Hi My name is Alan and I live in Brisbane, Australia. I am a gemstone collector and I've been fascinated with gemstones since early childhood. Australia is full of very nice and valuable material but unfortunatelly I didn't have the oportunity to go to look for it since I came here in 1999 ( originally I'm from Europe). So is there enyone here from Brisbane ?
Joined: Fri May 12, 2006 11:24 am Posts: 7523 Location: Rome, Italy
Hi Alan and WELCOME to the forum!! we have a lot of Aussie here, dunno if someone is from Brisbane tohugh. however, feel like at home here!! BENVENUTO!! ciao alberto
Joined: Fri Jun 04, 2010 8:21 am Posts: 421 Location: Australia
Hi Alan,
I just joined up to the forum. I am from Ipswich, fairly close to Brisbane. I share your interest in gemstones. I go fossicking every now and then and sometimes I even find something.
I have never been out looking for sapphires though.
Stewart
_________________ It’s still magic even if you know how it’s done.
I just joined up to the forum. I am from Ipswich, fairly close to Brisbane. I share your interest in gemstones. I go fossicking every now and then and sometimes I even find something.
I have never been out looking for sapphires though.
Stewart
I am really glad to hear it i mean to read it . Could you tell me what kind of stones do you look for and what have you found already? Do you cut them yourself? I found a faceter on fortitude valley but it costs about 10$ a carat and I have plenty of nice rough topaz from northen Queensland.
Joined: Mon Oct 06, 2008 6:13 pm Posts: 5077 Location: Australia
Did you say $10 a carat?! What are you waiting for? They wouldn't be the Mt surprise Topaz would they? Pretty. If you're really lucky you might find some pink and ...now is it green or yellow? Will have to double check that, of course I'm not forgetting the blues.
Did you say $10 a carat?! What are you waiting for? They wouldn't be the Mt surprise Topaz would they? Pretty. If you're really lucky you might find some pink and ...now is it green or yellow? Will have to double check that, of course I'm not forgetting the blues.
Yes it was few years a go. But if I want a 50ct topaz to be faceted it will cost 500$ and it's just a colorless one or ple blue and for this price I can buy more then one fsceted piece.
Joined: Fri Jun 04, 2010 8:21 am Posts: 421 Location: Australia
Quote:
I am really glad to hear it i mean to read it . Could you tell me what kind of stones do you look for and what have you found already? Do you cut them yourself?
MY fossicking hasn't really been that extensive. I have been looking for garnet out at Proston. there is a farm there that lets people dig there for a small fee. my dad and I went out there for a day and after a lot of digging, bad language and hard yakka we found a quarter of a jar of pyrope. I have cut a couple of pieces of this garnet but is is very dark and finished stones need to be pretty small to get any colour or fire in them.
There is also a small farm out near my home town that has quite fine pyrope garnet. The colour of this garnet is much more consistent and quite a bit lighter then the Proston material. Unfortunately several people have misbehaved and he no longer allows people on to fossick there.
I have dug some serpantine and fossils out at Wivenhoe. I will be a while before I can do that again since the whole lot is now 30 feet under water again.
The computer tec at one of the schools I used to work at owned a piece of land at Stanthorpe. He invited my dad and I to go out there to look for Topaz. You havent lived until you stand waist deep in freezing water for five hours we found one piece of quartz and one small topaz. What can I say? The Chinese tin miners beat us by several decades.
Probably the most exciting fossicking trip I have ever been on was at Mt Tarampa. I heard rumors of Peridot and went looking. I didn't find any Peridot but I did manage to find bag hand grenades...
The 50 lb bomb was also interesting...
Don't build a house out there...
Over the next 12 months I plan to visit Spring bluff and have a look form some Peridot.
