Cash and Treasures Program on the Travel Channel

Yes, at the michigan copper mine, you can find copper that is from that mine. For a more concentrated experience:
[www.museum.mtu.edu]

Watch out for Carolina Emerald mine off Hwy 221 in North Carolina. I payed them $78.00 for 3 days to camp and dredge. I had called and the price was $10.00 a night to camp and $11.00 a day to dredge. Got there and the price was $12.00 for each. I had to head to the house after 1 day of dredging and 2 nights of camping. The owner was gone. I told the caretaker it was going to rain so I needed to head home. After getting home,I called and told the owners wife I needed a refund for the unused time at the camp, she told me to call back at 4:30. I now keep getting an anwsering mach. 2 weeks now. 100 miles to drive back, he knows I would not drive that far for $36.00. The boy that owns this place is a rippoff. Just beware of this part of North Carolina. I was told that the people there will ripp you in a second , at all the mining places in the area.

That sounds a little harsh Wallace, if you paid in advance for time to camp and dredge and decided to go home half way through, why do you think it's their obligation to refund you for that?

Sounds like it was a real cheap deal anyway - perhaps next time take more notice of the weather reports before you head out. Or pay one day at a time.

Jolyon

Jolyon,

Those stupid NC places are just salted junk for the most part. North Carolina "gem mines" are tourist traps.

Wallace, keep on field collecting!, but maybe get some of those North Carolina field guides for a better experience. Emeralds and Hiddenites are for the owners and those with backhoes!

I've found a new inner tranquility now that I don't subject myself to watching this god forsaken program anymore. Serenity Now!

I have seen several of the shows. The "How much is this worth?" grates on every #@&% nerve in my body. She needs to just do the show and keep the economics out of it. On the other hand, she has probably added thousands to our hobby. After all, how many people want to go out and get filty, hot, and tired without some payoff? Not may would try more than once. I think that most of the people that watch this show will try a pay for a pail of dirt on vaction with their kids in a safe environment salted or not, not stuff explosives in a hole and blow the crap out of a mountain side. There should be a disclaimer stating that results or searching is highly varied and that segments of the show have been staged to show a best results outcome. But alas that will surely never happen.

What I really want to know is WHERE THE HELL IS OSHA WHEN YOU NEED THEM? I hope that the OSHA people have been watching this show. Next time I go for my 40 Hr. OSHA refresher I hope that I hear that someone from this governmental organization has contacted this show and most of the places she/it has been or will visit in the future.

The no safety factor on these shows will do more damage to the hobby her.

Downeast

I love the show also, I watch every show and even have my boyfriend tape them for me. I agree. GREAT SHOW!

To Justin Zzyzx,

Stop watching the show if it bothers you so much! No one is making you watch this show. It's just entertainment. Quit your bitchin and watch something else.

Sqwa

To Sqwa

Stop reading the thread if it bothers you so much! No one is making you read this thead, it's just Justin being Justin. Quit your bitchin and read something else.

Jolyon

Just the name including the word "cash" gives a strong hint that it is aimed to people only seeing dollar signs in everything. There simply are people who do nor have a feeling for quality, history, scintific interest ..... but whose neural connections are so few that only some value in currencey can draw thei interest.

Hos much is a kiss worth from your beloved one when you wake up. one dollar, 25 cent, 50 dollar......
How much is it worth to feel the wind in your hair, the sunrays warming you, hear the bird sing......

To people with good connections to their own sences and heart, the most precious in life has no price and is way to precious to evaluate in currency. How much would you sell your mother for, your child.

We all know, that sadly enough there are such people selling anything, or anyone for money.......and sadly it always will be as long as we allow this primitive behaviour.

I just spent ten days in mines in Minas Gerais, Brazil. Most mines are now closed down since very sadly the environmental people in Brazil seem not to haver a clue about the difference between pegmatite gem mines, which has nothing to do with the harm the environment from sulphide deposits, heap leaching with cyanid for gold etc. How can that be.

How much are some small geologically interesting samples worth.
Nothing in dollars but with the knowledge of exactly where they came from in a vein, some analyses and plenty of work they have some scinentific value.

For anyone with some insight into the mineral specimen mining business, it can only be done by extremely interested and motivated people, who are interested in the science, not in the money. As Jesse pointed out, a lot of invested time and knowledge, besides plenty of money for equipment, liceses etc, will give you plenty of fun, a lot of hard work, and MAYBE your expenses back, VERY MAYBE, and that is NOT counting your time.

