A
7-year-old boy
rose to fame after finding a
14.5-carat sapphire
worth
thousands of dollars
about 200 meters from his home. They uploaded the video to TikTok and it went viral on social networks.
Riley Betteridge
, the little boy scout from Australia, has had a fascination with searching for gems since he was just three years old.
But nothing is a coincidence, as his parents, Matt and Amber, run a specialist company, Betteridge Sapphires, located in the heart of the mining region of the state of Queensland,
Yahoo News Australia reports.
"He has a good eye for it," Matt said of his son, with the pride of someone who understands the subject.
Of course, this little boy's fame has its justification, and one of them is that
at just 3 years old
he discovered his first stone while looking at the ground from his father's shoulders.
A TikTok video that went viral shows how the boy Riley was captured in his school uniform running towards his father excitedly saying that he thinks he has found a Sapphire.
"That looks pretty cool buddy
," Matt said after inspecting it with a light and seeing the blue and green glow. "That is, by far, your best stone so far," he confirmed according to local media.
Video
A Tiktok video shows the discovery of the sapphire that the boy made and is worth thousands of dollars.
The boy shows his happiness when he finds the sapphire. TikTok screenshot
How many dollars is the sapphire found by the child worth?
Amber, a gemstone processing and polishing specialist, said the sapphire found by Riley appears to have no internal fractures and could be worth
up to $10,000.
In turn, he explained that
"the final color will make the difference
," referring to the fact that stones with bright colors tend to sell at a higher price than those with darker tones.
The discovery comes weeks after Mrs Betteridge found a sapphire worth $2,000 buried in the ground while carrying her 9-month-old daughter.
The mother also found a millionaire sapphire
The Betteridge family already has a history of notable discoveries.
This is what the more than 14 carat sapphire that the father examines in Australia looks like. TikTok screenshot
Back in 2022, he had experienced viral success when Matt unearthed an astonishing
834-carat Australian sapphire
near his land.
Also in a TikTok video he shared the moment: he scraped the earth and tried to remove the gemstone only to realize that it was too big and
required more digging.