com/sapphire_formation_theory.htm

Like Jim, I've noticed differences between different parts of the same field. At our old claims just behind Rubyvale township, the sapphires were predominately blue and most of those were a bit dark, with a smaller proportion of greens and a few yellows and stars. About 10km away at the Washpool diggings, the stones are predominately green and i've only ever found a single blue up that end of the field. I've heard of places where (small) yellows make up around 50% of the stones and other spots where "fancy" stones turn up with some regularity. And this is all on the one field.

I have seen lighter, sky-blue stones turn up on our field but the Thais seem to buy most of the best stones from our field.

And then take them overseas and re-label them as Thai or Ceylon stones :mad:
 
Good resource, Lefty,

I think this applies fairly widely.
Down here sapphires have been found associated with basalt flows, mostly. But not always. And 'associated' does not mean 'coming from'. There are areas in NE Tas that have small basaltic pipes. Sapphires have been found surrounding those, but also in places where no basalt remains. Did it weatehr away? Perhaps. I think pyroclastics (ash) carried much of the sapphire, and not so much the basalt.
 
mfdes said:
Good resource, Lefty,

I think this applies fairly widely.
Down here sapphires have been found associated with basalt flows, mostly. But not always. And 'associated' does not mean 'coming from'. There are areas in NE Tas that have small basaltic pipes. Sapphires have been found surrounding those, but also in places where no basalt remains. Did it weatehr away? Perhaps. I think pyroclastics (ash) carried much of the sapphire, and not so much the basalt.

I think that's now a more widely accepted argument mfdes - the formation zone for much sapphire was the pyroclastics rather than the basalt lava. Examples of sapphire in basalt are very rare on our field. I've never seen any myself and the only confirmed one I know of was a stone a geologist found embedded in one of the volcanic plugs that dot the area.
 
mfdes said:
Kingsolomon said:
A lot of stones will cut dark , generally darker than the rough. It's hard to come by pale blue ones , got to keep digging

Hi Kingsolomon,
I disagree. The colour of the stones changes enormously from one sapphire field to another. There are a couple of spots down here in Tasmania where the stones are pale sky blue to pale grey, and there are few dark stones.
I'd better get down there for that catchup with you and our matey then:)
 
A couple of pictures from two trips to this location with pale sapphires. There is also zircon and estatite in the picture. This area is currently under exploration licence for gemstones, so you need permision. The shallow alluvial is also very worked out, but the licence holder is exploring larger targets of deeper alluvials. The largest sapphire we found is about 17 carats:

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Interesting stuff there mfdes :)

I have to say that in 35 years of chasing sapphires I have never found stones as light coloured as some of those. We do get some nice sky blues up here but I've not seen them that light before.

That's what threw me when Wal identified as a sapphire a stone that I had decided must have been a zircon - the shape of the surface looked like a sapphire with the "stepping down" appearence but I hadn't seen such a light colour before.

Maybe if fortune is kind enough to us both, at some stage in the future we might be able to trade - central Queensland greens and yellows for some of those intruiging light blues :)
 
The palest stone I've found up here was at Glenalva, a beautiful light, bright green bordering on light aqua coloured.

I found a blue with a completely colourless end on it once but it was pretty small unfortunately.
 
Hi Lefty,

My friend tests them by measuring the specific gravity, the colour ranges of our sapphire, chrysoberyl and zircon can overlap. Particularly pink stones can be either corundum or zircon, evidently much more valuable if corundum.

This locality was pretty much worked out as soon as it was discovered, but was not in a known sapphire-bearing area. The stones in the pictures came from working a couple of cracks in the granite bedrock that everybody else had missed.
 

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