Gold ‘n Gem Grubbin in the North Georgia Mountains!
For any of you who have been following my posts, you know that I love to go gem hunting in the north Georgia mountains. It was during one of my trips that my grandson suggested that I write a book incorporating the “magical” properties of gemstones with a quest and some elves and The Gemstone Chronicles were born!
My favorite place to hunt gemstones is Gold ‘n Gem Grubbin in Cleveland, GA. You can visit their website at: http://www.goldngemgrubbinstore.com.
Here you can pan for gold, work buckets at the sluice, or dig at the creek. I prefer the creek. There is something about sitting in a chair, sifting through pans of dirt in the creek, and looking for shiny rocks that relaxes me. We were doing this when Aidan suggested the book. Below is a picture of the sluice area where you can buy buckets of rocks and sift through them to find treasures!
Mining at the Creek!
As I said, I prefer mining at the creek. I didn’t take any pictures of the dirt pile that I worked. Gold ‘n Gem Grubbin is part of an operating gold mine. The owners will dump loads of dirt from the gold mine next to the creek and you can fill up buckets with dirt and screen them right there in the creek and take home what you find. While you aren’t guaranteed to find anything, I have been going almost monthly for a few years now and I have never come home empty-handed. November 16 was no exception!
Below are some closer shots of some of the stones! I apologize for the quality of the photos in advance…
What will I do with my stones?
Now, I am not a skilled maker of cabochons or faceted gemstones (though I would really like to learn). I know some people who are and I may tumble some of the stones, have them made into cabs, or have them faceted. I don’t know yet, but my collection continues to grow. Assuming the weather is nice, I may be back there in December with shovel and sifting box in hand!
If you are ever in the Cleveland, GA area and need a neat activity for you to enjoy, give Gold ‘n Gem Grubbin a try!
Have you visited Gold ‘n Gem Grubbin? If so, leave me a comment and let me know how your day went. If you prefer to connect with me on social media, I can be found on Twitter, Facebook, Goodreads, or email me at bill@williamlstuart.com. You can also subscribe to the blog and never miss a post!
P.S. This is not an endorsement and I did not receive any compensation for this post. I like going up there and thought I would share!!
We went to gold n gem grubbin in June and got rubies, emeralds , white sapphire and tigers eye. We had an 8 carat ruby, a 6 carat ruby and a 12 carat tigers eye cut. We are real excited at the pictures of the cut stones. Now someone has told my wife about how places like that put your found stones back into the buckets and have a surplus of gems to make you think and pay for the stones you found. I was shocked to hear this could happen and furthermore the owner didn’t come across as a scammer nor did his employees. Have you heard this at all? We did keep a 15 carat white sapphire, a 6 carat ruby and a 6 carat emerald that we were waiting to have cut.
Hi Jay! I usually don’t go to the “by the bucket” places because I would rather dig in the dirt at Gold ‘n Gems. i don’t know if you did that or if you got a bucket, but it sounds like you did pretty well. As far as i know, Gold ‘n Gems doesn’t salt the pile by the creek, but they have to salt the buckets to make sure people find things.
I found a nice emerald up there, and had it cut for my wife. It ended up about 2.25 carats. my brother found a similarly sized peridot that he gave me and I had it made into a ring for my wife. We have found some very nice amethysts (my brother just found a 715 carat amethyst), some nice garnets, emeralds, sapphires, rubies, aventurines, and quartz!
I hope you will visit them again. We try to go about once per month!