An Aussie has shared the incredible moment he discovered a rare gemstone while walking in the Outback.
Professional sapphire miner Matt Betteridge revealed his discovery of a 394-carat sapphire on TikTok last month.
Mr Betteridge and his partner Amber run their family business Betteridge Sapphires from the heart of the state’s mining region in Central Queensland.
‘I’m out at a place called Reward, if you guys are heading out this way. But all the areas come up with some good stone,’ Mr Betteridge said in the video.
Mr Betteridge said the area had been swamped with rain and he decided to do some more fossicking before the wet weather set in.
Footage showed him digging with his hands before he made the discovery.
‘Look at that! Wow!’ he exclaimed.
‘It’s getting bigger!’
Professional sapphire miner Matt Betteridge revealed his discovery of a 394-carat sapphire on TikTok last month
Footage showed him digging with his hands before he made the discovery
‘I just wanna see how big this thing is, come on, wow, look at that!’ Tell you what, luck’s on my side of late.’
Mr Betteridge then pulled the sapphire out of the ground.
‘Wow, look at that guys!’ he said.
‘This place has been known for large bombs in the past, but wow guys… that’s huge!
‘So I’ll have to give that scrub up before I’ll see any colour in it.’
The video cut to Ms Betteridge holding the cleaned sapphire up to the camera.
‘Here it is all cleaned up… 394 carats of Australian sapphire,’ she said.
‘Now, it is summer here at the minute, and the heat is terrible.’
Mr Betteridge said the 394-carat sapphire (pictured) was just ‘waiting to be found’
‘But if you can handle a bit of heat, we also get these amazing rainstorms which bring out the sapphires.’
Mr Betteridge told Yahoo he had been ‘out of a stroll’ on the gem fields after the rain and ‘saw something glimmering in the road’.
He said the 394-carat sapphire, was just ‘waiting to be found’.
Mr Betteridge said he and Ms Betteridge had decided not to cut the sapphire due to its commercial value of only $1,000.
‘It’s not going to be faceted into a big gem or nothing,’ he said.
‘It’s going to stay exactly the way it is because it’s a pretty cool crystal structure.
‘It’ll be kept that way for its natural beauty. I want to cut it as it’s just sacrilege because it’s so beautiful.’
The couple regularly post their sapphire discoveries on social media.
Earlier this year, their seven-year-old son Riley found a 14.5-carat sapphire worth up to $10,000 just 200m away from his home in the middle of Queensland’s gem fields in Rubyvale near Rockhampton.
Footage of his incredible find has racked up almost 3million views on TikTok with many viewers leaving messages of congratulations for the seven-year-old.
‘Surely that’s earned him a day off school,’ one social media user joked.
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