My AI Buddy — Giant Emerald Discovery

The Power of Conviction

The Story of Emerald Man

Jamie Hill, had been searching for treasure since he was a child. After dropping out of college and drifting through a number of jobs, he went back to his first love, looking for gems. He had blitzed through $200,000, was in debt, and getting ready to take a factory job when he made the 1998 discovery.

His friends thought that he was nuts the first time he went into debt searching for emeralds in North Carolina. No one thought it was possible to find them in North America as large, high-quality emeralds mostly come from Colombia, Brazil or the African country of Zambia.

Deep in debt, Hill started digging in November 1998 at a former public mine he owned in Hiddenite. One month later, Jamie Hill had found one of the largest emerald crystals in America of that time. It was dubbed the “Empress Caroline” weighing in at a giant 88 carats.

His life changed forever after word spread of his find. “Oprah” and “Inside Edition” came calling. People magazine featured him. Single women he didn’t know were dialing his number.

Hill, a college dropout with a passion for rock hunting and exploration was largely influenced by his grandparents, R.Y. and Eileen Sharpe who often shared their love of Hiddenite and its unique geology with Jamie.

Hill’s father, James Hill Sr., was a science teacher and ignited the young explorer in Jamie. Using only a screwdriver, Hill Jr. found a 300-pound quartz in the Hiddenite woods in 1990. In 1995, Hill moved to Hiddenite, borrowing money and pawning belongings to fund his digging. Family and friends told him to forget the rocks and get a job. “I went over $200,000 in debt before I ever saw my first piece of green,” he says.

Hiddenite has been associated with precious gems since the 1870s. It is one of the few spots in North America — and one of just two in the United States — where emeralds are found. New York mineralogist William Hidden hunted platinum here for inventor Thomas Edison’s light bulbs. According to local lore, a farmer found a green rock while plowing and showed it to Hidden. Named “Hiddenite” in his honor, the hiddenite mineral is one of the world’s rarest gems because it is found only in this area and is so rare there isn’t a commercial market for it.

HIDDENITE, N.C. — “Jamie Hill is talking again about the emeralds he finds in the bedrock of this tiny town. He tells his story the way only he can.

A thin hand drawn quickly through his tousled hair, as he begins a long stream of consciousness that is hard to follow. The tangents are many, and Jamie Hill salts his monologue with fantastic claims and cliches: Hiddenite is a treasure chest, and he’s found Aladdin’s cave.”

Jamie had sold several recent finds, uncut, to museums, including the Houston Museum of Natural Science. In early 2004, one of its benefactors bought it a 1,869-carat emerald crystal he unearthed in December 2003

Photo via NAEM & https://internetstones.com/the-naem-emerald/

The abbreviation NAEM stands for the “North American Emerald Mine,” which obviously refers to the mine of origin of the enormous 1,869-carat elongated hexagonal emerald crystal, the largest ever emerald discovered in North America, in the year 2003. The North American Emerald Mine created history in 1998, when a significant pocket of gem-quality emeralds weighing a total of 3,300 carats was discovered for the first time in North America in this mine, by James K. Hill the owner of the mine, in whose 94-acre family property the open-pit mine was sunk. An 18.88-carat, pear-shaped, bluish-green emerald with excellent clarity, purity and transparency, cut from one of these rough stones, has set the record as the largest gem-quality emerald ever produced from a mine in North America, that is estimated to be worth over $1,000,000.

Do our steadfast efforts and power of conviction help mold our reality?

We’re entering into the age of quantum computing which will provide answers to many life mysteries. The James Webb Space Telescope has given us glimpses and illuminated the universe in ways we couldn’t have imagined. In regards to Jamie Hill, all I know is that his discoveries would not have happened had he listened to the well meaning and rational voices that surrounded him. Our big ideas and dreams often seem crazy and downright scary. Taking decisive action to plow forward inspite of this, is true conviction. After all we never know where things may lead…

Should you want to read more about the James K Hill story, here are some links:

N.C. gem hunter blasts into cave, digs up trophy, 5-inch emerald

https://www.jckonline.com/editorial-article/north-carolinas-emerald-man-hits-pay-dirt-again-41619/

Great article on some of the history of emeralds: Unearthing Carolina’s Emerald Highway.

https://naturalhistory.si.edu/explore/collections/geogallery

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1E6uWB0zZ8