I do cut the stones I find myself. I started out with a couple of old machines that my grandfather owned. One (no idea what brand it is possibly a little gem) was second hand (possible fifth or sixth hand) when he got it and it had been modified extensively, I am currently in the process of rebuilding it. The second is an Imahashi which he purchased new thirty five years ago. I restored that and did most of my faceting on it while I was at university and was poor. I didn't get to facet much as I was transfered about Queensland for a few years or worked irregular shifts and faceting at 1am would have driven my parents/flatmates/partner (or whoever I was living with at the time) up the wall.
A few of years ago years ago I managed to stay in one place long enough to get some serious faceting done. I found out that faceting and I were quite good friends so I set about looking for a new machine. I eventually narrowed it down to the Omni-e (glad I did not buy one from what I have read), the VJ and the Drabsch.
Eventually bit the bullet and got the VJ machine. and haven't regretted it. I have owned two machines and used several other through clubs in various parts of QLD and can fairly say that the VJ is probably the finest machine ever made. I would recommend it to anyone.
Stewart
_________________ It’s still magic even if you know how it’s done.
I am really glad to hear it i mean to read it . Could you tell me what kind of stones do you look for and what have you found already? Do you cut them yourself?
MY fossicking hasn't really been that extensive. I have been looking for garnet out at Proston. there is a farm there that lets people dig there for a small fee. my dad and I went out there for a day and after a lot of digging, bad language and hard yakka we found a quarter of a jar of pyrope. I have cut a couple of pieces of this garnet but is is very dark and finished stones need to be pretty small to get any colour or fire in them.
There is also a small farm out near my home town that has quite fine pyrope garnet. The colour of this garnet is much more consistent and quite a bit lighter then the Proston material. Unfortunately several people have misbehaved and he no longer allows people on to fossick there.
I have dug some serpantine and fossils out at Wivenhoe. I will be a while before I can do that again since the whole lot is now 30 feet under water again.
The computer tec at one of the schools I used to work at owned a piece of land at Stanthorpe. He invited my dad and I to go out there to look for Topaz. You havent lived until you stand waist deep in freezing water for five hours we found one piece of quartz and one small topaz. What can I say? The Chinese tin miners beat us by several decades.
Probably the most exciting fossicking trip I have ever been on was at Mt Tarampa. I heard rumors of Peridot and went looking. I didn't find any Peridot but I did manage to find bag hand grenades...
The 50 lb bomb was also interesting...
Don't build a house out there...
Over the next 12 months I plan to visit Spring bluff and have a look form some Peridot.
I do cut the stones I find myself. I started out with a couple of old machines that my grandfather owned. One (no idea what brand it is possibly a little gem) was second hand (possible fifth or sixth hand) when he got it and it had been modified extensively, I am currently in the process of rebuilding it. The second is an Imahashi which he purchased new thirty five years ago. I restored that and did most of my faceting on it while I was at university and was poor. I didn't get to facet much as I was transfered about Queensland for a few years or worked irregular shifts and faceting at 1am would have driven my parents/flatmates/partner (or whoever I was living with at the time) up the wall.
A few of years ago years ago I managed to stay in one place long enough to get some serious faceting done. I found out that faceting and I were quite good friends so I set about looking for a new machine. I eventually narrowed it down to the Omni-e (glad I did not buy one from what I have read), the VJ and the Drabsch.
Eventually bit the bullet and got the VJ machine. and haven't regretted it. I have owned two machines and used several other through clubs in various parts of QLD and can fairly say that the VJ is probably the finest machine ever made. I would recommend it to anyone.
Stewart
wwow I don't even know all that places wher you've been digging, because I wasn't born here. I have some peridots found here but thre are tiny and are from the north somwhere around cairns and some garnets but there are not worth cutting. Topaz however is very good quality ( you can see images I posted got to colored stones:imperial topaz). I already had some of them faceted. If you want to exercize cutting I can give you some . I would have them cut all but the problem is these days I'm short with money ( I lost my job ). Faceting is really cheap in indonesia but I can't find anybody who goes there. I think we should go somwhere near Argyle well...may be they might have droped some of it by transporting .
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