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Anyone here collect mineral or rock specimens? Nicer stuff not gravel from your yard but not 1000 dollar things.
I thought I might like messing with rocks a couple years ago, so got some stuff together to work with, like a Slab saw, diamond band saw, tumblers, grinders, lap machines, buffing equipment and a faceting machine, plus all the hand tooling one may ever need. Still haven't done any work yet.
So I was at an estate sale this weekend and they had a "rock" for sale for $28 less 25% off. I recognized it was rose quartz and snapped it up immediately. The thing must weigh 40 lbs. It's not gem quality but it's a cool rough specimen. I've never seen one that big. I'm not sure if I'm going to keep it or try to sell it.
I'm really interested in gemstones. I just actually became a guild gemologist for work and would like to start a collection of my own somehow. There are so many gorgeous stones out there. We tend to think only of the "precious" stones and miss out on so many others.
We don't have much in the way of minerals or cool rocks where I live, we mostly have seashells but my wife and I just returned from Las Vegas and WOW. We made a trip to the Grand Canyon, Zion and Bryce parks and it was so amazing. We stopped at a few rock shops and bought a few specimens for fun. If we lived out there I could see us taking hikes and looking for unusual interesting gems and rocks. The geodes are neat. We bought one that is yet to be cracked open. I wonder what is inside?
I can see how finding and collecting rocks is a fun hobby.
Havent posted in awhile. Thought I would post some pics out of my collection. the yellow one is sulfer encrusted rock. the other pic is quarts with malachite and azurite; about the size of a basket ball.
I had a tenant who collected rocks and she destroyed the dishwasher by washing all of her finds in the dishwasher. The filters were full of mud and rocks and little ricks got into the valves and destroyed those.
One of the places where my family used to camp and hike was covered with large chunks of black glassy obsidian. If you go up there now, there isn't so much as a sliver. It's all been carted away by collectors.
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