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Fakes & FraudsShipped unsalted/unsearched Gem dirt?

23rd Sep 2015 15:28 UTCDomitian

Does anyone know a good unsalted/unsearched gem dirt shipper?

My wife is going to be hospitalized for about a week and I thought this might be something fun for her (as we are rockhounds) while she recovers. We have ordered some once before from Gem Mountain Montana and really enjoyed ourselves, but I want to try something different (preferably not Sapps again) and I have had zero luck finding anything that doesn't look salted and or incredibly picked-over. I did cut a few very pretty untreated Sapps from Gem Mountain, but am not specifically looking to cut this time (but who knows).

Thoughts? Suggestions? I'm stuck in Nebraska (Rockhound hell in my opinion) and wont be able to travel to pick something up.

Thanks

-D

23rd Sep 2015 21:56 UTCGary Weinstein

D,

Yes most of them are salted as there is not enough material or market for otherwise. You could try one of the gold panning dirts for fun. They are quite available from many states. Look for the magazine "gold prospectors" at a news agency.

Hope this helps,

Gary

23rd Sep 2015 22:53 UTCDomitian

Thanks for the reply Gary.

I thought about the gold panning dirts, but know there is a lot of technique involved in that and, having never tried (we're hiker/rockhounds) wasn't sure if gold panning would be something she could do while mostly bed-bound for a week. Was hoping for something she could more pick though without the needs for water etc.

That said, definitely interested in doing a gold one in the future.

-D

23rd Sep 2015 23:22 UTCBob Harman

A number of years ago our club contracted with some company (I don't remember the details) to send a large amount of unsalted material for the kids area at our club show. Altho "guaranteed to contain things of interest and value", It must have truly been unsalted and virtually no one found anything. When all was said and done, the kids and parents were rather unhappy or irritated. I guess the material would have been better off salted!. Anyway, if you find some genuinely unsalted material, I wish you better luck. CHEERS.......BOB

24th Sep 2015 14:11 UTCDomitian

Ya, you definitely take your chances with it... but we are used to not finding anything on our adventures. We came away empty handed from the Arkansas Diamond mine (I REALLY wish we had more than a couple hours there ...), and somehow failed to find a single Elie Ruby when we went hunting for them in Scotland (got distracted by all the amazing Sea Glass and spent the day looking mainly for that).

Personally I'd rather have a equal chance of finding something amazing as someone actually digging than have material that has been picked over and then salted with stuff that isn't worth the postage. But I totally get that I am in the minority and they probably make way more money with salted material. Oh well ... was just hoping to find a fun activity.

Thanks all.

-D

24th Sep 2015 19:48 UTCTravis Hetsler

Try Rose Creek Mine.com and browse the store. I take the family there and they have the best unsalted dirt full of sapphire that I have found in NC to date. Happy Hunting!

24th Sep 2015 22:50 UTCDomitian

Thanks for the heads-up Travis. I might just give them a try.

Finding any decent review of these sites is near impossible ... to the point where I am tempted to start doing them myself. Hitting the lottery first would help, of course!

31st Oct 2015 11:54 UTCJay I. G. Roland

I had to read this thread twice.....I cannot believe folk actually buy dirt to sift through.

If I was a little fitter and more able to operate a spade I could make a mint shipping Cornish dirt out to the Americans :-D

11th Mar 2016 19:39 UTCDomitian

A little late on the reply, but yes, some people who, for whatever reason, cannot travel the world to look for native specimens are willing to have dirt to look through shipped to them.

For the record, I'm fit enough to be a marathoner, but with a new baby, a career and no trust-fund (and stuck in the equivalent of hell to a rockhounder - Nebraska), sometimes I have a hard time justifying globetrotting for my hobby.

...but if you want to fill up a bag of dirt and ship it my way, I'll gladly sift through it. :-D

-D

P.S. - right about the time you wrote this I was sifting through dirt in Scotland for some Elie rubies ... will probably be a few years before I can swing another trip overseas =)

11th Mar 2016 19:43 UTCDomitian

As an additional note for anyone else who is looking for similar ... the best I could find was Cherokee Ruby Mine in NC. Unfortunately they do not ship.

Was planning a trip out there for this April before the wife and I found out she was pregnant and that I wouldn't be taking any unnecessary trips for a while. :-D

11th Mar 2016 20:34 UTCMichael Wood

Hi D,

maybe as an alternative to sifting dirt you could get someone to ship a box of rocks, then you could spend hours breaking them down to seek the beauty within. Hammer and chisel work for sure, but small scale and if you got a rock-breaker such as is used for trimming specimens, much easier.

