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Post by jewelonly on Oct 22, 2007 19:10:17 GMT -5
I think you've got the knack now, Tom...what beautiful specimens! Please, please please keep posting pics of that lovely "green". It is a real treat to see them!
Thanks,
Leah
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Post by writerman2255 on Oct 22, 2007 20:17:57 GMT -5
Dear Leah: Thanks for your support! I will do that, just as long as Rick's threats stop! Ha! Thank God for him. If it wasn't for Rick, and those who support his efforts, I would not be able to so enjoy The Crabtree, and I sure am grateful for that!
Tom.
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Post by writerman2255 on Oct 23, 2007 11:33:55 GMT -5
Ask and ye shall receive, Leah!
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Post by writerman2255 on Oct 23, 2007 11:34:11 GMT -5
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Post by writerman2255 on Oct 23, 2007 11:34:26 GMT -5
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Post by writerman2255 on Oct 23, 2007 11:36:54 GMT -5
Okay, the first one is a large specimen with the deepest green perfectly flat faced emerald you could imagine, along with several others. It took a while to scrape those out of the rather hard matrix that surrounded them. I would have never known they were there, but I kept at it. I guess persistance works! The second one is a bunch of smaller cyrstals I found up top across from the truck, just sitting there. The third one I had to dig to China and back again to get, and it's full of over probably hundreds of crystal bits and pieces, along with a large mass that's probably twenty to thirty carats, and again, a deep, clear, gorgeous green. Thanks for your indulgence! Tom.
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Post by writerman2255 on Oct 23, 2007 11:40:02 GMT -5
Okay, this last one, bear with me, is a single crystal about 2cm long, and 1 cm wide. I'm showing it, because when I picked it up, all you could see on the surface was this dirty yellow six sided end not even sticking out, just flush with the biotite. Never give up on a specimen! When I dislocated my shoulder and had to stay home for three months, I ended up scraping specimens I never would have worked so hard at, and found literally hundreds of emeralds I never would have known where there! Just keep up the work and it will pay off. Tom.
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ken
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Post by ken on Oct 23, 2007 11:54:56 GMT -5
O.K. My turn. Wish my camera was better. Lots of green and a large golden beryl on the right side. Ken
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ken
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Post by ken on Oct 23, 2007 11:57:13 GMT -5
This one has an emerald sticking out on the far right and lots more on front and back. Ken
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ken
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Post by ken on Oct 23, 2007 12:06:46 GMT -5
How about a couple of cabs? ?? Pictures don't do them justice. Ken
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ken
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Post by ken on Oct 23, 2007 12:12:43 GMT -5
A cab with emeralds and a golden beryl on the right side and wirewrapped by and old, bald, fat geezer. Ken
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Post by writerman2255 on Oct 23, 2007 16:29:01 GMT -5
Hey, regardless of the amount of hair you have, Ken, I'll take that cabochon any day buddy! Did you wrap it yourself? Pretty good!
Tom.
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ken
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Post by ken on Oct 23, 2007 16:56:09 GMT -5
Yes Tom. Wrapped by an old, fat, bald geezer. To see more of my work go to www.blarneystones.proboards84.comI post there some of my work. I post rockhunting here. Ken
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ken
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Post by ken on Oct 23, 2007 18:54:16 GMT -5
I would post more but my camera doesn't do justice to the fine specimens of emerald.
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Post by dixieeuhedrals on Oct 23, 2007 20:04:33 GMT -5
Hey guys , Is it comon knowledge that the truck was used as a winch to pull the ore cart out of the mine on the narrow gauge track ? I saw some very interesting pictures that was taken at the mine in 1970 or so . It show the truck winching out an ore cart with 300 people waiting up top for it to arrive . I also saw many other interesting pictures taken inside the mine in 1970 or so . It shows a miner drilling a bore hole deep inside the mine . I am trying to talk the fellow into letting me publish the pictures . I was able to buy a couple of buckets of crabtree material that the fellow brought out himself the day he was taken into the mine .
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ken
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Post by ken on Oct 23, 2007 20:31:02 GMT -5
Rodney, the small motor pulled the cart out when I went in 67 to 71. The truck had to be put there after summer 71. Ken
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Post by dixieeuhedrals on Oct 23, 2007 20:44:17 GMT -5
Thanks . The guy with the pictures is 75 years old , and I wasnt quite sure of the dates . I figured it was sometime in the early seventies . It did clearly show the truck hooked up to the ore cart pulling it up the tracks. He said that during the fieldtrips he would be telling people to stand back and away from the cart till it reached the top and was dumped , and that of course no one listened . He said it was a wonder that no one lost a finger or a toe from the cart on the track . You wont believe the pictures that show the crowd around the cart trying to snatch rocks off the top as it went by .
