A mother discovered a $2,000 sapphire buried deep in the soil of her outback property while taking her young daughter and doing “hand mining.”
Amber Betteridge found the Australian sapphire buried deep in the ground on her rural property in Rubyvale, near Rockhampton, in central Queensland, on Sunday.
The eagle-eyed mother was seen in a TikTok video holding her nine-month-old daughter Elise as she searched for the gemstones.
Mrs Betteridge, whose husband Matt mines the coveted gem in Queensland, saw the stone covered under dozens of rocks.
Using his fingers and a small rock he found nearby, he began to extract the mineral from the ground.
To her surprise, Mrs. Betteridge discovered a 54-carat parti sapphire (a parti sapphire shows two or more different colors).
She told Daily Mail Australia she was surprised to find the stone.
Amber Betteridge found the gemstone (pictured) on her property in Rubyvale in Queensland
Mrs Betteridge was out for an afternoon walk with her baby (pictured) at the weekend when she and her husband made the shocking discovery.
“What we thought was going to be a little gem that wasn’t really worth anything turned out to be this sapphire with a beautiful piece of crystal,” he said.
‘Is [got] an absolutely stunning partial color.
The TikTok video of the find showed the stone’s brilliant green and blue colors, revealed when Mrs Betteridge held the stone up to the light of her phone.
Mrs Betteridge said the rock could cost up to $6,000 once faceted.
“We could probably get a three or four carat stone, but it depends on how it’s cut,” he said.
“We will cut the largest stone and, depending on its appearance, it could be worth $2,000 per carat.”
Mrs Betteridge and her husband established their business Betteridge Sapphires in 2021 after purchasing a mining claim in 2018.
Matt collects the sapphires in his underground mine using only a pick and shovel, while Mrs. Betteridge facets the gemstones by removing the rough, which she says can take days.
Mother of two-facet sapphires (pictured), a job she does for a living after setting up a stone mining business with her husband in 2021.
Mrs Betteridge’s husband Matt (pictured) regularly uploads Tiktok videos showing him mining sapphires.
Matt regularly uploads TikTok videos of himself mining sapphires.
Two years ago, while taking a night walk, he found an 834-carat sapphire in the ground with an estimated value of $12,500.
He didn’t think much of the shiny stone sticking out of the ground, but once he realized the rock was a sapphire, he rushed to grab his phone to film his latest discovery.
Partial sapphires are a mix of blue and yellow sapphires that give the gemstone an incredible dual color and are often set in engagement rings.
Australia is one of the few places in the world where partial sapphires are found after gold miners first discovered the gemstones in the 1850s.