Southeast Asia, Yên Bái Province

Luc Yen, Vietnam

Q: Is it legal to collect at Luc Yen, Vietnam: ruby and spinel marble country with its morning gem market?

Legal to collect. The visitor lane is the small morning gem market in Yen The town and gemstone-painting workshops; mining is by Vietnamese license, join pit visits only through local hosts

Q: What can you find at Luc Yen, Vietnam: ruby and spinel marble country with its morning gem market?

rough ruby, pink and blue spinel, tourmaline at the morning market, gemstone paintings, guided quarry viewpoints

Ruby and spinel marble country with its morning gem market

Gem locality Documented siteLegal to collect

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What you could find

Reported finds from this ground.

Crystals and minerals

Marbles

Also reported: rough ruby, pink and blue spinel, gemstone paintings, guided quarry viewpoints.

Photos via Wikimedia Commons: Stephanie Clifford from Arlington, VA, USA (CC BY 2.0), Sheila Sund (CC BY 2.0).

Why this spot

Rockhounding locality: Luc Yen's marble hills in Yen Bai have produced ruby, spinel and tourmaline since the late-1980s Vietnamese gem rush, including the famous cobalt-blue and glowing pink spinels

Wikipedia documents numerous gem quarries (ruby, spinel, tourmaline) in Luc Yen district, and the Spinel article names Luc Yen marbles as the source of gem spinels found since 2000