Sabre52
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Me and my gal, Rosie
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Post by Sabre52 on Jan 9, 2022 15:35:20 GMT -5
Yep, some keokuk geodes are like that too. I've also heard those are geodes after fossil crinoid heads.
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Sabre52
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Me and my gal, Rosie
Member since August 2005
Posts: 20,487
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Post by Sabre52 on Jan 9, 2022 15:29:45 GMT -5
Could be Olympic but there is stuff identical to that in Hunters Valley too. Comes in nodules and we called it Sierra Primrose jasper. Had a big deposit full of boulders containing those nodules on our old ranch and it looked identical to Olympic pebbles. Sold all my rough but I do have some cabs around in the barn somewhere. Another identical deposit was in the pit in Hunters Valley we called the "stinky horse hole".
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Sabre52
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Me and my gal, Rosie
Member since August 2005
Posts: 20,487
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Post by Sabre52 on Jan 8, 2022 15:36:39 GMT -5
pocket rot wood #2 by lonerider652000, on Flickr Found this large hunk of pocket rot wood on a roadside near George West Texas. Unfortunately, all the pockets are filled with druzy quartz instead of agate so off to the wife's rock garden.
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Sabre52
Cave Dweller
Me and my gal, Rosie
Member since August 2005
Posts: 20,487
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Post by Sabre52 on Jan 8, 2022 15:29:13 GMT -5
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Sabre52
Cave Dweller
Me and my gal, Rosie
Member since August 2005
Posts: 20,487
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Post by Sabre52 on Jan 8, 2022 15:15:08 GMT -5
Hornitos poppy from the north end of Hunters Valley. No doubt about it. That's the good old stuff from the original find too. Good catch. I was at an old rock yard one time in the Calif central valley and spotted a beautiful boulder of a poppy I'd never seen before sticking up in the garden. Tried to buy it with no luck. Very frustrating! Very lucky you ran into such a generous person.
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Sabre52
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Me and my gal, Rosie
Member since August 2005
Posts: 20,487
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Post by Sabre52 on Dec 30, 2021 23:50:14 GMT -5
There are several varieties of Brazilians, hence the prices can vary quite a bit. One type used to be sold as Pirahna Agate and those were exceptionally colorful and fairly expensive. Those sometimes-showed extreme color changes within a nodule and had very nice high contrast banding. The cheapest sort run to gray tones with weak banding and the middle grades are often banded in shades of carnelian. The agate will accept dye and heat treatment and the gray type are often heated for better banding, contrast and more carnelian tones. You've probably seen those dyed too in all kid of unnatural colors.
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Sabre52
Cave Dweller
Me and my gal, Rosie
Member since August 2005
Posts: 20,487
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Post by Sabre52 on Dec 26, 2021 15:41:22 GMT -5
Yep, a mixed hardness sedimentary rock very much like Texas Devils Toenails or Coquina from Malibu except even more difficult to polish even on the wheels. The Toenails takes a good polish on the wheels as it's a pretty silica rich limestone and is more homogeneous. The Script stone and Coquina both are hard to shine up even on wheels. None of the three tumble well at all.
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Sabre52
Cave Dweller
Me and my gal, Rosie
Member since August 2005
Posts: 20,487
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Post by Sabre52 on Dec 26, 2021 15:33:29 GMT -5
Wow, way to put a shine on those Rios! That flower garden plume in that last set is awesome!
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Sabre52
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Me and my gal, Rosie
Member since August 2005
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Post by Sabre52 on Dec 17, 2021 22:30:58 GMT -5
Jeez, so many but since we both got new horses, they have dominated most our time. Love wildlife photography too.
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Sabre52
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Me and my gal, Rosie
Member since August 2005
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Post by Sabre52 on Dec 15, 2021 15:33:21 GMT -5
Wow, that's pretty cool Tommy. I ran across one of the original miners at a show year and years ago and he said that fancy original stuff was packed in 50-gallon drums and shipped away, I believe he said in the 1960's. Another big find was a mile or so away and was made by Mr. Flora, my across the street neighbor in Hunters Valley. He found a single big lens of material of a different sort with less reds and more purples. When by buddy, another Tom's, dog discovered the original old Holy Grail pit from the 60s, we thought we were gonna clean up, but man was that pit cleaned out. Only stuff we found of that quality was a little bit just in back of the original pit. In our explorations, we found numerous small pits back in the brush but all the deposits were real small. When Robin Trumbull put the area under claim, he changed the area so much I can hardly recognize in on Google now but there is poppy over a huge area and I'm sure there is lots more to be dug. Heck there were a bunch of boulders on our old place full of nice poppy nodules if one liked hard rock mining.
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Sabre52
Cave Dweller
Me and my gal, Rosie
Member since August 2005
Posts: 20,487
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Post by Sabre52 on Dec 15, 2021 7:56:13 GMT -5
Wow that's the old stuff from the original pit. My digging buddy used to call that type the "Holy Grail" of Hornitos Jasper. We found very little of that type. Most of that was said to have been exported to Germany.
