12/18/2023 0 Comments 4peaks power outlet![]() at an estate sale and seeing three other pickers in line ahead of me. "We want to be there before you even set up, to see what you've got before the other pickers get to it."Picking is an especially competitive and sometimes nasty sport, Breen says there's no love lost among these people who make their living reselling our old junk. "If you plan to start selling at 8 a.m., and you see someone looking around your property, that's a picker," Breen says. Pickers and antiques dealers tend to arrive early for a yard sale or an estate clearance. They belong to a secret underground that allows them to show up, unrecognized, to scam our things.It seems that remaining invisible is just one of many tips of survival in this ultra-exclusive club. "I'm a picker! We are totally incognito."Apparently, in order for him to score the very best deals, Breen and all the other pickers who are prowling our garage sales and thrift stores, looking for nice things that they can mark up and sell to antique dealers and to their own clients, must remain as anonymous as possible. "And it is right here in our very own backyard."To see more photos of the amethyst mine, visit "No, you can't take my picture!" Marcus Breen hollers. "It is the only commercially run amethyst mine in the United States," she says. Twice a year, Sami Fine Jewelry and Cavano give a handful of helicopter tours of the mine (48, The next tours are scheduled for October 15 and 16.įor Sami Fine vice president Stephenie Bjorkman, getting first pick of high-quality gems from Four Peaks Amethyst Mine is only part of the fun. Some of the mine history and gems are on display nearby at the River of Time Museum at 12901 East La Montana. Gems are tumbled and cleaned in Scottsdale, sent to Thailand for cutting, and shipped back to Arizona, where they're set in rings, necklaces, and bracelets at Sami Fine Jewelry in Fountain Hills. The stones mined here are diverse, ranging from pale pink, translucent crystals to deep purple gems with red hues, like the amethyst found in the Ural Mountains of Siberia (which does not mine its amethyst). A couple thousand pounds of ore are shipped out every year via a helicopter, which also shuttles supplies in every month. The current owners, East Coast businessman Cavano and his London-based partner, Jim MacLachtan, purchased the mine in 1997. Commercial amethyst mining didn't begin there until 1942. On the sides of the mine, thick veins of tiny purple amethyst crystals sparkle in the light.įour Peaks Amethyst Mine was discovered in 1925 by Jim McDaniels, who reportedly thought it was a letdown because he was looking for gold. The only light comes from three dusty mining lamps hanging from cables in the upper corners of the cave, powered by the generator outside. "So we don't get stuck like those poor guys in Chile," Blank says. There's an emergency exit tunnel about 15 feet long dug through the middle of the mine's west wall, its entrance marked by a couple two-by-fours nailed into a makeshift doorframe. But after more than 12 years of digging the same vein, the mine itself extends more than 90 feet underground. The mine entrance looks like a cave in the side of the peak, and the main area is only about 18 foot by 6 foot. "It's pretty scary in there."īlank camps on the mountainside at night or sleeps inside the mine, where it's generally about 10 degrees cooler. "But you don't want to use the outhouse," Blank says with a wry smile. There's nothing outside except a small wooden, white tool shed and an outhouse. (The Blanks' baby girl, whom they named Amethyst Jewel, was born this past spring.) They would dig rocks out of the mountainside with picks and chisels for two to three weeks, accumulating layers of dirt under their fingernails and in the cracks on their hands. I'm pretty used to it." Until she got pregnant late last year, Blank's wife used to make the hike with him. Miner Mike Blank makes the hike once a month, a trek that mine owner Kurt Cavano describes as "calf-burning" but which Blank says "isn't so bad. Because of its high, remote location, the amethyst mine can be worked only by hand. There are only two ways to get there: by helicopter or a two-hour drive with an all-terrain vehicle to a place 5,000 feet up called "The Saddle," followed by a 41/2-mile, two-hour hike across all four peaks. Surrounded by the Tonto National Forest, this mine sits on the southernmost peak of Four Peaks in the rugged Mazatzal Mountains, at an elevation of 7,200 feet. Four Peaks Amethyst Mine holds the distinction of being both the last commercial amethyst mine in North America and one of the most inaccessible.
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