Gem Profile 17: MONTANA SAPPHIRE:    
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        Since the late 19^th century, Montana has been as much a  promised land for sapphires as is has been for gold. Yet      most mining companies started there have ultimately found the place a doorway to ruin, not riches. Gordon Austin, the former U.S. Bureau of Mines tally man for American gem mining operations, estimates that the latest and greatest of these washouts, American Gem Corporation, lost $50 million all by its lavish lonesome.

        After the prodigious dot.com debacle, the belly ups of some sapphire mines may seem trifling by comparison. But the long string of flops could still give American corundum such a sullied reputation on stock exchanges from New York to Vancouver that the next venture capitalist who tries to raise money for any Montana gem production may be looked at as a Max Bialastock who has temporarily traded his BMW for a bulldozer.

        Nevertheless, don’t write off Montana sapphire mining as just another carat-and-shtick story for gullible investors. In the last few years, a couple of very modest mining operations there have prospered. The success of these leaner, meaner operations suggests a different moral can be drawn from Montana’s high mine failure rate: Think private enterprise rather than public offerings. And think small rather than grand scale. “Montana sapphire has spelled success for mom-and-pop operations that keep overhead low and expectations humble,” Austin says. As a result, the smart money is beginning to believe that Montana’s future as a gem producer can finally rise above its past.

 Primary versus Secondary Mines

        Without a doubt, the best known Montana sapphire mine is Yogo Gulch, the state’s only primary corundum source. By primary, we mean that a gem being mined is still embedded in the rock where it formed and that this rock is still in its original location. If that host rock had eroded fully or partially and either it or its gem contents have been moved by, say, water or rock slide to some other area nearby or far off, this new site is called a secondary source (or “placer deposit”). In recent years, most of the sapphire from Montana has been coming from secondary sources, either from mountainsides or along rivers and creeks. What’s more, the sapphire found in these deposits is vastly different in color and character from that found at Yogo. As a result, gemologists now distinguish between Yogo and all other Montana sapphire. This month, we’ll focus on the corundum from secondary sources and reserve Yogo for next month.

        Montana’s history as a sapphire producer got off to a slow start in 1865 with the discovery of rather pale greenish-blue material somewhere along a 15-mile sapphire-rich stretch of the Missouri River. Had these unappetizing corundums been found today, heat-treating, now a prerequisite for nearly all Montana gravel and riverbed corundum, would have transformed many of them into praiseworthy morning-to-evening shades of sky blue. Heating would have worked similar wonders for the vast array of other Montana sapphires, producing spectacular orange, pink, violet, green, teal, and golden hues. Thanks to the miracle of oven alchemy, Montana is the envy of the world for corundum color selection.

        It was Rock Creek, also known as Gem Mountain, roughly 80 miles west-southwest of Helena, where the first major success in Montana placer mining was scored in 1906. Production continued almost without pause until 1943 when far cheaper synthetic sapphires did away with the need for most of Rock Creek’s stones. It is this prolific area where ambitious American Gem Corporation decided to stake its claim in 1994. By the time this misguided company, which had said it hoped to become a De Beers for sapphire, went bankrupt in 1999, it had amassed a gargantuan inventory of calibrated, well-sorted stones that boasted brilliance and precision in addition to often glorious blue and fancy colors.

        Last year, in what may be one of the greatest windfalls in gemstone liquidation history, former GIA research gemologist and Gubelin Lab chief Robert Kane bought the defunct company’s entire stock of rough and cut stones for an “undisclosed sum”. Since that phrase is usually a euphemism for bargain, it is safe to say that Kane’s company, fine Gems International, based in Helena, can be competitive in pricing in a way its spendthrift predecessor couldn’t be.

        And that’s the good news for the jewelry designers, manufacturers, and custom crafters who are looking for an affordable American-mined precious stone. Although Gem Mountain produced stones that cut up to 2 carats, “its forte,” says Kane, “is suites that are finely matched or graduated for color, tone, and size.”

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