Very few emeralds have been mined in the United States. North Carolina has been a sporadic producer of emeralds in small quantities from a few tiny mines since the late 1800s. The Crabtree Emerald Mine was once operated by Tiffany and Company and a series of property owners between 1894 and the 1990s. Many fine clear emeralds were produced, and tons of emerald-bearing pegmatite were sold as “emerald matrix” for slabbing and cabochon cutting. The cabochons displayed emerald and tourmaline prisms in a white matrix of quartz and feldspar. A specimen of the Crabtree Pegmatite is shown on this page.

North American Emerald Mines operates a small mine near Hiddenite, North Carolina. Between 1995 and 2010, over 20,000 carats of emeralds were produced, including a six-inch-long, 1,869-carat crystal that is now in the Houston Museum of Natural Science and valued at $3.5 million. A crushed stone quarry on the same property is operated with employees watching for signs of the hydrothermal veins and pockets that sometimes contain emerald. It is one of the only gemstone mines in the world that sells the country rock.