Oregon Trip, Page 2

The Dust Devil Mine has a unique way in which it charges you for the stones you dig.  They only charge you for the top quality stones and if you dont happen to be lucky enough to find any top quality sunstone you are not charged.  Out of my 2 1/2 lbs. of sunstone from the mine they only charged me for the pictured stones below.

These were all nice light red's and some have some shiller which you will notice in the stone on top, second from the left.  Below is a picture of the material they did not charge me for but which had at least shiller in each stone.  As you can see, I got alot of cuttable material for free!  I dont have a weight on the stones, but for scale they are in a zip-lock sandwich bag.

You can also purchase rough stones from the mine run material.  I purchased the stones pictured below from the mine run.  The stone on the right is a rare green which Sid found laying on top of the floor of the pit while walking around that morning.  Since I had not found any greens during my day digging I wanted to purchase it.  Interestingly, they said that when cut, that stone would be valued at approximately $600 per carat!!!!!  I cant wait to get it on the dop of my faceting machine!  The stone that is second from the left is a "Watermelon", red center with a faint green halo around it, gorgeous!

Below are some pictures of the mine run that I was able to sort thru to pick out the above stones, including some red's that I decided not to buy but had sorted out to choose from.

Oregon Trip, Page 3