Man's incredibly rare discovery in Aussie dirt after wild weather: 'Waiting to be found'
Matthew Betteridge told Yahoo News it's the second largest sapphire he's found in his 15 year career.
An Aussie man was blown away after uncovering a rare and precious gemstone during a recent evening walk "so beautiful" that he wants to keep it in its natural form.
Matthew Betteridge lives on land near Rubyvale in Queensland, a precious gemstone mining area that attracts both commercial interest and amateur fossickers searching for hidden treasures. After recent heavy rainfall, Matthew decided to have a quick look for any obvious signs of gems, and a short evening stroll proved fruitful.
"I was out for a stroll on the gem fields after the rain and just saw something glimmer in the road and dug it out," he told Yahoo News. He found a 394-carat sapphire, saying it was just "waiting to be found".
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Matthew and partner Amber are professional sapphire miners and 99 per cent of the gems they sell they've found themselves. Their son Riley has even gotten in on the action with a find worth 'thousands'.
They decided not to cut this particular sapphire as it likely will only have a commercial value of $1,000. However, the decision is also an emotional one.
"It's not going to be faceted into a big gem or nothing... it's going to stay exactly the way it is because it's a pretty cool crystal structure... it'll be kept that way for its natural beauty... I want to cut it as it's just sacrilege because it's so beautiful," Matthew said.
The gem is the second largest he's found in his 15-year career and said that even though he's built his life around sapphire mining and has found thousands of gems, he hasn't ever got over the rush of it.
"Our social media videos are just mostly just like raising awareness for Australian sapphires, and how cool it is. And anyone can come and have a go. You can just pull thousands of dollars out of the road as you're walking along... it's a lot of fun and rewarding," Amber said.
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