THE BIG SAPPHIRE YARROW CREEK NSW AUSTRALIA
The “big one” eludes most gem hunters, though the
thought of it drives us all to keep searching year after year. My largest
sapphire turned up in 1989 and it was 4 times larger than any other cutter I’ve
found in the years since.
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| The "Big One" and a few of its friends from the same hole |
A fiction based on the circumstances of the find
appears in the Minerama book on Cassiterite
(1994), page 28. You can download this book from this Blog (2024).The real
stone wasn’t 200 carats, only 120. Nor was it blue. Its colour varied from
green to mauve to inky blue depending on how you looked at it.
The stone was cut by Bill Gowlett from the Gem
Centre at Inverell, using existing flaws to reduce it to 5 stones with a total cut
weight of around 40 carats. A photograph of the 5 stones appears in the
Minerama book on Sapphire (2000),
page 22.
It has proved quite difficult to photograph the
cut stones in anything like the colour they appear to the eye. I can see the
green colour, but the camera sees it as mauve. One of the smaller stones seems
to be brown in daylight but green by artificial light.
The old channel referred to in the story really
exists at the “Down the Hill” location on Yarrow Creek. If anyone wants to remove
tonnes of sand and gravel (in a dry season, of course) there is still the
chance of another “big one”.
Check out my
gem hunting videos from around Glen Innes here.
https://johnsbluemountainsblog.blogspot.com/2013/12/links-to-all-blog-entries-and-relevant.html All Blue Mountains blogs and videos
All New England and other Geology blogs and videos
Limestone Caves of NSW
Song Studies. Bible studies based on hymns and songs
Shoalhaven District Geology.
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| The second largest stone - 11 carats |
Hi im kutch my son and i picked up a nice 17.8 clear blue on the yarrow coupla months ago has a fracture but will hopefully cut a 5-6ct will post a pic when it comes back
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