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Post by HankRocks on Dec 4, 2019 20:07:32 GMT -5
Nice rolls with the bigger material James! Those are fast and easy tumbles Michael. The pre-grind was a good bit of work though. A batch of pre-ground rocks. All were very solid Rio Grande cobbles. Collected intentionally for being tumbled as big rocks. NOT easy to find. I hated to take a hammer to them so they got tumbled whole. Many came from the Zapata Texas McDonald's landscape islands, don't tell. I am not sure which quarry they got those rocks from but they were amazing agates. Do you want Fries with those Agates?
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Post by TheRock on Dec 4, 2019 21:17:45 GMT -5
Those are purdy!
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Post by RocksInNJ on Dec 4, 2019 22:18:36 GMT -5
It’s pretty bad when their rocks look better than their food. Lmao.
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jamesp
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Post by jamesp on Dec 5, 2019 4:15:42 GMT -5
It’s pretty bad when their rocks look better than their food. Lmao. Zapata Texas is a 20 hour drive. Home of Lake Falcon and vast agate fields washed down from Mexico and south US. Small gravel quarries are every where. Many private quarries on ranches for use on the private property. Some are rich in fine agates and some not.Obviously McDonalds purchased their gravel from a agate rich quarry. This was a long day in an agate rich spot but not McDonalds lol:
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jamesp
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Post by jamesp on Dec 5, 2019 4:25:46 GMT -5
Those are fast and easy tumbles Michael. The pre-grind was a good bit of work though. A batch of pre-ground rocks. All were very solid Rio Grande cobbles. Collected intentionally for being tumbled as big rocks. NOT easy to find. I hated to take a hammer to them so they got tumbled whole. Many came from the Zapata Texas McDonald's landscape islands, don't tell. I am not sure which quarry they got those rocks from but they were amazing agates. Do you want Fries with those Agates? For some reason I ate at McDonalds a lot Henry. Each day I would walk a new row down the rock beds pretending to look at my cell phon. 3 agates per trip.
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jamesp
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Post by jamesp on Dec 5, 2019 4:28:30 GMT -5
McDonalds??? Really??? I’ve been everywhere just looking for a decent rock and you go to McDonalds and come home with some beautiful McRocks??? I can’t say what I mumbled to myself when I read that on here, so I’ll just say, man life is so unfair! That’s ridiculous, but hey congrats to you for not only scoring some nice rocks, but for snatching them from those mindless rats that always mess up my order. Unbelievable!!! Then you really won't like this one... People find fairburn agates all over Rapid City in landscaping. Big fairburns. Lucky SOB's. 😐 Have I heard of people getting in trouble collecting Fairburns in landscape islands miket ?
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Post by RocksInNJ on Dec 5, 2019 6:56:37 GMT -5
It’s pretty bad when their rocks look better than their food. Lmao. Zapata Texas is a 20 hour drive. Home of Lake Falcon and vast agate fields washed down from Mexico and south US. Small gravel quarries are every where. Many private quarries on ranches for use on the private property. Some are rich in fine agates and some not.Obviously McDonalds purchased their gravel from a agate rich quarry. This was a long day in an agate rich spot but not McDonalds lol: Ohhhh my god!!! Yea, I think I’m starting to hate you a just little bit lol. That is just insanely ridiculous. Yea, I’m never gonna post any picture of my crappy New Jersey pebbles. I’d be embarrassed as all hell.
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Post by HankRocks on Dec 5, 2019 8:22:07 GMT -5
Do you want Fries with those Agates? For some reason I ate at McDonalds a lot Henry. Each day I would walk a new row down the rock beds pretending to look at my cell phon. 3 agates per trip. Considering how well those agates conceal themselves I can understand why they would still be there considering how many folks have probably walked over them. I have managed to acquire about 3 gallons of them and have been studying them closely. Once you know what to look for they can be spotted. There will be some patterns visible even thru the caliche coating. Since they are so rounded and no nibs like the West Texas nodules, or even the Big Diggings material, I am really averse to trying to take a hammer to reveal the inside. That creates way too many fractures and ruins a potentially good tumbler. A good many of the new business development landscapes around the Houston area here have started using river rocks for landscaping, it's a lot less maintenance that greenery. They are getting most of their rocks from gravel pits on the Colorado River just west of here. I have picked up several pieces of Petrified Wood over the last 2 or 3 years. Considering that this river flows through the Petrified Wood belt in Texas I am surprised that there is not more wood in the mix. If one goes along the Trinity River east of here, or the San Jacinto, the gravel banks have a lot more wood. Another mystery! One thing for sure, I need to get to Zapata.
