Large Sapphire?

[WynterRose]

Good evening. For my birthday I went digging at one of the many gem mines in North Carolina. There, I found a rather large rock that I assumed to be a geode. I took it to an employee who immediately freaked out and grabbed an older employee to look at the rock. The older man gasped and claimed that it is the largest sapphire he has ever seen. Is this truly a sapphire? This is my first time rock hunting and it seems so large. Included below are several photos for identification. I'm posting on my phone so I hope the images work. Any help verifying this is a sapphire will be much appreciated. The place I went to was a little tourist-y so I do not trust the employee's words alone.

 

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[stdenis_jd]

The definition of a sapphire is basically any colored corundum other that red (Ruby). This looks like it could be corundum with a bluish tint, so yeah, a sapphire. Is it with anything? Not much, but makes a great collection piece that's for sure. Not trying to take anything away from ya as it's like I said a great collection piece, but I would say the employees were just buttering you up a little.

Try scratching quartz/quartzite with it. If your rock gouges the quartz fairly easily then you most likely have a pretty good size corundum specimen.

 

[WynterRose]

Oh I did not know that was what a sapphire was. It did seem like they were buttering me up a lot so I had to check. It was a child friendly place where you get some dirt to dig in, so of course I didn't expect some gem quality stones. I found a carat calculator for rough stones and I'm working on finding my raw rubies and other stones, and the sapphire was estimated at 495 carats which was kinda insane. Can carats be calculated with weight even? I knew it seemed too dull to really make a nice valuable gem, but I really like the size and novelty of "finding" it, even if it was planted in "sapphire rich soil". They do seem to know what they are talking about in terms of identifying most stones (I'm good at identifying rubies and emeralds, not so much sapphires) but yeah, they seemed too enthusiastic. And I will grab a quartz outside and see what happens.

 

[stdenis_jd]

Cool man, it is a nice piece no doubt. As far as carats? Carats are in fact a measurement of weight...you can get scales to measure in carats, grams, oz., etc.

 

[WynterRose]

Oh ok great! It crushed the surface of the quartz into powder, I compared it to my rubies I collect and they did the same thing. It is quite interesting, this stone has some small red spots along a corner, and it is nothing like I envisioned a raw sapphire to be. I've never seen a raw sapphire before, and was surprised when they said it was a sapphire. Thank you, this was quite helpful. While it isn't worth much it is a sentimental piece in my collection.

 

[IAMZIM]

I do not mean any offense, but that does not look at all like any corundum I have ever seen. For one thing, it is angular, so has none of the classic characteristics of corundum. Don't get me wrong, corundum can break, but at least one of the faces should have some form of classic hexagonal shape. Also, I say corundum, because sapphire is only sapphire when it is transparent. Even translucent corundum is usually not referred to as "sapphire", but instead, "corundum". If it is indeed corundum, it should also have fingerprint like striations when you turn it in the light, here is a link for what I am talking about,Fingerprints & Crystal Symmetry | Inside Out - Ruby & Sapphire. If I were to make a guess it looks more like some form of quartzite to me, but I will say I am not an expert on that. I do however mine for both corundum and sapphires, and have a great deal of them in my collection. I hope this doesn't in any way seem rude, I just would like to help out with the I.D. if I can!

 

[meMiner]

By the way, Happy Birthday!

I am curious, what made you separate out this particular rock and ask about it? Did they have any similar smaller samples/examples? Normally, they show you what to look for.

If they were "pulling your chain", it is kind of rude to send you home without first sharing the joke... One hint might be, did they take any pictures? Any "pay to play" worth their salt would want photos of exceptional finds from their place of business. Of course, if you are really good looking, they might just want a pic of you, as men will be men. LOL

 

[Eu_citzen]

I personally also don't think its sapphire. If you know ruby, you should easily recognize sapphire. Same thing, different colour.

 

[WynterRose]

Thank you everyone for alerting me to the possibility that this is not a sapphire. I am extremely new to collecting rocks, in fact, this was my first big haul (I lost count at 53 total rocks). I selected this stone for identification due to it standing out from my finds while I was searching. It was larger and was unidentifiable to me, I truly thought it was a geode so I was going to just get it broken open. The people who inspected the rock pointed out the slight blue coloration and showed me an identification sheet where it shows a smaller version of the rock I had found. They took no pictures but told me I was very lucky, which struck me as odd. I did find some wonderful things from them, and I have identified most of the stones using a field guide, but for sapphires the identification sheet confused me, since the other stones were properly identified. They did have pictures of other people with their finds, such as a little kid with a large ruby, but not this rock. I kind of brushed it off, since I'm not a photogenic little kid, I just figured me and the rock would not appeal to the target audience or something.

I was not aware of the characteristic shapes that sapphires can be, or of the striation either. Now that I know what to look for, this rock seems very different than the rubies I have, so I don't think it is a sapphire anymore. Thank you for your opinions everyone. I will look into everything and see what this stone truly is. Overall I was happy about the trip, although I am somewhat dissappointed this is not what advertised, but hey, I got some nice crystals during my trip, so I wont let this one rock paint a negative picture for me.

 

[4Strokes1Pick&Poke]

I would put a gold chain on it and sell it to a rap artist, they like BIG bling bling lol, Hey it was the trip that was important thing anyways right! Sounds like a fun birthday going to a mine anyways.

 

[huntsman53]

I don't think it is a Sapphire but it is likely is a Corundum (Sapphire/Ruby mix) Matrix compressed in it's host rock which may be a low grade Gneiss or Schist. I have found similar type Corundum Matrix specimens in North Carolina and especially on Chunk Gal Mountain where the Rubies and Sapphires developed in Smaragdite.


Frank