Fossicking around the Inverell and Glen Innes areas

[Heatho]

Well done Wally, nice finds.

 

[Highway1]

Wally69, you have some nice stones there with some good size/weight and translucent as well. Those bombs give you the irrates don't they.
I wish I knew a little more about the stones that appear to be half way between a sapphire and a bomb, you know the ones that give a hint of colour but appear to be a bomb, has any one every had such a stone cut to see what it turns out like?
Cheers

 

[DanielGOLD]

Anyone going on a road trip up that way late september or early october..??
Thinking about a holiday up that way

 

[milwaukeerockhound@yahoo]

Hello from Wisconsin! Love your land and hope to move there someday. In the mean time I want to experiment on some rocks here and try making opals out of them. Anyone there willing to send me some opal dirt for a good price? I can send you some pink and yellow labrodite as a thank you. I find them at Lake Michigan here..hope to get some pics up for ya. Kate

 

[dezman]

Gidday Kate, we guard our Opal dirt for its Australia's gem stone, so sending any dirt over seas is a serious crime here.
But if you want to move over here then we could put you to work in the opal mines...

Oh welcome to the forum

 

[Highway1]

Here are the best of the stones from my recent trip to Inverell. I need to be able to photograph the stones with a better light behind them to get a good vision of the translucency of the stones.

I know these stones are not as good as many of the other stones on show, however they gave me a real buzz. I might also add this is 2 days of sieving.
The 2.85 carrot stones is an even colour all the way through and a nice deep blue.
Cheers
Max

 

[dezman]

Nice highway1, were they from a sapphire farm or free range?

 

[Highway1]

Hi Dezman, these are from the sapphire farm. It was two days hard digging but good fun. The buzz of flipping over the sieve to see a nice stone is amazing.
Cheers
Max

 

[Wally69]

You are spot on Max, tHat blue one is a great looking stone.

Nice haul.

 

[richo966]

nice dogs tooth mate

 

[DanielGOLD]

Yeah I love the dogs tooth also terry.

 

[Heatho]

Very nice Max, good result for 2 days digging. It is hard work digging in the creek but can be rewarding . You did well mate.

 

[Wally69]

Wally69, you have some nice stones there with some good size/weight and translucent as well. Those bombs give you the irrates don't they.
I wish I knew a little more about the stones that appear to be half way between a sapphire and a bomb, you know the ones that give a hint of colour but appear to be a bomb, has any one every had such a stone cut to see what it turns out like?
Cheers

I didn't have an answer before, so I cut one. Not a great deal of refracted light gets through so it may be better to free form polish and set a a pendant.

 

[Wally69]

 

[Heatho]

Good example Wally of whats on the inside of a dud Sapphire. Cheers. Good quality ones can be hard to find.

 

[Highway1]

Thanks for that information Wally, it is that you have this decent size stone and it hard to through it into a jar for worthless stones. Thanks for the insight of the stones.
Cheers Max

 

[Greg&Nat]

Heading up to billabong blue this weekend.......Can't wait!!!

 

[The Hard Rock Miner]

I'm planning a trip up to Inverell mid November, the Missus has family at Armidale and Inverell she has'nt seen in quite a while. Will be keen to check out Uralla for a day or 2 and Inverell-Glen Innes region for about 4 days looking for Sapphires and anything else that sparkles.

If anyone has done a recent trip up there and had good results it would be great to hear from you either in this thread or via PM on places to try. We will be staying in motels, no camping this trip.

Anyway I'm really looking forward to it and hoping to get a few nice cutters also.

I like gem pics too so..... if you have any from the region post em up please.

I once had a whole jar of small sapphires and zircons and garnets from there and sadly my friend took the lid off the jar and tipped them all into a bucket with quartz peace's I was going to crush and he didn't let me know they wore in there and I ended up crushing them all it took about a week to find that much and all crushed up in one day I had nice colours in my pan when I paned it

 

[The Hard Rock Miner]

but if you go on a field trip and pay $10 like I did your guaranteed to find them all there's a guy there that runs field trips every Wednesday I think at one of the churches at Glen Innes his name is john he meets anyone at saint johns church at I think 10am well worth the $10 dig in the creek crevices if you go and ask at the info centre at Glen Innes they will know him well

 

[Lefty]

but if you go on a field trip and pay $10 like I did your guaranteed to find them all there's a guy there that runs field trips every Wednesday I think at one of the churches at Glen Innes his name is john he meets anyone at saint johns church at I think 10am well worth the $10 dig in the creek crevices if you go and ask at the info centre at Glen Innes they will know him well

That sounds like the bloke who calls himself "Findem" over at Aussie lapidary forum http://aussielapidaryforum.com/forum/index.php?topic=3331.msg40882;boardseen#new

Ok, I'm now heading off for 5 days dig out at Reward - sweet fa last time, few good cutters the time before that, must be about time to get a few good-uns Catch youse next week.