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June 2016 Pretoria Rockhound Digest

Pretoria Gem and Mineral Club Clubhouse: no. 29, 26th St., Menlo Park P.O. Box 36 888 Saturdays 11:00–15:00, Thursdays 18:00– 21:00

Menlo Park Website: www.pgmc.co.za Pretoria 0102 Bank: ABSA Bank, Acc. No. 405 584 9839

Chairman: Willem Vorster, 076 612 4888 Treasurer: Lex Krabbendam, 083 449 6812 wcs.vorster@gmail.com Secretary: Yvonne Olivier, 076 594 8914 Vice-Chairman: Bernard Strydom, 074 850 5683 Editor: Heidi Naudé, 072 923 2180 bernardstrydom@gmail.com heidi.naude@za.bosch.com

Programme Highlights June 2016

*** Swop and Sell and Social 4 June

*** Silversmithing Course 18 June

*** Club Outing: Vivo and Surrounding Areas 29 June – 3 July

Pearl – Traditional Birthstone of June (amongst others)

The scientific explanation for natural pearls is almost as mystifying as folklore. When an irritant, such as a small parasite lodges in the flesh of an oyster, mussel, or clam, a protective substance called "nacre" is produced. Over years, layer upon layer of shimmering nacre coats the intruder, creating a lustrous pearl. Natural pearls are relatively rare, so a process evolved in which a piece of shell or bead was placed inside a mollusk to stimulate the production of nacre. This results in a cultured pearl, which accounts for about 90 percent of the pearl industry.

(Source: www.about-birthstones.com)

Photo right: Pearl samples presented to us by Marge Dawson, 14.01.2012.

Alternative birthstones for June are: Moonstone and Alexandrite.

The opinions expressed in this newsletter do not necessarily reflect those of the PGMC Committee. This newsletter is the property of the Pretoria Gem and Mineral Club; articles/photos may not be re-produced without the written permission of the Editor.

Affiliated to the Federation of Southern African Gem and Mineralogical Societies

Registered as non-profit organization – SARS 9830/639/14/3

Pretoria Gem and Mineral Club

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PGMC Programme for June 2016: (as at 23.05.2016)

Date Event Time Contact Details

2 June Silversmithing Workshop open 18:00 – 21:00 Bernard Strydom, 074 850 5683

4 June Lapidary and Silversmithing Workshop open

Swop & Sell and Social

11.00 – 15.00

11.00 – 14.00

Duty Members

Open to all

9 June Silversmithing Workshop open 18:00 – 21:00 Bernard Strydom, 074 850 5683

11 June Lapidary and Silversmithing Workshop open

Committee Meeting

11.00 – 15.00

15.00 – 16.30

Duty Members

Committee Members

16 June Silversmithing Workshop open 18:00 – 21:00 Bernard Strydom, 074 850 5683

18 June Lapidary and Silversmithing Workshop open

Silversmithing Course – booking essential

11.00 – 15.00

10.00 – 15.00

Duty Members

Bernard Strydom, 074 850 5683

23 June Silversmithing Workshop open 18:00 – 21:00 Bernard Strydom, 074 850 5683

25 June Lapidary and Silversmithing Workshops open 11:00 – 15:00 Bernard Strydom, 074 850 5683

29 June - 3 July

Club Outing: Vivo and surrounding Areas

11.00 meet in Vivo

Outing Leader = Linda Stone tel. 082 5989 117, more details on page 4

30 June Silversmithing Workshop open 18:00 – 21:00 Bernard Strydom, 074 850 5683

A very warm welcome to the new members who joined recently: Erna & Kira Coghill May your association with the club be enjoyable, long and prodctive.

Duty Roster

June 4 11 18 25

Open – 11:00 am Lex Willem Bernard Heidi

Duty Team Lex Krabbendam Joanne Fidos

Bernard Strydom Karin Mayerl

Len Botha Ada Beresford

Heidi Naudé tba

Close – 15:00 pm Lex Committee Bernard Heidi

July 2 9 16 23 30

Open – 11:00 am Dieter Heidi Bernard Lex Bernard

Duty Team DieterHeinichen Linda Stone

HenryViviers Cherelyn ….

Willem Vorster tba

Lex Krabbendam Joanne Fidos

Bernard Strydom Karin Mayerl

Close – 15:00 pm Lex Committee Bernard Lex Bernard

Please check the dates assigned to your team and organize “stand-ins” if you are not available; please refer to your latest NL for final duty allocations.

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1. Membership Fees 2016

Please renew your memberships for 2016 urgently; only fully paid-up members are entitled to receive newsletters, use our clubhouse facilities, attend courses and participate in club outings.

