I used the $15 buckets and found a .85 carat (after cutting) emerald and a flawless, 3.65 carat (after cutting) citrene. About $500 worth of cut stones and a couple of freezer bags of crystals to wire wrap. Not a bad return, even with the price of having the stones cut added in!!
Agree with everyone on that the creek is the funnest and seems most fruitful... If you consider that mining. Otherwise you are given buckets of dirt/rocks to sift through. Staff is nice but management is not nice to the staff. I overheard, while i was standing at the vending area, where their office shed is located, 2 young staff members (young boys) one being berated for being late and the other I'm not sure of the topic but both boys jobs were threatened. I don't know the circumstances around this, nor do i care, but this should not have been done anywhere close to a customer.
The entire mine is salted except the native buckets.... you get to keep what you "mine"....be careful there are multiple claims on this mine and you can get shot for claim jumping.... there are several different kinds of native precious and semiprecious gem stones on this mine but everything easy to find is salt.... Dottie is a very unfriendly person who has treated her staff horribly for years no surprise that you heard kids being berated
I suggest going to the creek at emerald hollow. My boyfriend and I go fairly often and we've found a variety of different gemstones. I even found several smaller emeralds.
You can dig for your gems or you can opt to sluice the buckets. Digging your own is labor intensive. I usually do the buckets which is still alot of fun to me but i still remain partial to creeking. By far, my favorite activity. You can also have your gems cut there. I have also done this. It takes several weeks to get them back but i was pleased with the results.
Most of what you will find is just different types of quartz. The most tell-tale sign that what you have is quartz is that any broken edges will look like how beach glass breaks. Emeralds apparently retain more clearly defined facets even along the edges if they have been broken.
Are you on a timer after paying to get in
Jason Martin, is John Sefke the correct spelling?
The mine is actually split up. the digging side is hard work and not salted unless they figured out how to put it 10 ft deep. I follow John Sefke on facebook and he's been mining there for over a year. some spots he's much deeper than that. The creek seems to always be best after a really hard rain. It washes the hillside and cleans out the exposed minerals.
You actually can mine for them, but there is also a creek and a sluice way. When you go sluicing is when they give you the bucket of dirt and rocks. You get to keep everything you find and there is a little lapidary that will identify your rocks for free.
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