Early November 2016 was an exceptional week fossicking at Torrington NSW for brothers Jai and Chris Keevers, with the assistance of Adrian Miller.

They intersected a narrow, sub-vertical clay pocket approximately 6ft in depth and found what most of us dream of! A pocket was full of specimens that exhibit jet-black Quartz Var. Morion, capped with natural dark citrine. The crystals yielded from this pocket are exceptional.

The Pocket was segmented into two main zones. The upper zone produced lemon citrine over smoky, whilst deeper down, the citrine grew considerably darker.

The pocket has been nicknamed the “Wishing Well” Pocket. Many tiring days and nights were spent carefully digging these out and much blood and sweat were spent in earning these spectacular specimens.

You may recall a pocket that Nigel Richardson, Patrick Gundersen and Paul Hayes found back in 2012. Nicknamed the “Moonlight Pocket”, these specimens were black quartz topped by a gem golden citrine. All these have been sold and are much loved in collections all around the world (including mine).

The specimens from the Wishing Well pocket are strikingly similar and exhibit exceptional colour, lustre and condition. Pockets rarely yield similar crystals, so I would class this, given the similarity, quality and volume, an exceptional find.

Over the period of a couple of weeks, Nigel did a fantastic job of cleaning, grading, photographing and labelling over 100 specimens on behalf of the diggers who found them. All specimens were then sold very quickly via a Facebook group.

I was lucky enough to acquire some of what I think are the best specimens of the pocket.

« Back to Australian Minerals