Here’s a doubly terminated corundum “sapphire” crystal found about twenty years ago near McCall, Idaho. It’s not particularly pretty, however, it is from an unusual locality. The size is about 1 1/8 “ by 3/8 “. I got it in a trade and don’t know any more details about it’s origin.
Rex
greendave41
Rex,
a few years back I bought a specimen from the same locale. It was a fist sized rock of hard schist matrix with several 1" or so corundum crystals dotted throughout. They looked exactly like yours, not flashy but very nice sharp crystal structure and a nice gray blue color. There's two places here in NC where just about 95% of all the corundum you find will be perfect hex crystals, that is the Grimshawe Mine in Transylvania Co., and the Propst Farm in Lincoln, Co.
-Dave
RexB
Dave,
Sounds like you have a nice specimen from that area, those are some interesting areas that you mentioned in NC. Maybe I'll be able to visit them one of these days. Did you ever get a chance to visit the Mason Mountain Mine in Cowee before it closed? They had lots of small barrel shaped hexagons that were covered with a thin coating of mica schist. It was a dig you own place until the cliff caved in, they were sued and they closed it down. They were often a nice shade of lavender/pink but usually a little too small to cut.
Rex
greendave41 wrote:
Rex,
a few years back I bought a specimen from the same locale. It was a fist sized rock of hard schist matrix with several 1" or so corundum crystals dotted throughout. They looked exactly like yours, not flashy but very nice sharp crystal structure and a nice gray blue color. There's two places here in NC where just about 95% of all the corundum you find will be perfect hex crystals, that is the Grimshawe Mine in Transylvania Co., and the Propst Farm in Lincoln, Co.
-Dave
greendave41
Rex,
I never got to dig at that mine, but I do have a few specimens from there.
There was a big auction, an old collector, mostly NC stuff, anyhow the auctioneer really didn't have much knowledge at all on minerals, he picked up a jar and said "Here we have a jar of rat terds up for auction"
We all got a good laugh out of it.
-Dave
RexB
Dave,
You weren’t missing a whole lot by not mining at that mine. There were nice small crystals, but once you had a few, as you mentioned, there was little variety since they were all one color and covered with mica. I guess you could mistake them for rodent pellets or something. I would have picked other mines to visit before choosing that one. Once we did spend a little time there. My great grandfather also had a jar full of those type of sapphires in the attic of the old shack we used to visit in North Carolina. Did you happen to visit any of the other native Cowee mines by chance? By the way, thanks again for the Grimshawe and Propst samples. I have them on display on one level of a book shelf where I keep some other mineral specimens.
Rex
greendave41
Rex,
The Cowee valley is surprisingly a place I havn't visited. They did recently re-open the Cherokee Mine, but i'm not going to bother with it until they get enough money to do some fresh digging. If there are any other corundum specimens you would like from out here just let me know, I have a handful of localities I've visited, and plenty of specimens.
