These gemstones are the most valuable ever found. Surprisingly it's not just expensive diamonds that made the list! Ever heard of jadeite for instance...?
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-- you ever dug up your garden only to uncover a ten thousand dollar diamond? Us either. While that’s unlikely to happen to the average Joe, it’s definitely happened. Join us as we unearth some of the most valuable gemstones that were found in the most peculiar ways!
Rare Gem or Paperweight?
Imagine you were attending a garage sale or a comic-con convention and you saw a stack of money being used as a paperweight. A bit ridiculous, right? Well that’s kind of what happened to mineral dealer Morgan Sonsthagen. Sonsthagen was attending the Tucson Gem and Mineral Show when he came across a table using a beautiful pinkish-orange rock as a paperweight.
Diamond in the Rough
During a dig in Russia’s Udachnaya diamond mine, miners discovered a rock with two unusual characteristics - a red and green hue and, oh, 30,000 miniature diamonds. Since the diamonds were so small, they couldn’t be made into jewelry, but the team donated it to science to see if someone could unearth how this rare stone came to be.
Finders Keepers
America hosts a few mining sites where amateur miners and tourists can search for precious gems. That’s just what Bobbie Oskarson did one day. Originating from Longmont, Colorado, this tourist took a trip to Arkansas, home of the Crater of Diamonds State Park.
Turning Rocks into Riches
One family of diggers turned their fun hobby into mind-blowing headlines. W. Renn Adams’s family took up the hobby of digging on the family farm to look for interesting, and hopefully valuable, gemstones. The hobby even turned into a business when the family charged the public to dig by hand in the 70s and 80s. After retiring, Adams continued the tradition, but like the generations before, he never found anything with real value.
Historic Eruption
While this next gemstone is not a huge money-maker due to its rarity, its unique discovery lead to the creation of a large niche in the gemstone market. Volcanoes are infamous for the damage they cause, but a volcanic eruption is what lead to the discovery of one of the most beautiful gemstones ever found. Mount St. Helens, located in Skamania County, Washington, was said to be a dormant volcano where tourists and locals like gather to gawk at its beauty.
Big Beauty
While the last five treasures we discussed were impressive, we’ve saved the best for last. Just this past October, the mother of all finds was unearthed in Burma. A team of government-employed Burmese miners were working in a mine in Kachin State and simply doing what miners do, searching for precious, valuable gemstones to bring to the man. That’s when they stumbled across a monster of a stone, which turned out to be a nearly 200-ton, 14-foot-high-by-19-foot-long beautiful jade boulder.
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