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Post by Flying Scott on Oct 29, 2014 19:39:55 GMT 10
Many years ago at O'Briens Creek fossicking area Mt. Surprise QLD. I found a clear stone almost the size of a golf ball, O'Briens Creek is famous for Topaz which comes in colour clear to blue, and rare pale pink I wasn't sure at the time what I had found, It could have been Topaz or just Quartz which is rare up there I took it to a Jeweler for verification, He was determined to hit it with a hammer to see how it would fracture. I didn't allow him to do that, as it is it turned out to be a Topaz and when faceted it shows a hint of pale blue. I tell you this because sometimes we need to be reminded who we can trust. Flying Scott
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Post by 360search on Oct 30, 2014 7:23:48 GMT 10
Cheers Flying scott,
Great find by the way! Would be nice to come across a nice piece of topaz. Unfortunately i believe some jewelers out there are jealous of what us prospectors and fossickers find. Also some of the facet hobbiest out there can produce a 10times better facet then some jewelers. I'm not one hundred percent on where the stones have gone to but the jewelers has sent them off.
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Post by shivan on Oct 30, 2014 15:06:15 GMT 10
Just to be clear i would never recommend to crack a gem grade looking stone, but saw that 360 said he found 30-40 stones and not all of them looked gem grade, if it was one rock i would have just asked about hardness. Long story short the more properties you know about a rock/mineral the more chance you have at correctly identifying it and not just guessing
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Post by 360search on Nov 11, 2014 20:11:04 GMT 10
Hia,
Still waiting on the two stones I sent off to come back I'm told they shouldn't be to long. How ever still haven't been back to where I got the rocks to find the Gold as I been for couple of trips to Bullumwaal, I was quite happy with my .62grams on the first trip and .14grams on the second first time experience with flour gold it bloody floats if you have no dish washing liquid.
Will keep you posted O and no surprise ATX still hasn't found gold haha
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Post by 360search on Dec 9, 2014 17:48:36 GMT 10
Well its been a wait but it has finally come back! The stone is Serpentine with Quartz. Note: with stones quote "Bloody hard to polish" Well nice looking stone..
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Post by shivan on Dec 9, 2014 19:13:37 GMT 10
Looks nice polished, how did you polish it? Interesting that it is in the serpentine group as their hardness is about 2.5 - 4 it should have easily scratched when you tried the hardness test i would have thought, though maybe the bit you tried on was covered in quartz? I still think its a really cool find, and something a bit different.
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Post by 360search on Dec 9, 2014 19:27:32 GMT 10
Cheers! I had this one sent off from a friend not sure where it went to get polished. Serpentine is a soft mineral but when hosted with quartz it takes on the hardness so i'm told.
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Post by shivan on Dec 9, 2014 20:10:18 GMT 10
Yes it does take on different properties depending on what minerals it has mixed with, i just assumed it should have been softer than pure quartz but i guess not. Every bit of info helps for the next rock though.
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