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Fossilman
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Post by Fossilman on Dec 5, 2019 10:33:42 GMT -5
Do you want Fries with those Agates? For some reason I ate at McDonalds a lot Henry. Each day I would walk a new row down the rock beds pretending to look at my cell phon. 3 agates per trip. Long ago I use to hound the landscape in the McDonalds parking area in Sidney, Montana... Wife would go in take our orders and I would hound a few Montana moss agates... Big ones too (one to two pounders)..
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Post by miket on Dec 5, 2019 10:36:09 GMT -5
Then you really won't like this one... People find fairburn agates all over Rapid City in landscaping. Big fairburns. Lucky SOB's. 😐 Have I heard of people getting in trouble collecting Fairburns in landscape islands miket ? I don't know, I haven't heard of that but it's possible. I've never really looked through any landscaping rocks up there, I'd rather find them out in the grasslands. I guess people actually lock their Fairburns up in safes in Rapid City. People are actually breaking into other people's homes and selling them for drugs- or so I've heard. Not cool at all.
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jamesp
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Post by jamesp on Dec 5, 2019 11:19:49 GMT -5
For some reason I ate at McDonalds a lot Henry. Each day I would walk a new row down the rock beds pretending to look at my cell phon. 3 agates per trip. Considering how well those agates conceal themselves I can understand why they would still be there considering how many folks have probably walked over them. I have managed to acquire about 3 gallons of them and have been studying them closely. Once you know what to look for they can be spotted. There will be some patterns visible even thru the caliche coating. Since they are so rounded and no nibs like the West Texas nodules, or even the Big Diggings material, I am really averse to trying to take a hammer to reveal the inside. That creates way too many fractures and ruins a potentially good tumbler. A good many of the new business development landscapes around the Houston area here have started using river rocks for landscaping, it's a lot less maintenance that greenery. They are getting most of their rocks from gravel pits on the Colorado River just west of here. I have picked up several pieces of Petrified Wood over the last 2 or 3 years. Considering that this river flows through the Petrified Wood belt in Texas I am surprised that there is not more wood in the mix. If one goes along the Trinity River east of here, or the San Jacinto, the gravel banks have a lot more wood. Another mystery! One thing for sure, I need to get to Zapata. The key to Rio's is a small long handled high speed hammer used to window them. He whom windows the most gets the most. Like a 1000 a day, hard work. It takes a long time to read the 'Rio code' on those that can be read. Wood often has a shape. Chalcedony rich mosses are often white. A long list. The skin is often a giveaway, but often not. The one that windows wins which is fine for those tumbling, not so good for the specimen collector. If a quarry has a high percentage of cobbles in the 4 to 6 inch and larger range you can about bet there will be fine agates in the mix. Strange unexplainable but true. This photo looks benign. But it reveals my biggest mistake collecting fine Rio's. The right pile is 2 to 3 inch cleaned gravel, the pile to the left is uncleaned 4 to 12 inch large cobbles that were bulldozed into a hole. I had permission to collect as much as I wanted out of either pile but was uncomfortable taking many washed gravels from the right side pile. Looking back I am certain there were giant agates in the left pile but I did not think to collect thru the caliche covered monsters. Had I had my wits about me i would have paid a long haul trucker $1000 to bring 40 tons of the washed gravel to Atlanta and paved one of my farm roads with them for collecting from. The gravel was $12/ton, so only $500 for the gravel. $1500 total, same amount as the hotel bill for 3 weeks... The large left side pile had the big trash cobbles: Not 5 minutes from the right pile: The right pile wetted:
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jamesp
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Post by jamesp on Dec 5, 2019 11:31:05 GMT -5
The curse was on me RocksInNJ. I had to go back home and live with not being able to collect there except on rare occasions. I had several permissions to collect about 8000 acres making matters worse !. Very few people collect there because of fear of drug trafficking dangers. Which is blown out of proportion because you can't pee behind a tree without getting caught by a DEA officer not to mention the blimps with cameras watching constantly. Two murders in 10 years as opposed to Atlanta with 4000 murders in 10 years. The supply of rocks is actually infinite considering they are covered with caliche and cover the ground as far as the eye can see.
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jamesp
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Post by jamesp on Dec 5, 2019 11:37:23 GMT -5
Have I heard of people getting in trouble collecting Fairburns in landscape islands miket ? I don't know, I haven't heard of that but it's possible. I've never really looked through any landscaping rocks up there, I'd rather find them out in the grasslands. I guess people actually lock their Fairburns up in safes in Rapid City. People are actually breaking into other people's homes and selling them for drugs- or so I've heard. Not cool at all. Those Fairburns have created a stir for many years. They must be the most sought after agate in this country. If you think about it they are way rarer than diamonds miket. The Rio agates are similar in that they were carried to location by serious natural forces also. Sure would be nice to find a mother load of them like as big as big as soccer balls ?
