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A seven-year-old boy has been praised online after finding a 14.5-carat sapphire worth $10,000 just 200 meters from his home.
Riley Betteridge discovered the gemstone amid the Queensland gem fields at Rubyvale, near Rockhampton, on Monday.
Riley, still in his school uniform, is seen excitedly running up to his father Matt to show him the rare stone in a now-viral TikTok video.
“It looks really good, buddy,” he tells Riley after inspecting it with a headlamp.
“That’s by far your best rock yet.”
In the now-viral footage, Riley, still in his school uniform, is seen excitedly running towards his father Matt to allow him to inspect the stone with a headlamp (pictured).
Matt and Amber Betteridge run their family business Betteridge Sapphires from the heart of the state’s mining region in central Queensland.
They revealed that Riley has been searching for sapphires since she was just three years old when she saw a stone on her father’s shoulders.
“He’s got a good eye for it,” Mr. Betteridge said. yahoo news.
“That’s about 300 meters, maybe 200 meters from home.”
Mrs. Petterson, who grinds and polishes the stones, said the Riley sapphire appears to have no internal fractures and could fetch up to $10,000.
“The final color will make the difference,” he said, explaining that brighter colors tend to sell for more than darker shades.
The family has decided to leave the fate of the stone in Riley’s hands.
Footage of his incredible find has received almost 2 million views on TikTok, with many viewers leaving congratulatory messages for the seven-year-old.
“That probably earned him a day off from school,” one person joked.
‘I’m surprised he knew exactly what he was looking for! We probably all picked something up like that, thought it was a rock and threw it!’ said another.
Amber Betteridge found the gemstone (pictured) on her property in Rubyvale
Mrs Betteridge was out for an afternoon walk with her baby (pictured) at the weekend when she and her husband made the shocking discovery.
Mrs Betteridge’s husband Matt (pictured) regularly uploads Tiktok videos showing him mining sapphires.
It comes just weeks after Mrs Betteridge found a $2,000 sapphire buried deep in the ground while carrying her young daughter.
The eagle-eyed mother was seen in a TikTok video holding her nine-month-old daughter Elise as she searched for the gemstones.
Using his fingers and a small rock he found nearby, he began to extract the mineral from the ground and 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.
“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.
“It has absolutely stunning partial color.”
Betteridge collects the sapphires in his underground mine using only a pick and shovel. Two years ago, while on an evening walk, she found an 834-carat sapphire in the ground with an estimated value of $12,500.
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.