It was Good Friday. The year 1978.
An occurrence took place that shocked the gemstone world. To this day, it remains unequaled in magnitude and significance.
Had a few more days passed, this event may never have transpired. One of the more interesting stories of gemstone lore.
Joined: Mon Oct 17, 2005 2:39 pm Posts: 3528 Location: San Francisco Bay Area, CA
Why thank you for remembering! Good Friday in 1978 was INDEED two weeks to the day after my birth! I had no idea that my birth was so momentous in the industry... but it's good to know!
Joined: Tue Dec 05, 2006 6:15 pm Posts: 746 Location: South Africa
Sheesh, I'm only off by a few months so I guess I'll have to let you have all the glory!
lol
Back to the quiz though...
Could it be Ailton Balbosa and Jonas Lima's discovery of the rubellite tourmaline "bamburrio" in Brazil after almost abandoning the search and Ailton giving up his VW to pay for a few more days digging???
Wendell Wilson's drawing shows how impressive the crystals were on scale to the mining tools.
A good read after the first paragraph or so on how the discovery came about.
Joined: Mon Oct 17, 2005 10:56 am Posts: 6461 Location: The frozen north prairie :-/
Oh man! The only thing I could think of was the eruption of Mt. St. Helens, but I think that was later, and not really that important gemologically speaking .
_________________ IIJA Registered Gemologist GIA Graduate Gemologist
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