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Post by miket on Dec 5, 2019 11:43:18 GMT -5
I don't know, I haven't heard of that but it's possible. I've never really looked through any landscaping rocks up there, I'd rather find them out in the grasslands. I guess people actually lock their Fairburns up in safes in Rapid City. People are actually breaking into other people's homes and selling them for drugs- or so I've heard. Not cool at all. Those Fairburns have created a stir for many years. They must be the most sought after agate in this country. If you think about it they are way rarer than diamonds miket . The Rio agates are similar in that they were carried to location by serious natural forces also. Sure would be nice to find a mother load of them like as big as big as soccer balls ? My son has brought that up about the diamonds, too. Which is another story- the diamond industry, and the hype. But yeah, they're pretty hard to find. But it's all kind of funny, so many agates (including Fairburns) look alike. Rios are sweet, too. It sure would- I'm looking, I'm looking!
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jamesp
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Post by jamesp on Dec 5, 2019 11:45:11 GMT -5
For some reason I ate at McDonalds a lot Henry. Each day I would walk a new row down the rock beds pretending to look at my cell phon. 3 agates per trip. Long ago I use to hound the landscape in the McDonalds parking area in Sidney, Montana... Wife would go in take our orders and I would hound a few Montana moss agates... Big ones too (one to two pounders).. We need to head down to Zapata. There was about a 5 acre industrial storage lot covered with Rio's in Zapata that I asked permission to collect on. Perfect, big cobbles. The owner looked at me as crazy and denied me dang it. Again, I should have thought to hand over some greenbacks !! Bet $40 would have filled my car 3 times over(600 pounds). I also got rejected from entering the largest quarry for 100 miles up and down the Rio there. I asked around and found out he owns Zapata NAPA. He had no interest in letting me in his quarry. Would not accept a signed legal release, greenbacks, not nada. It was perfect, located right in the large bend of the river in prime agate dumps. Next time I will try again.
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jamesp
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Post by jamesp on Dec 5, 2019 11:54:56 GMT -5
Those Fairburns have created a stir for many years. They must be the most sought after agate in this country. If you think about it they are way rarer than diamonds miket . The Rio agates are similar in that they were carried to location by serious natural forces also. Sure would be nice to find a mother load of them like as big as big as soccer balls ? My son has brought that up about the diamonds, too. Which is another story- the diamond industry, and the hype. But yeah, they're pretty hard to find. But it's all kind of funny, so many agates (including Fairburns) look alike. Rios are sweet, too. It sure would- I'm looking, I'm looking! Think about it, all of our lapidary stones are about rarer than diamonds. Oh well, that makes them valuable to us !! There is a small agate pebble found on the Rio that is real similar to Fairburns, not as nice but a bit of a competitor.
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Post by miket on Dec 5, 2019 11:59:32 GMT -5
My son has brought that up about the diamonds, too. Which is another story- the diamond industry, and the hype. But yeah, they're pretty hard to find. But it's all kind of funny, so many agates (including Fairburns) look alike. Rios are sweet, too. It sure would- I'm looking, I'm looking! Think about it, all of our lapidary stones are about rarer than diamonds. Oh well, that makes them valuable to us !! There is a small agate pebble found on the Rio that is real similar to Fairburns, not as nice but a bit of a competitor. That's true. We need to get the word out and then everyone can raise their prices!
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jamesp
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Post by jamesp on Dec 5, 2019 12:14:06 GMT -5
Think about it, all of our lapidary stones are about rarer than diamonds. Oh well, that makes them valuable to us !! There is a small agate pebble found on the Rio that is real similar to Fairburns, not as nice but a bit of a competitor. That's true. We need to get the word out and then everyone can raise their prices! Looks like gemstones will continue to be the money makers and likely not so much a turn on for us lapidary folks as a fine poppy agate.
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Post by 1dave on Dec 5, 2019 12:30:44 GMT -5
I thank God for "other people's trash"!
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Post by rockpickerforever on Dec 5, 2019 12:39:34 GMT -5
Very few people collect there because of fear of drug trafficking dangers. Which is blown out of proportion because you can't pee behind a tree without getting caught by a DEA officer not to mention the blimps with cameras watching constantly. Two murders in 10 years as opposed to Atlanta with 4000 murders in 10 years. James, those are only the two reported widely on the media. Most never see the light of day.
The cartels don't always leave evidence behind, although they do frequently flaunt deaths and murders to "make a point." How many more bodies are just left out in the desert?
So I guess people that go there despite the drug trafficking dangers. They are either very brave, or stupid. Or perhaps just lucky. I don't think I am enough of any of those three things to 100% enjoy a trip there for those fantastic rocks. (Just have to live vicariously through the exploits of those that do go there. And their generosity!)
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