Amen Peter, well said.
AK

I live in Franklin NC and have worked at the 2 biggest "ruby" mines one here and one in Cherokee.I was the jeweler at one and sales at the other.As jeweler I sat in the back room with a safe full of cut gemstones(from Brazil) and traded them out for the "native"(also form Brazil) rough and set them.It took 10 minutes.The mine in Cherokee gave a turn around time of 2 hours.They finally changed that to 24 hours because it was getting harder and harder to convince them we could cut 300 gems in 2 hours. The hardest part of sales was looking the customers in the face and telling them"Yes these are all local gems and yes we cut your stones", but we all have to make a living and the pay was great.Cash and Treasures has doubled the business in the past 2 years.Just about everyone threw the doors said"We saw this on tv and just had to try it."I will say that the finished product was far superior, and less expensive than anything they could have bought in the Jewelry srores. Who's to say?

Nice to hear Ruby person from NC!

Plumgold, thanks for speaking the truth now, but how many times did you lie to someones face?

#1 "Who's to say?"
I guess I'm one to say, lying to a person is wrong, and for profit makes it worse.

#2 "we all have to make a living and the pay was great"
Sounds more like you were making a killing, than a living.

I make quality, custom jewelery at an affordable price.
I take pride in my work, and reputation.
You can twist it any way you like, It's dishonest.

Adam Kelly

Plumgold, that is an amazing admission.

Frankly, I think people like you should be put in jail.

The never-ending swindling of gullible people by the gem trade is a constant source of puzzlement. I do not get why companies like the shopping channel and the fake gem mining tourist traps are not investigated, charged, and convicted of fraud.

If I sell you a Mercedes that is actually a Chevy, that's a crime. I sell you lab-grown or dyed quartz as a genuine gem, with a made-up name, for a massive markup, and that's perfectly kosher. Puzzling indeed.

If the public had the slightest clue as to how badly they're getting ripped off by the gem trade they'd rend you limb from limb.

Nice business, hope you enjoyed your profits. If your conscience ever gets to you, you should add up how much you made and donate it to a good charity.

I totally agree with Tim - It is criminal fraud, just like the fellow who was passing off India diamonds as being from Arkansas.
At least his use of a pseudonym, "Plumgold", rather than his real name, might indicate a sense of guilt, so a little step in the right direction.

Ok, I think Alfredo's comment was a little unfair.

To compare someone who has come voluntarily here without prompting to help expose the fraud they were involved with previously is very, very, different to what happened with the diamond fraud guy - who simply got caught and still denied everything.

Plumgold was certainly involved in a nasty fraud but the fact that he's here now exposing how it works has to be a point in his favour.

Jolyon

I agree, Jolyon. He's a brave fellow. But his final comment, "Who's to say?", indicates some lingering moral ambiguity about whether he was actually committing a fraud or a "public service".

It's sad to hear how much the Cowee Valley ruby mines have changed since I was a kid in the 60's and dragged my family there on vacation. One could dig the gravel out of the walls of trenches cut in the undisturbed alluvium, and to get the few decent stones we found cut, we took them to the Ruby City shop in Franklin and they ground them to cabochons (too included to look good faceted), mailed to us a few weeks later. I still have my cut ruby. I find the current practice of switching out cut for rough gemstones (undisclosed), as described by plumgold, particularly appalling.

Remembering how much I loved my childhood experience, I took my family to a sapphire mine in the Helena area last summer. The one we went to required us to buy a bag of 'concentrate' but then we could drive up to an actual dig site on the hill and mine our own gravel for a nominal fee. A year later we still haven't bothered doing anything with the concentrate, but we did mine two 5 gal buckets of sieved gravel and found a number of light blue sapphires when we washed the material there. I think most people are happy with just going through the concentrate (and many of them probably wouldn't care even if it was spiked with foreign material, as long as they were told); but for me it was all about the 'finding it myself' experience. I wonder if anybody in NC still honestly provides that experience. Maybe plumgold can let us know.

This kind of thing will always be with us because people want to believe that is possible to get something for nothing. They want to believe in the gods and in little green men and flying saucers. The want to believe in psychic powers and snake oil and the tooth fairy. Dreams are always preferable to reality and it has always been thus. The above scam does seem a little blatant however and I think that the person(s) who run those places had better be careful because it wouldn't take much for them to prosecuted for fraud and end up in jail. All it would take is a few complaints to the FTC and a local or not so local prosecutor to take an interest in the case and all those operations would probably be shut down. But when someone is making a lot of money doing something like that, ethics gets put on the back burner. Compared however the the great frauds perpetrated on Wall street recently it seems hardly worth trying to chase such minor villains especially when you consider how many people they suck into the hobby who will hopefully educate themselves to the point where they can see through such scams.

Rock Currier
Crystals not pistols.

I dont know how many of you have actualy gotten or worked material from the mines on this series but I have form many of these sites and if you havent then you shouldnt be blabbering about how fake, "salted" or set up it is. I have quite a beautiful and valuable collection of gems from the material from these mines. Especially saphires from Montana and have never been dissapointed with the material I have recieved from any of the mines there. If everything she worked was "salted" then every bit of material I have worked was super "salted" and I dont have a TV show.