Gosh darn gem-porn up in here.
Keep at it, go get your rocks off
…of your drives, and into this thread.
Is this a suggestion? Or just a picture show haha
Both. I wish the gems looked more raw. As is there are cut gemstones all the same shape in the ground.
Emeralds have such a cool geometric shape! I never knew before.
Doesn’t the raw topaz look like frozen winter slush? You know, the kind that gets stuck in your wheel wells?
I’ve posted some of this before, but here are some that I and others have found - from the Cowee Valley in Western NC, pretty well-known spot for tourist mines. This is a ton of fun if you ever get the chance - great family thing too, I got into it as a young kid and have seen plenty of children just fascinated by it!
Thing is, even around here, same type of gem can look different depending on where exactly it came from. And of course they look quite different when cut. 
Rubies, first one is one I found a couple months back-
Sapphires (same thing as ruby, corundum, red is ruby though) -
Handful of various stuff, ruby, sapphire, garnet, rutile, ect. -
Some cut stones, notice the star on the ruby in the display on the left side, also, the ring shot I just got yesterday via the mine’s page from someone who had it cut and put in that wedding band -
I didn’t know rubies could have stars like that, thought it was a sapphire thing. I love star sapphires though 
Yep, rubies having them is pretty rare, I seem to remember reading that there aren’t many localities that produce them. There is a mine here, it was on the Travel Channel years back, Sheffield, that claims to have star rubies but they’re really pink and plum sapphires (judgment call on the color as to what counts as ruby but theirs aren’t that close IMO). This one came from Cherokee Mine, the one I go to usually - it is the only public mine left that really produces what I’d call true rubies, clearly red. Used to be a lot more mines around here.
People sometimes ask me if an uncut stone will star, but can’t tell til cut, to my knowledge - I can sort of guess based on the “silk” inclusions in it, some stones I’m like, bet that will star! I don’t have many stones cut myself though, I just like finding the things, haha.