Hi John !

I had finished to wash my rocks !

There are two killer specimens of benitoite in them !!!!
The second one have a twin of benitoite on the top of the specimen !!

I'll buy some more in few days.

Best regards
Y Dain

John
I finished cleaning the third kilo I ordered.
I did manage to find three pieces with Benitoite.
The rest were disappointing,compared with the earlier kilo's.
I have attached three photos: before, after and the pieces with Benitoite.

Best regards
Frank

Hi John,
I've gone through about half of the 5 kilos I ordered and just wanted to post what I've found so far.

rock1 - 6x4x2 cm  The large neptunite is 2cm long and 6.5mm wide! it's huge! (unfortunately some minor damage to the left side)  The longest neptunite on the rock is 2.5 cm.  The benitoite partial measures 1 cm.

rock2 - 8x4x4 cm   This rock hosts a 1cm double terminated benitoite, a couple of benitoite partials, and neptunite to 1cm.

rock3 - 2.5x2x1   A small piece that hosts a single terminated benitoite measuring 7mm.

rock4 - 9.5x7x6 cm    This rock hosts over 40 neptunite crystals to 1.5cm!

Michael O'Neill - Washington

Hi John,

Hard work,17 hours work to clean the specimens....but it's really a pleasure when we love minerals and when the hope is teasing our own efforts...I got a problem with the real proportion of hydroxyl of sodium.  The first proportion was probably too important so the matrix (schist) began to melt. I stop every thing and began to rinse a lot with water and
and went on with a light proportion of dilution of hydroxid sodium.....!  So the result after such a hard work. Some specimens with unfortunately nothing. Five others with small cristals of Neptunite (no more than 1cm for the longest), 3 specimens with some small cristals of Neptunite and one small cristall of Benitoite of 3 mm but not very well crystallized,and one piece with two cristals of Neptunite of 13 mm long and 3mm and the best one and the last was a piece with two large and long Neptunite cristals of 33 mm and 25 mm long and 3 mm large well formed, very small cristals of Joaquinite(first time) and several crystals of Benitoite of deep blue but very  small (from 2mm to 3-4 mm) not so easy to see with the eyes but of course very nice with a magnifying glass. So I am very glad of course I would have liked to got a good specimen of Benitoite ...but I got some beautiful of Neptunite.

I spoke to my friends and some intend to order something to you.

Thanks a lot
Best regards
Michel

Hi John 
BENITOITE EXPERIMENT

I received 13 pieces of mine-run material as follows in my 2 kg order:

1. 6.5 oz
2. 1 oz
3. 3.5 oz
4. 3 oz
5. 6.5 oz
6. 3.5 oz
7. 2.5 oz
8. 1 oz
9. 5 oz
10. 5.5 oz
11. 2 oz
12. 13 oz
13. 18.5 oz
Total 71.5 oz = 4.469 lb = 2.03 Kg

GENERAL OBSERVATIONS
All of the pieces had some natrolite coatings. Most of the natrolite was less then 1 cm thick indicating that any xls underneath would be usually less than 1 cm. Upon inspection with a hand lens only one had any benitoite present but, seven of the pieces had visible neptunite along the edges. Pictures were taken before and after treatment so a comparison could be made.
 

1. Another disappointment. This was one of the larger and heavier pieces and had a small area (0.5 cm) of broken massive benitoite showing. After days of acid treatment that’s still all there was, nothing else.

2. A very small piece that didn’t have much promise. Treatment revealed that this was a correct assessment.

3. This piece showed some neptunite along the edge, under the natrolite. Treatment revealed the first benitoite xls in the entire lot. There are 3 benitoite xls on the specimen; two are very small (1.0 mm) and one is slightly larger (3-4 mm). There is also a broken, somewhat larger xl on the edge of the piece and 2 small (3 mm) xls growing in a small pocket. These xls are not terminated as they have grown to both sides of the pocket. There is also one very small (<1 mm) joaquinite xl.

4. This was a small piece but had good coverage of natrolite. The natrolite cover was thin, generally less than 0.5 cm and there was nothing showing. Although showing promise, the end result was still nothing showing.

