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03.11.2004 // Uncategorized //

Spring Break… officially wraps up soon… doesn’t feel like we had much of a break…

Managed to pick up some pretty, shiny baubles from the last round of auction hunting. It’s amazing what people like to horde. There were bags of plain rock in dusty brown paper bags… a ton of gravel in variou stages of tumbling and a mix-mash of scientific rock specimens. A few cool finds,North Carolina emeralds and rubies but only a few big enough to do anything with. There was this pink cinder block the size of a toaster that looks as if someone took a shotgun full of pyrite and blasted away at it – it’ll make for an interesting doorstop.

My father was kind enough to share part of the bounty but still decided to keep some stuff underwraps and out of sight in his safety deposit box. I don’t even want to know how much stuff my folks have packed away in the nooks and crannies of their house.

Here’s a newbie, gemstone hunter’s tip I picked up: if you want to know if a rock is a regular quartz or if it’s the more valuable topaz – stick it to your forehead. no joke, if it’s smoky topaz it will remain icy cold and cool to the touch… if it’s not then it’ll warm up to match your skin temperature and it’s probably just plain quartz.

Also, amethyst fades in sunlight, the darker (purple) the amethyst the more valuable it is… amazing, so, if UV rays can do that to the crystalline structure of amethyst imagine what it does over time to you – will have to remember to kick up the sunscreen PH level the next time I hit the beach.