Gem Mining In Franklin, NC

The first stop on our recent RV trip was Franklin, NC, which bills itself as the Gem Capital Of The World and based upon the number of mines, it would be a hard brag to refute – nine mines in a small area.  When I think mine, I think of a hole back in a mountain into which one goes in search of riches, but these are really miniature strip mines where you dig in the gem laden dirt or someone else digs it for you.  You can also buy seeded buckets where gem stones have been added to the dirt for you to find.

After talking with several work-campers at the campground, we went a couple of miles to the Mason Mountain Mine.  This place is somewhat unique in that the actual mine is up on the mountain where the gemstone laden soil is loaded into a dump truck and dumped at the base of the mountain.  We passed this guy (wood carving) on the way.

At the mine, for $20, we were given a five gallon bucket, a screen bottomed tray, a trowel, use of a dolly, and four hours to wash as much gravel as we could ($30 for all day).  This is the entrance and as you can see it’s nothing fancy - also a shot up the flume.

After filling our buckets from the pile and using a dolly to move them to the flume, we troweled the dirt into a screen bottomed tray and washed away all of the dirt until only rocks were remaining.

Since we were rank amateurs, it took us a long time to go through the first bucket, but with some instruction, Madison quickly figured what we were looking for and our process picked up rapidly.  We were picking out little pieces of garnet that were useless, until we realized it was the larger and cutable rubys and sapphires that we wanted and they basically looked like smooth rocks with a pink or blue cast to them. 

After the owner dumped a fresh load of dirt and we knew what we were looking for, we ended up getting several cutable stones in a short period of time.  The big ruby in the first shot (lower right) was uncutable, but the large sapphire near the glasses (second shot) yielded a good sized gem.

After finishing I asked Bev if she looked forward to the next time or if she’d been-there-done-that and she picked the latter.

Again, after talking with the campground guys, we took our stones to the Jackson Hole Gem Mine for cutting. They charge $45 per finished karat for the cutting, which sounds like a lot, but they sell their finished stones for $120/carat.  We just took our bag of rocks and the young lady quickly separated them into cutables, too-small-to-fool-withs, and rocks.  This is our completed haul with a total weight of 68 carats - the largest sapphire is 10 carats and the largest ruby is 6 carats.  The other three are star rubies and supposed to be quite valuable.  The smaller stones are about a carat.  I gave up on trying to get a good shot of them.

After seeing the finished gems and writing a pretty big check, Bev, Pat, and Madison accepted the two free $50 buckets of dirt they offered, found a bunch more stones, and took a few of them back in to be cut.  I then understood the game: the mining is just a way to provide rocks for their real money maker – gem cutting and setting.  I’m confident that if they knew you would have them cut, they would just give you the gem stones. 

With eight grand kids (seven girls), we can envision a nice piece of jewelry for each and Bev has changed her tune to maybe we should do it again sometime.

Photos best if enlarged by clicking on them.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by Almost Heaven South.

Larry

6/8/2013 event date