Sapphire Mining from July 2012

Last July while we were in Montana, we stopped by Gem Mountain to mine for sapphires. It was a lot of fun, I (Matthew) could have spent hours doing this, but the kids didn't have the same amount of patience, but there wasn't too much complaining for the 4 hours we were there. I put together a small video of the process of mining for sapphires at Gem Mountain. At the end you can see the glass-like rough sapphire, we collected about 75 of these rough sapphires from 4 buckets of gravel.

We paid to have 7 of the sapphires (that were large enough) to be heat-treated and cut. It takes them 6-9 months to complete this step, I guess there is a large waiting line. The remaining rough sapphires, Kristina put in a small vase with some sand. You can see that below.

We got the finished product in the mail about 2 weeks ago. They are small, but pretty. The first picture was not heat-treated, they left in its natural state because of the unique coloring. The last 3 are all similar in size and color and they recommend a mounting and possibly a pendant for these 3.

Here is the best close-up of the larger sapphire (a whopping .31 carat). We don't know how much any of them are worth, but I'm pretty sure their value is at least twice what we paid to get them heat-treated and cut. Nice souvenirs from a fun vacation we will remember. We'll definitely visit Montana again.