Sabre52
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Me and my gal, Rosie
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Post by Sabre52 on Jan 23, 2018 15:55:03 GMT -5
*LOL* Don't tell me, the seller is a Nigerian prince. Value of rough is generally calculated by what you can cut from it and that is way out of line price wise....Mel
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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 Jan 23, 2018 14:06:41 GMT -5
Ooh, that multi colored one in the first individual shot looks like a real eye popper.....Mel
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Sabre52
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Post by Sabre52 on Jan 23, 2018 9:56:04 GMT -5
Cool program. That was a lot of artifacts. Don't now if the collection is still there as I think it was for sale, but if any of you are ever in Lakeport, CA at Clear Lake, don't miss the Boggs Site Collection of artifacts at the local museum. Some rancher got to dig up the site of one of California's premier ancient stone knappers. Thousands of perfect artifacts, points, blades etc and I've never seen nicer knapping. Probably Pomo or Lake Miwok both of which were famed tribes for artistry. When I viewed the collection my jaw hit the floor. Perfect knives more than a foot long and needle sharp of many types of stone but mostly obsidian or jasper, incredible barbed points, even obsidian picks. I cannot even imagine how much that collection would be worth now, as when I go to artifact shows, single blades like that are valued in the many thousands for a single piece.....Mel
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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 22, 2018 23:29:05 GMT -5
More chalcedony than jasper I'd say. Nice cab of a fairly rare material....Mel
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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 Jan 22, 2018 23:26:56 GMT -5
#18 is palm root, #15 looks like Woodward Peanut agate,#8 looks like Needle Peak agate, #7 maay be orbicular rhyolite from tje Grandview Gold mine near Lucerne Valley, CA those first green ones if not too hard may be ricolite and the plume looks like Texas flowergarden plume to me...Mel
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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 22, 2018 23:19:56 GMT -5
Neat! Love that grape agate and the really finely fortified agate. The criniodal limestone is Lambert Rch material from San Saba Texas. His "*sneeze* BS fossil cadisflies is palm rootlets in bog. Yours is nice orbicular agate maybe from the Rio Grande but it comes from lots of places,. AZ has some similar stuff too. Not fossil either. Man where do these guys get these names? *L*. Never seen the garden of poppies stuff but I really like it....Mel
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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 22, 2018 21:39:09 GMT -5
Quote from my wife, " Don't you dare die and leave me with all them darn rocks!" That being said, she does love carved stone turtles and for some reason apples, and she loves to capture big boulders for her flower garden and small peculiar pieces for her flower pots. Hated to leave most our boulder collection when we made the Texas move...Mel
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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 Jan 22, 2018 16:29:22 GMT -5
Holy smokes that is a big sphere. For those of you that do not know much about sphere making like me, I got to tour a buddy's sphere making set up and large spheres need to start with a big ole hunk of clean rough and it takes some fancy equipment too. Just making the preform is a big deal as with a lot of materials it's really hard to find a big enough hunk of rock to start with. Good catch Bob. That's a beauty....Mel
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Sabre52
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Post by Sabre52 on Jan 22, 2018 7:50:39 GMT -5
Yep, very much what we used to find. The first pics in each of your sets are the good stuff. Those flowery formations are golden to cream colored magnesite inclusions in the agate and jasper. Very few places where you can find that and Anderson is one of them. Those make very showy cabs...Mel
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Sabre52
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Post by Sabre52 on Jan 21, 2018 21:14:01 GMT -5
Hey, many moons ago there used to be some great rocks around that reservoir. Plasma, agatized pseudomorphs after other minerals and interesting t-eggs....Mel
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Sabre52
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Post by Sabre52 on Jan 21, 2018 20:50:26 GMT -5
Bob, I have tumbled several lots of bone with very mixed results. The problem seems to be inconsistent agate replacement, with the cell walls often being the problem. Some really agatized pieces seem to do pretty well but in others the cell wall is something softer ( hematite maybe) that really undercuts badly. The good pieces seem to take a smooth finish but the others are all dimply where the cell walls eroded away much faster than the cell surface leaving a really bad looking stone. I wasted a lot of good bone this way before I figured it out as those same undercutting problems seem to be minimal on the Genie wheels and pads. I never tumble bone anymore and don't even final polish cabs in the vibe like I do with a lot of cabs.....Mel
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Sabre52
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Post by Sabre52 on Jan 21, 2018 18:23:42 GMT -5
Yep, lots of Franciscan Formation jasper near Clear Lake. Pope Valley near there even has nice poppy jasper. I used to hunt arrowheads at a private ranch at Pope Valley and there were lots of jasper cobbles in the creek but being that I was hunting points, I never paid them a lot of attention. Hadn't got back into rocks much at that time but was nuts over artifacts. Lots of quartz crystal up there around Clear Lake too. They called them Lake County Diamonds. Was digging points with the ranch foreman one day when he found a quartz crystal point. Wish it would have been me.....Mel
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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 Jan 21, 2018 13:51:40 GMT -5
Wow Bob, make the question a little difficult. Must be like a zillion places where you find red jasper and hematite *L*. All over the place in the Franciscan chert deposits including a ton of CA locations Hunters Valley, Parkfield, Coalinga, Creston, Indian Valley. Clear up the interior coast ranges to Washington state etc but I will diverge. Could be Cave Creek Jasper from AZ too.....Mel
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Sabre52
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Member since August 2005
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Post by Sabre52 on Jan 20, 2018 20:01:18 GMT -5
Monday....Jeez!
