Roy Whetstine

Roy Whetstine was a broke Texas gem dealer a year ago when he bought an uncut stone for $10 from a box of rubble at a gem conference. He says he knew immediately that the potato-sized specimen was a rock for the ages: a prized star sapphire, the largest ever, and he quickly became a celebrity with a $2.28-million appraisal and a story that everybody wanted to believe.

Roy Whetstine was a broke Texas gem dealer a year ago when he bought an uncut stone for $10 from a box of rubble at a gem conference. He says he knew immediately that the potato-sized specimen was a rock for the ages: a prized star sapphire, the largest ever, and he quickly became a celebrity with a $2.28-million appraisal and a story that everybody wanted to believe.

A gemstone broker fished a dusty rock from a Tupperware dish at an Arizona mineral show and paid $10 for what his trained eye knew to be the world's largest star sapphire, valued at $2.28 million. Roy Whetstine of Longview said he bought the sapphire at a rock and gemstone show last February in Tucson. He came home with what he named the Life and Pride of America, a star sapphire weighing 1,905 carats in the rough that has been appraised at $2.28 million.

--To the rock hound who found it, the dirty, potato-sized stone wasn't very attractive so it was offhandedly included in a grab bag of items for sale at a Tucson gem and mineral show. But to Texas gemstone broker Roy Whetstine, the lavender-colored rock was a diamond in the rough. Borrowing $5 from his son, Johnathan, and $5 from his other son, Stephen, Whetstine hurriedly purchased the 1,905-carat stone. An appraisal confirmed his remarkable find of a star sapphire worth $2.