Harold Roper’S Sapphire

A Blue Star Sapphire

Finding Gems

The Charlotte NC Observer, 6. Dec., 1989

N.C. Man's Rock A Star among Gems

By David Perlmutt, Staff Writer:

There was nothing remarkable about that morning last June. It was Saturday, long before sunrise. And like most summer Saturdays, Harold Roper had already loaded picks into his Dodge four-wheel pickup truck and driven from his home in Marble, NC deeper into the North Carolina mountains. With him was Rob Cutshaw, his rock-hunting buddy of 25 years. ... 

But on this remarkable morning, Roper made a spectacular find that threatens to make a millionaire out of a man who's rarely left his native Cherokee County. Two feet below a vein of earth - where the two had dug for a year and found only chunks of rubies and sapphires -Roper pulled up a deep-blue star sapphire too big to stuff into his pants pocket. Uncut, it weighed 10.5 pounds. Cut and polished, it's the size of an egg-shaped cantaloupe and weighs 9,719.5 carats. That's almost nine times larger than the world's previous largest star sapphire, the "Star of America" weighing only 1,154 carats.

"Rob threatened to kill me when I found it," said Roper, 44, who operates a small tool and die plant in Marble, population 500. ... Roper's stone, called "The Lone Star," was certified last month as a star sapphire by Roger Harding, curator of gems at the British Natural History Museum.  Harding recently evaluated the crown jewels of England. Gemnologists in Texas and London estimate the sapphire's worth in the millions of dollars. They say the color is good, blue with a hint of lavender; the clarity opaque.

"It's a spectacular find," said Texas gem broker Daniel Banks, who is selling the stone for Roper. "Like a fairy tale that's come true. Everyone always wants to find a treasure. Mr. Roper has found a treasure. ... The stone will go into the next Guinness Book of World Records as the world's largest cut and polished star sapphire, Banks said. Soon it will hit the road for a year's tour. ...

Last week, the stone was put on public display for a day in a Dallas jewelry store. A thousand people showed up. Banks will sell it through sealed bids. He says he already has gotten three inquiries, two from collectors, one from a corporation. Like any boy who digs in the bountiful North Carolina mountain dirt, Roper always dreamed of making such a find. In his teens, he'd go with his late father, Harley, a rock mason, to dig for Indian relics. "My father got me hooked," Roper said, "He liked relics, I liked gems."

In high school in nearby Andrews, Roper met Cutshaw. After Roper made his big find - at a location they refuse to pinpoint - the two loaded it into a canvas sack and took it back to Roper's rock room in his 4,000 square-foot brick and cedar house. Curiosity got the best of them and Roper ran the edge of the rough rock over a grinding wheel, deep blue spilled out.

So in October, they took it to Dallas and gem cutter John Robinson, who had cut Cutshaw's sapphire. "We took some other stones with us, but when he saw this one, he grabbed it and didn't want to see the others," Roper said. Robinson wanted the stone cut in London and in November he and Banks took it to R. Holt & Co., known for its gem cutting. It took three weeks to cut and polish the stone. Then curator Harding had to pass on it.

He told a Dallas newspaper that he knows of no other star sapphire the size of Roper's stone. They met with Guinness editor Donald McFarlan. Wealth probably won't change Roper. "I could never leave Marble," he said. "I have seven men who work for me who depend on a paycheck. I'd probably spend less and less time at the plant and let my son take over. "But I'm not going to dance until I see the money."

https://news.internetstones.com/the-lone-star-blue-sapphire/

The Point of the Story:

The gem was found in June, 1989. It then sat in a back room of Roper’s house collecting dust. Then finally in October of that year (roughly four months later), he finally took it out and discovered what a treasure he had!

How many of us have the incalculably precious treasure of the promises of God in our back rooms, uncut, unpolished, unused, just collecting dust on a shelf?

The Point of this web-book:

We’d like to help Christians discover, rightly divide and polish the promises which God has made to them in His word. This involves properly understanding which of those promises, both conditional and unconditional, apply to them/us today, and then choosing to live accordingly.

Happy digging, cutting and polishing!