My wife is she who must be obeyed. I am me who must be ignored *L*....Mel
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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 19, 2018 10:33:03 GMT -5
Wow, cool material. For me, has sort of a bryozoan or coral feel to it, Definitely a fossil material but I'm thinking not quite the right look for palm vascular bundles....Mel
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Sabre52
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Post by Sabre52 on Jan 18, 2018 19:13:15 GMT -5
I had the opportunity to spend a bit of time in the Geode Kids booth many moons ago at "Q". Both guys odd, interesting ducks but man did they know their t-eggs and New Mexico agate. They had also done a lot of digging at the Big Diggins at the time and man they had some of the most spectacularly weird agates from there. The stark white sagenites and some plumes too were off the charts cool. Several bucks a pound too which back them was a buttload of money for rough agate. The Lindbergs " was it red roof?" rockshop was outrageous too. Mountains of Mexico material. If I would have had money to buy lots of rocks in those days, I'da made more money that I ever did on the stock market....Mel
PS: I've hunted a bunch of whalebone too but always found most of it disappointing. Shows nice cells but I've seldom found any that was not earth tones. Had some nice black and blue contrast from the Ventura beach but most I've had was red brown to brown cell walls and white to gray chalcedony filling in the cells. Dead ringer for some of the earth tone dino bone out of Canada but as with pet wood, not anywhere as near colorful as Utah and Colorado bone from those painted sediments they have.
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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 18, 2018 19:03:27 GMT -5
*LOL* Where have I heard that threat before from a wife? Except in my case it was if you leave me with all those "damn" rocks!.
Bob, with gem bone it's all about color and quality. Not a lot of bone shows up here at Texas shows and it's all way expensive. That being said, if it's well agatized, all the cells are well filled in, especially with colorful little fortifications and it's reds and multi colors ( red , yellow and blue combo is spectacular!) I'd expect to pay well over that $15 a pound price point. Those examples with soft hematite cell walls, browns, grays or other earth tones or just plain dark with little blue in the cells are not so dear and I'd not buy any with a lot of pits or fractures unless there are clear areas for cutting. And those I'd not pay over the fifteen per pound mark unless the clean areas were pretty special. Different for a cutter than for a specimen guy. A cutter only cares about how many good cabs he can get from clean areas. A collector wants that entirely clean polishable face showing nice color and pattern throughout.
Was at Q one year and an Aussie guy had this spectacular collection of face polished Queenies. He was talking with another guy about values and I was snooping in on the conversation. I was astounded to hear that when he had his agates appraised for insurance purposes, the appraiser only considered value based on how many cabs could be cut from them. I was thinking anyone who chopped those beauties up for cabs should be hung as I would give them way more value as specimens. Same thing with really fancy hunks of bone....Mel
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Sabre52
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Member since August 2005
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Post by Sabre52 on Jan 18, 2018 18:38:53 GMT -5
I'd concur, Biggs on all of them...Mel
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Sabre52
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Member since August 2005
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Post by Sabre52 on Jan 18, 2018 16:40:50 GMT -5
Bob, Being a vertebrate fossil, it is illegal to collect fossil bone on government land. The bone for sale these days comes from sites on a few private ranches. Guy I talked with is in Colorado. Since most pvt ranches do not allow collecting, except maybe by authorized scientists, I suspect the number of locations where folks are allowed to collect bone for resale is very limited. That basically leaves old collections where bone was collected before the government got so aggressive about enforcement. Supply and demand thing. Gone are the days when guys would show up at Quartzite with a pickup bed full of bone at $5-10 per pound.
It's amazing. I met a geologist that worked in Alaska and he said there are streams full of beautiful coral cobbles in some areas but since everyone flies in and weight is an issue, no one collects it except on a couple of islands where you can collect by boat. The high contrast black and white type is friggin awesome but has been super expensive for as far back as I was hitting Quartzite. All I've seen though is fairly soft limestone type material, not agate or jasper.....Mel
PS: That is a variety of tiger eye I've not seen for a long time. Good catch on that one. Unusal type to find.
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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 18, 2018 14:51:03 GMT -5
Wow that is real pretty stromatolite. Love the examples with all the neat surface features. Nice turritella ( Goniobasis) too but always remember to cut parallel to the top and bottom of the hunk. That way you get entire shell patterns and can take advantage of the high contrast black jasper sections as they are much nicer and more solid than the brown sections which are often more porous.
You are right about bone. Prices are pretty unreal now days. Saw a two pound face polished piece at the Fredericksburg show for $400. Way above my pay grade too...Mel
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