Not every gem on display looks impressive, but don’t discount seemingly simple rocks and stones. Though many attendees go for the jewelry, Gloria Quigg, publicity and show chair for TGMS, tells that part of the draw is the chance to mingle with other collectors who see the show as a chance to show off their finds. She joins pros and amateurs alike most winters at the Tucson Gem & Mineral Show in Arizona. The largest show of its kind in the world, annual event features panel discussions, lectures, booths and gems galore. It was so dark inside that we were pouring beer on the specimens to see what their colorations were.”Īlthough Proud hasn’t struck similar paydirt in a while, she’s still an avid collector and is well known within the greater gem and mineral community. grabbed a case of beer-you didn’t have plastic water bottles back then-and drove to the cave. “At first I thought someone had been hurt, but he was just so excited. “One of the foremen called me on the phone late at night, and his voice was shaking,” Proud tells. Another, also a tourmaline, wound up on a ten-cent postage stamp in 1974. One of her finds, called the “Candelabra” tourmaline (from the mineral elbaite), is now on display at the National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C.
One of her greatest hauls was in 1972, when she discovered massive quantities of tourmaline in a mine she and her ex-husband leased in Pala, California, 60 miles north of San Diego. Proud sells the cut and polished gems as jewelry, but sometimes her work takes her beyond her home state. She specializes in finding Oregon Sunstone, the state gem (from the mineral labradorite) characterized by its glittery, orange-red hue and formed as the result of lava flow from volcanic eruptions that occurred millions of years ago. Proud has been hunting gems since her grandfather, a miner during the Great Depression, took her on a digging expedition in the 1950s. Most gem hunters visit sites like Emerald Hollow Mine for the fun of it, but for others, like Karla Proud, it’s a profession. “Oftentimes people mistake it for green bottle glass, because a shard of glass looks very similar.” North Carolina isn’t the only state that can call dibs on a unique gem or mineral. “Hiddenite is small and can be difficult to find,” Jason Miller, co-owner of Emerald Hollow Mine, tells. The rare specimen can prove elusive, but it’s all about the thrill of the hunt. It’s the only site in the country where the public can search for emeralds and North Carolina Hiddenite, a lime-green gem (from the mineral spodumene) discovered in the area in 1879. (Some places will even cut, polish and set found minerals into jewelry for a fee.) In North Carolina, for example, 50,000 treasure hunters try their luck at Emerald Hollow Mine each year. Today nearly every state has at least one fee-based mine or dig site that’s open to the public with a "finders, keepers" policy that allows visitors to pocket their finds. Gold is neither a gem nor a mineral-it’s a chemical element.) Gems are precious or semiprecious minerals that can be cut and polished into colorful stones. ( Generally speaking, minerals are inorganic objects containing a specific chemical makeup and molecular structure. history that even today every state in the union has either a state gem or mineral-or both. The hunt for buried treasure is so interwoven into U.S. One of the earliest accounts of mining in what is now the United States comes from the Pueblo, a Southwestern tribe that began mining for turquoise some 2,600 years ago. As early Anglo settlers spread the word about the wealth of buried treasures beneath the land, immigrants flocked to the colonies to stake their claim. Often called “rockhounding,” the search for gems and minerals has been popular for decades. The secret is knowing where to sink your shovel. Across the United States there are dozens of public mining and digging sites packed with everything from diamonds and emeralds to jade and sunstone. Do you dream of the good life? For a lucky few, treasure may lie hidden beneath your feet.
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