jeweller's shop

plural jeweller's shops

1. AustraliainformalbusinessAn exceptionally rich pocket or seam of gold-bearing ore, or, of high-quality opal; a find so rich, dazzling, and valuable that it resembles the stock of a jewellery store.

   ‘It’s at the bottom that ye get gould like they did in the old diggin’s, in the claims they called ‘the jeweller’s shops’.’

   1933, Mary Grant Bruce, Billabong’s Luck, London: Ward Lock, page 175

   5 more examples

   When the stratum was first reached the little mounds of earth containing the gold had the appearance of a solid rock of the metal, but when handled, broke into a mass of dust and nuggets. The twelve holes are known by the name "jeweller's shops".

   1853 September 2, The Geelong Advertiser and Intelligencer, Vic, page 2, column 1

   paper upon which they were written. Powell's party have bottomed their claim since I last wrote to you, and may be truly said to have broken into a jeweller's shop.

   1858 June 18, The Sydney Morning Herald, page 3, column 1

   During the last week, I have endeavoured to ascertain if possible, the number of golden shafts that have been bottomed and up to the present time the very outside is forty (40), out of these, some thirteen (13) may styled "Jeweller's shops", or "homeward bounders", ten (10) first rate claims, and there remainder good payable ones.

   1861 December 10, The Maitland Mercury and Hunter River General Advertiser, NSW, page 2, column 2

   The most spectacular development in Charters Towers mining since the Queen's Cross disclosed its "jeweller's shop" has occurred in the Swedenberg mine.

   1935 July 25, The Queenslander Illustrated Weekly, Brisbane, page 49, column 5

   Old Joe Parsnip stumbled into a jeweller’s shop not far from where our shaft had been. [...] A jeweller’s shop is what they call a mineral formation in rock.

   1965, Frank Hardy, The Yarns of Billy Borker, London: Aungus and Robertson, published 1980, page 142