5. What a disappointment!! This piece had a lot of relatively thick natrolite on it, although it was somewhat irregular. After almost a week of acid treatment, it turned out to be nothing!

6. This piece showed some promise as there was visible neptunite along the exposed edges under the natrolite covering. The natrolite covering was, however less than 0.5 cm thick so no large xls were expected. Upon cleaning, a nice field of neptunite xls to as much as 1 cm long were exposed along with 2 joaquinite xls less than 1 mm. No benitoite

7. Had hopes for this one as it had the thickest natrolite of any of the pieces, over 2cm thick. What a dud! Nothing at all.

8. This was a very small piece with a broken neptunite showing. Didn’t hold much hope for this one and I was right.

9. This was a very irregular piece with natrolite in a wide, deep fold in the schist. Treatment revealed a small benitoite (0.5 cm) on one end and 3 joaquinite (1-2 mm) on the opposite side, at the bottom of the fold.

10. This piece showed some small neptunite xls on the edges under 0.5 cm natrolite. Treatment revealed one large neptunite xl over 1 cm long and 0.5 cm wide. There are 7-8 much smaller neptunite xls and 5 joaquinite xls (<1 mm).

11. This piece had a 0.5 cm coating of natrolite totally covering it. Treatment revealed two small groups of neptunite to 0.7 cm long and a scattering of five joaquinite xls.

12. This piece held promise of a nice selection of neptunite xls. A lot of neptunite was exposed along the edges and the natrolite covering was somewhat thicker at almost 1 cm. Treatment exposed an abundance of brilliant neptunite xls to 1 cm and covering about 60% of the piece. Two joaquinite xls less than 1 mm and 4 djurleite xls (1-2 mm) are also present. No benitoite. This was the best piece out of the 13 I received.

13. This was the largest piece (amounting to 26% of the entire shipment) and although there was 20% waste that had to be removed before treatment, there was good natrolite coverage over the rest. A small broken neptunite xl was exposed in one area.
Unfortunately, this was the only xl on the piece with the exception of 3 small (<0.5 cm) neptunite xls. This was particularly disappointing as it this piece represented a large portion of the shipment.

Sincerely,

Sherman Marsh

Hi John & Steve
Thank you for the mine run material .I just started etching a few specimens . I have bought from you for the second time. I have never had any thing close to this size before.  I have sold most of the specimens. The money I make has been almost paying for my finishing of jr.college towards a degree. Sorry to ramble on and get off track. Here are some pics of this specimen I am talking about. The large gem is fully terminated  with no damage what so ever 2.5 cm 1.5 cm . thanks for your time and thanks again I couldnt be happier with the material you have sent me.

Roger

Thanks much for having me over and providing me with such good Gem Mine material. I feel certain that I will find many goodies in the rocks I purchased. I throrughly cleaned and examined each piece. One small rock in the handfuls you selected for me shows a whole face of a 1 cm clean, gemmy benitoite.  I found so many promising pieces in the 4lbs you selected for me that I don't think I could have a reason to complain. Sure, there were a few throwing rocks, but most was quite nice material. 

Even though I haven't started etching anything yet, I would like to ask that you let me know next time you get new mine run material in so I can come and make another purchase.  I would expect to spend another $1000 +/- then also. I would be most interested in larger pieces with thick natrolite.

Thanks again,

Ted

Hi John!
Long time since we emailed or even talked.  Please send me a copy of MinRec volume 15, #4, showing neptunite on the cover.  Just let me know how much to send via PayPal.  My address has changed since last year.  No more Gilory (I'm now 30 minutes further away from San Benito and Clear Creek).  I plan to see Steve P this coming Monday.  I have to feed my Mine-Run habit.  There is nothing left in my garage to etch.  Also attached are a few digital images of my latest neptunite creation.  Overall size is 3" x 2.5" x 3" with at least 18 main neptunites ranging in size to 3.5cm long.  Most are from 2.0 to 3+ cm.  It's a really different 3-D looking specimen. 

