Queensland Gemfields

By David Ellis with Roderick Eime

When Angus ‘Sparrow’ Pacey fell of his perch at the bar of the Anakie Pub on Central Queensland’s gemfields once too often in 1971, publican Mrs Pat Gregory barred him from setting foot in the place again.

With no other pubs within 50 kilometres in any direction, Sparrow decided that if he couldn’t drink at the Anakie Pub, no one could. So the one-time miner got four sticks of gelignite and blew the front off the Pub.

And because he hadn’t totally demolishing the place, while out on bail he went back to the scene of the crime with the intention of this time detonating the Pub’s gas storage tanks and blowing it sky-high.

But a neighbour spotted him, king-hit him and he was arrested once more. When eventually fined $1300 he commented to the Magistrate: “Ah well, that really makes it a day to remember…”

The Pub was rebuilt, but feeling sorry for the pint-sized Sparrow who would beg forlornly to be allowed back in, Mrs Gregory and her husband finally sat him down and, in her words, “gave him a talking to, and said we’d allow him  back if he behaved himself.”

And the Gregorys went beyond that: they erected a steel post behind Sparrow’s favourite bar stool – and fitted a seat-belt to this because he said he kept falling off as his feet couldn’t reach the ground to steady himself. “We made him wear his seat belt every time he came in, and he never fell off his stool again,” Mrs Gregory recalled in a newspaper interview many years later.

Such are the stories that abound in the Australian bush, and the Central Queensland gemfields – comprising mostly of the aptly-named little settlements of Rubyvale, Sapphire and Anakie – are awash with outback tales tall and true.

Like the time in 1979 young Serli “Smiley” Nelson was walking home from school, and passing a heap of mullock left over from someone’s digging behind the local Post Office, kicked at a rock and uncovered the world’s biggest-ever yellow sapphire. It weighed an astonishing 2019 carats.

He gave it to his dad who sold it to a local dealer, who in turn sold it a New York jeweller who cut it into a gem that re-sold just last year for US$1.2m (AU$1,870,000.)

Not that everyone had such luck. When a bloke named Wal Shadworth was fossicking near Rubyvale and stuck his pick in a lizard hole, he sensed it’d hit something solid but didn’t know if it could be a gem or a lizard’s head. So he dug into the hole – and found a 100 carat honey coloured sapphire.

He had it cut to a 30 carat gem that was dubbed “Autumn Glory” and sent it off to a dealer he was told about in Texas…fifteen years later the search is still on – for both the so-called dealer and “Autumn Glory.”

And in 1935 when twelve year old Roy Spencer showed a large rock to his miner father, his dad said it looked pretty useless black crystal with no signs of blue or yellow sapphires.

For the next thirteen years until 1948 the rock was used to prop open the Spencer’s back door, until Mr Spencer learned that in very, very rare cases sapphires could be found in a black form.

So he chipped the door-stop open – and discovered the world’s biggest black sapphire that weighed a whopping 1400 carats. He advertised it for sale and a Los Angeles dealer, Harry Kazanjian flew out to Anakie and made an offer of $18,000 on the spot – a fortune in 1948 which the Spencer’s quickly accepted.

Mr Kazanjian cut the sapphire to a 700 carat gem he called “The Black Star of Queensland” because of the star-like light that sparkled from its interior…and sold it for $1,000,000. Not a bad return on $18,000 and an air fare.

It changed hands several more times after that, and is on sale again today –  with a reserve of $88,000,000.

Visitors to the Central Queensland gemfields, 300km west of Rockhampton, can fossick for gems they can have cut and made into jewellery, go down a mine, visit the local gemstone museum, and in August attend the Annual Gemfest.

Details on www.capricorniatourism.com.au 

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