We thank those of you who renewed timeously. The fees for 2016 are as follows:

R 500 Principal Members

R 450 Pensioners (over 60’s)

R 100 per additional Family Member

R 30 Joining Fee (new members only)

Bank deposits or EFT transfers can be made to: Pretoria Gem & Mineral Club, ABSA Bank, account no. 405 584 9839; cash payments can be made at the club on Thursdays or Saturdays.

2. “Open Day” Swop & Sell and Social – Saturday, 04.06.2016

The next Swop & Sell and Social will be held on Saturday, 04.06.2016 from 11.00 onwards; all dealers welcome. Members are also invited to bring their surplus minerals and/or rock material to swop or sell. Alternatively you may bring your family and friends and introduce them to our hobby.

3. Silversmithing Course, 18.06.2016

The next course is scheduled for Saturday, 18.06.2016 at 10.00 am at the clubhouse. Please contact Bernard Strydom at tel. 074 850 5683 regarding the course project, fee and material required and to book your place.

Photo left – project of last month’s course, Quartz crystal set in silver – photo courtesy of Bernard Strydom.

4. Faceting Classes

Please note that there is already a waiting list for faceting classes - thanks to Peter Beresford, our patient, willing and able instructor. Pre-booking for faceting machines is important to avoid disappointment (Tel. 012-377 0558). Come and book your class now!

Amy Yuan working on her beautiful Rose Quartz stone (left &middle); other faceting students (right).

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5. Club Outing – Vivo and surrounding areas, 29.06. – 03.07.2016

The outing will start on Wednesday, June 29 at 11:00 and will end on Sunday, July 3. We will meet at the new garage in Vivo on Wednesday, from where our journey begins.

Minerals to be collected are agates, calcite, carnelians, copper related minerals, dragon stone, garnets, green quartz, quartz, ruby corundum and unakite. We will also visit Shaft 5 (old Messina Mine). Harry Smith’s house will also be visited to view his collection of Messina quartz and ajoite crystals (see our newsletters of Oct. & Nov. 2015 for outing reports).

It is advised to wear the appropriate gear. One of the sites to be visited is an operating mine, and according to the Mine’s Act you have to wear a hard hat, a reflective jacket as well as sturdy shoes. Please keep in mind that snakes are commonly found in these areas. The media stated that the malaria mosquito has been detected as far as Mopani. Please take precautionary measures as well, especially if you suffer from any medical condition.

We’ll be staying on Ari and Sannie Kruger’s farm called ‘Dankbaar’ which is situated near Alldays. You can stay as long as you wish. The following accommodation is available:

Rooms: (main house and ‘jaghuis’): R 200,00 pppd with shared facilities. Children under the age of 18 free of charge. Linen and towels will be provided.

Camping and caravaning: R 75,00 pppd. Children under the age of 18 free of charge. Please remember to bring an extension cord. Bathroom facilities will be shared. In all cases a 50% deposit is required. The balance to be paid in cash on arrival.

The following facilities are available: Barbecue (braai) facilities, a fully equipped kitchen (gas stove, fridge, freezer, cutlery, crockery), cold store, tables and chairs.

Sannie will spoil us again with her homemade side-dishes for the evening braais/barbeques (pap and sous or alternatively her famous potato dish).

Directions to the farm ( S 22º37.55,6 E 29º22.42,0 ): From Polokwane (Pietersburg) take the R521 to Alldays. Turn right onto the Bronbeek Road. This road is about 1,5 km before Alldays. Be on the lookout for the 22 km and 23 km concrete markers, turn right at a sign board indicating ‘Ari en Sannie Kruger’. Travel down this road, fenced on the one side with game fencing for 8 km. When approaching the MTN tower the farm house will be visible. Estimated travel time from Pretoria to Vivo via the N1 highway is approximately 4 - 4½ hours.

Bookings: Call Sannie Kruger on 071 0487 381 to book your accommodation. Please contact me per SMS afterwards to confirm the booking. I will need all the names, surnames, cell numbers and booking details from you as well as those accompanying you. You can contact me at 082 5989 117.

Ari and Sannie Kruger’s banking details: Bank: ABSA Account holder: A.J. Kruger Account number: 4074272986 (cheque) Branch: Pietersburg Reference: Your name and surname

The closing date for bookings and deposit payments is Friday, June 24 2016.

See you all at Dankbaar! Linda Stone, Outing coordinator

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This Gemboree, kindly organized by the FOSAGAMS committee and many volunteers, took place in Prieska in the Northern Cape Province. It was a special event, celebrating the 50th Anniversary of FOSAGAMS as the Federation of Southern African Gem and Mineralogical Societies. We travelled the first 590km from Pretoria to Kuruman, staying over at the lovely guesthouse Kuru-Kuru.

Left = the “Eye” a natural fountain in the heart of Kuruman; middle = even the fields of weeds looked really nice after the long awaited rain; right = the “rockies” and the mini-hounds in the background, relaxing at Kuru-Kuru.