Dan Evanich

Hello John,
    Thank you very much for the mine run.  It's nice material, with definitely good composition.  It took me a little while to get going with cleaning operations, but I made a modest stab at it with the prescribed method.  I did not manage to take pictures before I got started, but I did at a later period, so the before pictures are actually after the acid baths, with wax on them and leftover sludge.  The after pictures are as they came out.  I since have done a bit of scraping.  I'm not sure if this is too good, but it did expose little niches of the crystals, and allow me to get a close look at the situation of the crystals.  I'm a little nervous about bathing them again, since I don't want to dislodge crystals.  Also, I've manage to put a little grunge on the benitoites, and on some of the neptunites, which I guess will come off if I soak the specimens.  I'm not sure what the soak is you suggest, maybe an isotonic or something.  Sounds like a jewelry cleaning bath.  Anyway, I'll send you the pictures- I looked at the website, and it looks nice.  They'll come one by one since that is usual with photos.
I probably will go for some more later, just getting all tapped out going into spring.  Oh- I meant to tell you I got one really super specimen, and another very good one (the ones in the pictures)  There were also a couple more with really nice benitoite specimens.  There are a couple more which possibly might show something if I can etch them some more.  In those, I don't know why, but the natrolite appears to be a little harder.
Thank you,
Billy Constable

Hi John and Steve,

(to see more of this lucky find visit the last report from the 2004 Tucson Show)

I have been making good time etching material from the last 20kg order. I have pretty much finished the smaller pieces and was working on one of the somewhat larger ones when Lady Luck dealt me a winning hand.  This rock was about 15 X 10 X 7cm unetched and had Benitoite showing at two places, disapearing under an area of crossite.  The first surprise was that the crossite did not contact the Benitoite as badly as first thought, the second surprise was that all of the Benitoite I saw turned out to be one huge 1.5 INCH crystal!  As I continued to etch I was at first disapointed to find that the termination was in pretty bad shape, as the piece already had damage at the edges, but they say every cloud has a silver lining, this one was bright blue!  From this damaged crystal I plucked the two largest pieces of clean facet rough I have ever had, 7.37ct  and 9.03ct.  And just for icing on the cake, there were several smaller undamaged tabular crystals on the remaining matrix that make for a very nice specimen.

So for your viewing pleasure, here are pics of the original specimen, the specimen I'm left with, and both pieces of rough.

THANKS!!!!!

Rick

7.37 cts                                                              9.03 cts

The finished Stones (August 28th, 2003) 5.07 cts and 2.22 cts respectively. About $25,000 
worth of gemstones for $1,000 and a lot of specimens too! Thanks!!  Rick
Photos Rick Kennedy

Hi John

I finally got my photos back. Sorry it took soooooo long.

I have a before and after picture.

Terry Fish

Photos Terry Fish

Hi John

I wanted to show you this specimen that i have just about finished etching.  i bought it from you as part
of a parcel of mine run ore.  the quandary was that I could see a lot of bens and neps tightly sandwiched in
a narrow seam of natrolite running through the crossite matrix.  i soaked it for two consecutive days in a 1 to 4 acid to water bath, then was lucky enough to be able to lift off the majority of the enclosing crossite.  what beauty lies beneath!  thankyou so much for the wonderful specimen and the fun, sweat and tears that goes along with this hobby (obsession!).

Richard Palley 

p.s.  the third jpg is one of the small pieces i
unroofed off the main specimen.  very gemmy complex

Photos Richard Palley

Hi John

having a great time with the kilo of mine run I got. It's a blast seeing stuff emerge. Definitely a learning curve though. I got greedy on the best of the neptunites so far and 'one more etching' robbed me of a lot of natrolite that I wish I had back. You mention on your site even more noxious chemicals to further clean specimens. Some of my neptunite crystals still have some whitish stuff on them and look a lot less clean than those on your site even after the alkalai bath. Any final finishing tips?

I would like to order another kilo of the mine run if that's ok. Still interested in specimens that look promising for benitoite. You did a great job with the last batch. Three had small benitoite crystals, not killers like the ones on your site but enough to whet my appetite for more. If you don't still have my MC# and address on file let me know.

Thanks and best regards,
Craig