I was thinking of some thing like amygdaloidal basalt lava, you can get several or more of the zeolite species in these little cavities, and if you have a low-power binocular microscope there is hours of interest to be had. Differing lava rocks from various parts of the world contain many different species of mineral - the island of San Miguel in the Azores springs to mind... :-)

If there are any relict glacial features where you are in Nebraska, such as moraines, boulder-trains and the like, it might be worth looking in quarried areas or gravel pits, some interesting rocks/boulders can be found... a bit like pebbles on the beach I guess. Try checking out riverbanks where they cut through a moraine or an esker.

Or are there really, really no rocks?

Mike

11th Mar 2016 21:12 UTCDomitian

Heya Mike,

Entertainingly I was just googling trying to figure out if there were quarries or something I could peruse. It is *not* easy to find information on this apparently.

My wife and I love hiking, so we were planning to go down by the Platte River this weekend to walk along and look, but I was looking to see if hunting season is over. The park along the river is open to hunting and I dont feel particularly safe with the pregnant wife and my dog out there while people are hunting.

As for rocks, ya they are here, just buried under a ridiculous amount of dirt (which makes the area amazing for farmers...). Along the rivers you can find a little exposed rock occasionally, but more knowledgeable people have told me the area is not particularly good for hounding. We did find some really cool agate (some looks similar to the fish-egg man-made agate) in our rock beds around the garden when we moved in, but that is about it. :-D

I'm hoping to get over to the mineralogy club next week to see if I can befriend a local into telling me some good places to go.

Was just mourning my luck of being a rockhound who grew up in Florida and wound up in Nebraska (and who has zero interest in shells and fossils). I'm praying work takes me to the southwest or smokey mountains next time.

Thanks for the advise! We are planning a day trip to South Dakota to poke around next month, so hopefully I'll have a little luck.

14th Apr 2016 20:16 UTCMike Mangrum

Domitian,

If you are going to South Dakota, head for the area around Wall/Badlands National Park. All sorts of agates out there. You can't, of course, pick up anything in the park, but there are lots of National Grasslands out there for you to roam in.

As for gem dirt, if sapphires appeal to you then check out the mines in Montana. They ship gem dirt to you and you will find sapphires in it. They aren't very large, but they are pretty and many of them facetable.

Mike Mangrum

14th Apr 2016 20:58 UTCBob Harman

As a further update to this thread, I suggest contacting a Mexican geode importing and shipping firm out of El Paso, Texas. They will ship barrels of these unbroken geodes for a published fee. If you have someone who can use a pipe cutter to open them at the show or club meeting etc, I guarantee they will be a hit with kids, their families, and many casual collectors. Much better than salted dirt! CHEERS.....BOB

15th Apr 2016 18:44 UTCDr. Paul Bordovsky

Bob has a good suggestion. When the kids were young, I decided against a clown or a magician for a birthday party. I ordered a lot of coconut geodes from El Paso. I rented a cast iron pipe cutter from a local tool store. Each kid got to pick a geode, mark the direction of the cut they wanted, and I then popped them open. I think I had more fun than the kids. Years later, the kids and/or parents told me they still had the geodes on their desk or cabinet.

9th May 2016 01:42 UTCAwal

My wife and I have been to Cherokee the past few years. It is the best mine in that area in my opinion so I would recommend a trip at some point. We did get 5 cut our last trip. Total cut weight was 9.43 ct so we did find some nice stones.

I am also looking for some unsalted material because my wife is also pregnant and we won't be able to make our yearly trip.

9th May 2016 02:06 UTCGary Moldovany

I'm not sure if this is of interest to anyone, but there are several companies that will ship gold-bearing dirt to you. You have to pan it yourself, of course, and will need a gold pan, at the very least. The place that I used to get dirt from was called "Felix Paydirt". The dirt contained quite a bit of visible gold, even a few small nuggets. It's not cheap but you usually get what you pay for.

9th May 2016 22:20 UTCDomitian

Heya all,

Thanks for the continued suggestions. Entertainingly enough (based on one of the suggestions) my wife and I just went to Jacob's Geodes in Hamilton, IL one or way to our babymoon (last trip before first kid). I've now got a 5gal bucket absolutely full of geodes. Many are grapefruit sided, but i did dig at both sites on the property (one site with bigger geodes, the other with small, supposedly higher-quality).

Was quite fun ... and now I'm just trying to figure out how to get them open since I can't find a local place that rents out soil pipe cutters (and my local rock shops wants $5 a piece to cut them and I don't know the quality to know if it is worth it).

-D

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