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Sabre52
Cave Dweller
Me and my gal, Rosie
Member since August 2005
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Post by Sabre52 on Dec 14, 2021 22:10:15 GMT -5
So is the grand prize a cat -ass- trophy?
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Sabre52
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Me and my gal, Rosie
Member since August 2005
Posts: 20,487
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Post by Sabre52 on Dec 14, 2021 18:14:55 GMT -5
Definitely a George West, TX wood cast. They often contain all kids of lace, plume, even orby or bubble looking stuff. Got quite a bit of different types out in my rockpile. Check out Darwin Dillon's flickr stream for cool pics.
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Sabre52
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Me and my gal, Rosie
Member since August 2005
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Post by Sabre52 on Dec 12, 2021 8:01:55 GMT -5
Lots of folks charge per square inch slabbing fees. Been awhile for me, but it used to be between 25 cents and fifty cents per square inch. May be much higher now but it should not be. Figure a nine square inch cut would be $4.50 but of course the first slab takes two cuts as you have to remove the endpiece so that would cost $9. Should consider the material too. Way easier to cut softer materials than hard stuff like pet wood or tough stuff like jade. Heck, obsidian or Texas toenails actually sharpen your saw blade and cut really easily.
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Sabre52
Cave Dweller
Me and my gal, Rosie
Member since August 2005
Posts: 20,487
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Post by Sabre52 on Dec 9, 2021 15:32:31 GMT -5
The fuzzy pic does look like cactus lace. There are though, many lace varieties some of which overlap or are even named for the miner. A few are:
Dog Tooth Lace which has pseudomorphs after aragonite. Also sometimes called "bubble lace" as the pseudos occur inside those bubbles. Cactus Lace from the Josephina claim Chinese Writing Lace (Dying Lace, so called because it is porous microscopically and takes dye well) Day and Night Lace (Zebra Lace). Banded black and white and often fractured. Fine Line Lace. Usually sort of not real colorful IMHO but nice patterns of well-defined fine lines Laguna Lace. Term used for colorful and nicely lined lace. Bands not real fine and more like Laguna agate with fortifications and such. Some of this is often called Red Crazy Lace. Noriega and Victor's Lace. Named after the mine owners, both these are colorful and often have fancy patterns like more colorful Fine Lined Lace or more colorful Cactus Lace. Some of this is red crazy lace too. Black Lace. Showed up like 50-60 years ago. Not in books and I don't know where in Mexico it came from but man it was nice. Have a cab or two from it somewhere.
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Sabre52
Cave Dweller
Me and my gal, Rosie
Member since August 2005
Posts: 20,487
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Post by Sabre52 on Dec 4, 2021 15:53:59 GMT -5
There are a lot of jasper types in the California Coast Range. Many are from the Franciscan Formation and are known as Franciscan Mélange Jasper. Commonly colored by iron compounds and black manganese inclusions are not uncommon.
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Sabre52
Cave Dweller
Me and my gal, Rosie
Member since August 2005
Posts: 20,487
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Post by Sabre52 on Dec 1, 2021 23:23:36 GMT -5
*LOL* Gemfeller we think alike. I catch real severe cases of poison oak and that Morgan Hill region is full of it " Sore" is right. I dug into poison oak roots digging poppy in Hunters Valley and the nurses took me around to show other nurses what bad poison oak looks like *L*.
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Sabre52
Cave Dweller
Me and my gal, Rosie
Member since August 2005
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Post by Sabre52 on Nov 30, 2021 18:42:43 GMT -5
I'm with Tommy on this one. Northern Cally interior coast ranges stuff. As he said Stony Creek or somewhere in that region.
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Sabre52
Cave Dweller
Me and my gal, Rosie
Member since August 2005
Posts: 20,487
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Post by Sabre52 on Nov 29, 2021 10:37:43 GMT -5
Got a really awesome block of an unknown (probably Mexican) plume agate from a dollar a pound pile at a rock yard one time. Also scored some awesome chapenite from the same pile. Same place yielded an incredible hunk of Edison Palm root for I think, $4 per pound which was a steal for an extinct material. Another rock yard I went to here in Texas yielded incredible palm, shrinkwood, and other exotic tropical woods from their dollar piles. Cooks Peak carnelian, same place for just a bit more. Bought an entire yard full of rock one time and found a pile of Owlhead Mtns plume and sagenite plus a couple hundred pounds of t-eggs and a pile of good rhodonite and various Mohave Desert agates. $300 for the whole lot.
I know small potatoes compared to Brians scores or that of a buddy of mine who scored enormous poppy jasper and Stone Canyon boulders for peanuts.
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Sabre52
Cave Dweller
Me and my gal, Rosie
Member since August 2005
Posts: 20,487
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Post by Sabre52 on Nov 29, 2021 10:19:00 GMT -5
Duds? yeah right. *L* Those last two are friggin awesome!
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