So, my trip report on the
Sacramento
gem, mineral, and rockhound club's big old stomping ten cent a pound sale.
That's right. All the uncut rock material that you can eat, for the low
low price of ten cents a pound. I'm not supposed to buy ANYTHING else until
I've sold at least 500 pounds of "stuff" around the house, but how could
I resist?
In theory, as a Delta Gold, I am allowed two checked bags of 50 pounds apiece,
before I incur any
baggage fees. Down here on earth, I can't manage anything close to 100 pounds of
rock, plus my birding vest with all the pockets stuffed, plus my carry-on computer
bag. So I told myself that I would set a strict limit of only 50 pounds. Ha.
Actually, I did pretty well, since I ended up with 51 pounds.
After the sale, I went to the Goodwill store, where I dropped off a lot of
my "disposable" clothes and where I bought a $9 rolling bag to replace the rolling
bag that got cut up by American Airlines on the fantastic Bolivian
macaw adventure. I put about 30 pounds of my rocks, mostly the smaller one,
in this bag. I put the rest in a bag I already had, so that I could divide
the weight up a little.
When I was selling stones for extra money back in the 1990s, I bought thundereggs for
$1 a pound plus shipping and sold them for about $3 a pound, holding back only a
very few for my own collection. At the time, I really didn't know what they were, and
I didn't appreciate their beauty. Since I'd learned more about them, I'd suffered a
really bad case of seller's remorse.
So...my plan for the ten cent sale
was to simply load up on the thundereggs. And, as you
can see from the picture up top, that's mostly what I did. In fact,
at first, I was looking
around and grabbing the biggest thundereggs I could find. There were plenty in all
of the size categories, although if I was going for 8 pounders, I wasn't going to end
up with all that many if I truly limited myself to 50 pounds. I filled a bucket
with huge, beautiful eggs, wondering all the while how I was going to
get them to the airport, and then I suddenly had an inspiration.
Yes!
Instead of just a few huge eggs, I could have MANY small eggs.
So I went around putting back all the huge stompin' thundereggs, and then I concentrated
on picking up tiny, small, and medium-sized thundereggs.
I did allow myself five good-sized pieces, which I justified because they'd
already had at least one flat surface cut, saving a saw cut. Three thundereggs,
one Brazilian, one dark blue agate with the shape of a dove inside of it.
There was a lot of Chrysocolla, with some nice color although possibly
some iffy quality. There's one piece that will cab for sure, and the
rest might be better carved/faced off for specimens. At ten cents a pound, I'm
not going to feel guilty about experimenting.
I'm all about the pink and red. I'm told that the light pink California
Thulite in the upper left hand corner is a particularly good catch. I'm
liking the red and white brecciated material in the lower center, as well as
some spotted stuff to its immediate left that might be dinosaur bone. Don't ask me
why I picked up any more red and pink mossy/plume-y agate. You'd think
I had more than enough. But is it my fault that it's so beautiful?
There were a great deal of small tumble-sized pieces, and if I'd been driving, I would
have nabbed a couple hundred pounds of it, just to keep my tumblers humming without
all the sawing and shaping. However, since I wasn't sure how I was going to
get my bags to the airport, I had to let it go. By contrast, there were
relatively few slabs, so I felt I could slip in a few, without risk
of a hernia. I've never had a piece of Rainbow Obsidian that photographed
so well.
The biggest PITA of the entire escapade was getting the rocks out of the rental car
and over to the check-in desk. Thank goodness, I'm a Gold, and I could sail past
the long lines to the First Class desk. For my own curiosity, I asked the lady what
my bags weighed -- she only cared that they were under 50 pounds -- and she informed
me that I'd divided them up very well. One of them was about 35 pounds, and
the other was about 36 pounds. Of course, to me, after 30 pounds, they're
all just "heavy," so I couldn't tell just by feel. I felt rather proud of
myself for doing such a good balancing job.
The TSA left a little love note in one of my bags, telling me that they'd
opened it for inspection. I think I would have disappointed if they hadn't, since
rock is heavy and dense, and they really should take a look at it to be
sure it's rock and not something more sinister. I'm probably now on
the official "weirdo" list.
"This lady went to Bolivia and
brought back nothing except a bunch of dirty socks, and now she goes to
California and brings back two boxes of rocks!" Because of the priority tag, once we reached New Orleans, my bags full of rocks were two
of the first bags out. Wheeee. It's good to be the king.
.... nice haul! I feel lucky this being my first time going to get rocks and for 10cents/pound, but I wish I had done hunts before. I got some great stuff, but I did not really have a goal of what to get! This weekend I plan to go back there, and I know I'm looking for PURPLE! Thats for sure, lol. Also I don't think I'll have a time limit as I did before! Hoping there is still good stuff left! I was told that the day before the first sale, someone got all the geodes. That was a bummer to find out!