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Post by writerman2255 on Oct 23, 2007 21:55:28 GMT -5
Dear Ken: I went on that other website to see some of your other wirewrapping, and I was really impressed! Thanks for sharing that! Tom.
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Post by claycat on Oct 24, 2007 7:49:12 GMT -5
Ken- thanks for the link, love it and I subscribed. Your stuff looks great. Tom- you make me itch to get back up to Crabtree everytime I read this thread (which is once a day) LOL! Great finds.
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Post by lee on Oct 24, 2007 13:31:24 GMT -5
Rodney and Tom:
Maybe y'all should work together to gather information relating to the Crabtree Mine history and then publish it for all of us to enjoy. Tom, you have enough great material to include pictures of specimens from the mine and Rodney, you have the connections to gather pictures of the mine in the old days. It would be very enjoyable to learn about the history of the mine and know what types of jewelry pieces have been made using emeralds from the mine.
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Post by writerman2255 on Oct 24, 2007 17:42:40 GMT -5
I'm game Lee. Thanks for the suggestion. This following picture is of the finest emerald in quality I have ever found to date at the Crabtree. It's about a carat, in the front one, and two carats or so in the back one. I scraped for months on the first one, then put it away for two months, only to come back to it later and discover that the second, larger one, was right there under some biotite too! I found it that day on a machine dig two digs ago. There's about twenty-five emerald crystals in this one, and they're all good sized. This is the best picture I can take, given my current talents, and as nice as it looks, it does in no way do the actual crystal justice.
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Post by writerman2255 on Oct 24, 2007 17:44:06 GMT -5
This one I am including, which also does not do it justice, just goes to show you that you have to look everywhere to find emeralds. This one was in a mass of that black biotite that is less black, and more grayish, where you never find anything, but here this way, right in the middle of it, next to some clear quartz! It's pretty big too.
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Post by writerman2255 on Oct 24, 2007 17:47:45 GMT -5
Okay, I'm posting two of this specimen. This is some of the clearest, most well formed emerald I have. Again, in rock it's much more striking. It's a fairly nice sized mass, and all completely clear green. The thing about it is, the way it's formed so perfectly six sided on one end, and the other end is just rounded. Almost all the emeralds I find at the Crabtree are complete, without damage, and yet under the biotite they're not perfectly formed, only some of them are. They also have a lot of contact points, so if you break open a rock, you might think you damaged the crystal, but in most cases since the emeralds aren't formed that well anyway, it could be that you didn't harm it in any way at all, but that's just the way the specimen looked to begin with. I'm still waiting to find that perfect Seven Sisters Stone, with the seven perfect emeralds in it, all over sixty carats each!
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Post by jewelonly on Oct 24, 2007 18:09:51 GMT -5
OH... MY... GOODNESS, TOM! These are absolutely lovely!! Thanks for posting them and giving the descriptions of finding them or uncovering them, as the case may be. It is very inspiring! In fact....I'll never be able to disgard a Crabtree rock with biotite on it ever again! (laughing) That sounds like trouble, doesn't it?
Leah (planning to scrape Crabtree biotite this weekend!)
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Post by lee on Oct 24, 2007 18:14:53 GMT -5
Tom:
I think we all need a lesson in scraping black biotite and exposing emeralds.
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Post by jewelonly on Oct 24, 2007 18:18:10 GMT -5
Ken, having been fortunate enough to see some of your beautiful cabs of Crabtree material, I can imagine the intensity of color on some of your pics. As always, it is a pleasure to see pics of your workmanship.
Leah
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Post by writerman2255 on Oct 24, 2007 20:45:12 GMT -5
One bit of scraping information. I always use an exacto number eleven blade, which I can use to scrape off quartz or biotite from around a crystal. In this way, nothing of the emerald is ever damaged. I use a LOT of blades, but I don't want to hurt the crystals, and steel will just bounce off of them. The thing is, almost always the emeralds are intact and smooth and the quartz and material around them is more fractured, allowing small leverage points to pop it away from what you want to save. Use gloves! In the beginning I bled over enough specimens to realize that with the pressure needed to be applied to the blade, one slip and you realize how soft your fingers really are! Tom.
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Post by writerman2255 on Oct 29, 2007 18:41:18 GMT -5
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Post by dixieeuhedrals on Oct 29, 2007 19:12:13 GMT -5
I recently went to south florida to look at a collection. I ended up buying about 4 thousand pounds of material of mixed origing . This fellow was very active in rockhounding , and personally collected from the depths of the mine. The pictures that follow are all of the same specimen . I will be posting this to ebay with bidding starting at 99 cents. I figured folks would enjoy seeing them here :
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Post by dixieeuhedrals on Oct 29, 2007 19:13:01 GMT -5
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