The next morning we drove 190 km to Griekwastad, for our first private rock-hunt at Earth Treasures (Peet van der Westhuizen).This is a well-known place amongst the rockhunting fraternity and a must see for all newcomers, if you happen to be in the vicinity. Peet is still producing beautiful polished spheres, eggs, tumbled stones and jewellery items on small scale and mainly for specific orders. Enthusiasts are allowed to scratch around his heaps of off-cut material and take their pick, which is sold by weight at very reasonable prices – truly a lapidarist’s heaven!

Left = “Oom Peet” negotiating with a customer. Right = some of the interesting material up for grabs, my pink bag was too small !

After about 2 ½ hours we reluctantly left to carry-on to Prieska, another 110 km of gravel road further. We arrived safely and after some searching found the Soon Le Roux Youth Camp, our base for the weekend, just outside of town. Check-in went very smoothly and soon we were settled, able to relax and meet/greet fellow friends and other early arrivals.

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The next day was spent with the official registration process for the Gemboree, receiving the lovely “goody-bags”, buying the FOSAGAMS anniversary T-Shirt, exploring the Soon Le Roux Youth Camp surroundings, greeting more “rockies” and checking out the dealer tables in the trading room.

Then we joined the hustle and bustle in Prieska for some last minute shopping.

Did you know?

The name Prieska comes from “Prieskap” = “place of the lost goat”. Another oddity is the British Fort on the Prieska Koppie built out of Tiger’s Eye. This must surely be the only fort in the world constructed from semi-precious stones?

Source: www.101karoo-towns.com

On Friday morning we met our host for the weekend Pieter Smit, who kindly agreed to take us to his factory shop in Prieska, from where he trades in various raw gemstone material obtained in SA and neighbouring countries, and also produces beautiful artefacts in his workshop, see photos below.

From there we left in convoy style – quite an achievement if you take the amount of vehicles (45+) and people (120+) participating into account - to the Mugglestone and Quartz site.

Mugglestone, also known as Tiger Iron, is a beautiful naturally coloured stone containing sedimentary deposits of black Hematite, golden brown Tiger's Eye and red and yellow Jasper. The contrasting bands of colour and lustre make for an attractive motif, and it is mainly used for jewelry making (cabochons and beads) and ornamentation (polished slabs, spheres, eggs, knife hilts etc.).

At the collection site (an old asbestos mine) Pieter quickly explained the do’s and the don’ts and offered a helping hand to the newcomers, which was much appreciated.

Above from left to right = old asbestos mine entrance; only a small variety of the mugglestones found.

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Willem and Dieter (PGMC), with the famous “rock shopping trolley”; once in place – trans-porting stones was a breeze Communal weaver bird nest on one of the old mine buildings; There is beauty everywhere, you just have to look

The beautiful sample on the left was seen at Pieter’s work-shop in Prieska.

Just look what you could do with your material (Source of arte- facts courtesy of www.google.com)

Could this be beaten…..yes , Saturday was even more exiting!!! We had a full program and left Prieska fairly early for the Tiger’s Eye mine. Once again Pieter, accompanied by his lovely daughter Ronelda, took the lead and after an exciting drive (some slight convoy hick-up) we all arrived safely at the site.

Pieter gave us a short explanation about the history and workings of the open pit mine, as well as the do’s and don’ts (photo below left), and off we went, heavily armed with picks and all sorts of rock hammers. Pieter had arranged for the preparation of our own excavation hole to avoid the enthusiastic crowd interfering with his workers mining sites (photo below right). We needed no further invitation and got quickly down to some hard labour, especially Willem Vorster and Hans Wattenbach proved to be very handy having around (see photos on next page).

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Photo left: Tiger’s Eye waiting to be dug out; photo right: Hans and Willem taking out big slabs for us.

Did you know? Tiger's Eye is a chatoyant gemstone that is usually a metamorphic rock that is a golden to red-brown colour, with a silky lustre. Members of the quartz group, Tiger's Eye and the related blue-coloured mineral Hawk's Eye gain their silky, lustrous appearance from the parallel intergrowth of quartz crystals and altered amphibole fibres that have mostly turned into limonite. Tiger's eye is composed chiefly of silicon dioxide (SiO2) and is coloured mainly by iron oxide. Its gravity ranges from 2.64 to 2.71. It is formed by the alteration of crocidolite (source: www.wikepedia).

Piles and piles of “trimmed” Tiger’s Eye waiting to be graded, weighed and packed for shipment overseas.

Pieter told us he exports about 250 tons of Tiger’s Eye per month. His main customers are based in China and they only take the “golden” stones, followed by Rumania and India who like the golden and the blue varieties (photos left below). The variety of “agatized” Tiger’s Eye, where the various colours of yellow golden and blue are still visible but no stripped pattern exists, is very sought after in Europe (photo right below) – it looked like Jelly and I can’t wait to cut/polish a cabochon or two .

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Photos below – Tiger’s Eye as far as your eyes can see; the best pieces already neatly packed and waiting to be loaded. Heavy boulders, weighing more than 1 ton each, of Jasper and Quartz (?) destined for shipment to Italy, where they are used for kitchen and bathroom counter tops.

It took Pieter some convincing to get the “rockies” to pack-up and leave; only the promise of more adventures awaiting got them going (eventually). We had a scenic drive on good gravel roads via Niekershoop to Griekwastad. There we stopped briefly at Earth Treasures to allow everybody access to the special material available from Peet van der Westhuizen.

Look what special patterned Tiger’s Eye I saw at Peet’s place. Apparently the iron mineral hematite frequently co-exists as wavy layers that cut horizontally through the vertical structure of tiger's eye. The name of this combination is Scenic Tiger's Eye (left below); some other unusual samples I found at this place – photo right – another wavy patterned Tiger’s Eye, a fancy red Jasper and a black and grey stone called “silver-leaf Jasper”. I had never heard of that, but a quick enquiry with “Mrs. Google” confirmed this, and the polished items shown on the website looked really special .

From Griekwastad we travelled another 40 km to the Jasper mining site – scenery en route…….

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Pieter gave us the customary briefing and then we could search, collect and dig to our hearts delight – check the photos below and you will agree – this must surely be Jasper heaven! Check out the many colour and pattern variations and also the “fish imprint” on the stone in photo 7 (bottom left).

Bags, crates, boxes were quickly filled; most of them too heavy to carry and Willem’s trolley was very popular at this site. People stopped smiling about it and started to see the benefits of the gadget, when he offered them a “ride” for their stones to the waiting vehicles.

Back at the camp we had to rush for the official opening ceremony. The organizing Committee really went out of their way with the beautifully decorated tables and surroundings. Linda Stone, the current President, welcomed all VIP guests and clubs present and elaborated on the history of FOSAGAMS and her future vision for the Federation and clubs as a whole. She thanked our outing host Pieter Smit (left) for all his time/efforts provided, and for allowing us onto his (and his partners/friends) farms and mining sites to collect beautiful stones for free! This was truly very generous and strongly applauded by all present – you “rock” Pieter!!! Then we all enjoyed a “lekker” dinner and celebrated until late.

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Ludi von Bezing, a true legend in the world of minerals and author/co-author of many mineral books, organized the Gemborites access to the Angelierspan mine. According to Bruce Cairncross’ Field Guide to Rocks & Minerals of Southern Africa, the Angelierspan pegmatite mine was the most productive beryl producer in the region. 2 m long crystals were commonly occurring here; a 60-ton Beryl crystal was exposed here in the 1950’s! Other minerals found included Albite, Lepidolite, Microline, Muscovite, Quartz, Schorl, Spodumene and Spessartine Garnets. We were looking for Muscovite and the orange Spessartine Garnets; Malcolm found some small Garnets rather quickly and showed everyone around.

Pictures say so much more than words, don’t you agree? The “rockies” thoroughly enjoyed themselves at this mine and everyone was happy about their finds. And nature’s beauty is everywhere – can you see the little succulent in the photo far left?

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We returned just before lunch, still in time to join the fun and game activities at the campsite. The Gemboree Committee received plenty donations which kept Willem, our trusted auctioneer and his helpers busy for nearly 2 1/2 hours! Everyone joined in and had some fun. Also the “guessing the crystals weight” and “guessing the amount of tumbled stones in the jar” games were a big success.

left = prices for the “guessing games” middle = anniversary cake

right = gemstone lamp for sale

To Linda, Malcolm and the “rest” of the FOSAGAMS Team, as well as the sponsors, outing organizers and volunteers – THANK YOU for organizing a very successful 2016 Gemboree!

Report and photos (unless otherwise indicated) by Heidi Naudé

Paul Davis from the Natal Club has some tumbling rollers for sale.

Description:

Rubber coated steel rollers with bearings at both ends. They come with numerous adjustable round rubber grips. He has a total of five available but is willing to sell them separately at R 200 each.

He is located at Hillcrest, KZN and can be contacted at (031) 765 3230. He has send photos but due to the space limit in the newsletter I am unable to publish them here.

I have printed some and put on the notice board at the clubhouse; if you are unable to view them there please drop me an email and I will mail them to you (Heidi.naude@za.bosch.com).

The opinions expressed in this newsletter do not necessarily reflect those of the PGMC Committee. This newsletter is the property of the Pretoria Gem and Mineral Club; articles/photos may not be re-produced without the written permission of the Editor.