Rock Hounds? Any?

[Brindlebtch]

Sorry some of the pics are fuzzy - hard to tell on the tiny camera screen

 

[dragonlaurel]

Brindle- Wow. Beautiful collection !

 

[cheri222]

All our friends are geologists and Im a nurse. But I have learned to like rocks. For our honeymoon we went gold mining and underwater dredging. Wearing a wetsuit and sucking up critters and snakes while looking for tiny bits of gold was not exactly fun.

 

[verthandi]

I rockhound and facet.

Sorry the photo did not upload with good colors...weird.

Left to Right. Peridot (middle), Iolite (bottom), Golden Beryl (middle round), tourmaline (round green) citrine (rectangle), Blue tourmaline cat's eye, Mint green tourmaline (triangle), Ametrine (rectangle, 1/2 citrine, 1/2 amethyst, 2 other Maine Amethyst.

 

[debilorrah]

Quote:
Your house looks like mine!

 

[debilorrah]

Quote:
I LOVE iolite!! That green tourmaline is really nice color too.

 

[verthandi]

Iolite is a native stone in Maine, I was lucky to find it near my home. They all are from here, except the peridot and that rough come from Arizona. Most of the sites are at least an hours drive for me, but such beautiful locations. But, it is a costly hobby now, the mines used to be open to the public once they were done mining, now it is 25.00 to 50.00 dollars to get in most of them for the day. Tourmaline from here comes in blue, green, pink, peach, red and a purple/red color. I found a beautiful piece that I faceted for my mother that was blue/green to white and then to peach.

I have collected rocks for at least 50 years, never thought I would end up faceting them too.

 

[fl_deb]

OMG... you all have such beautiful collections!

I have a small collection of those that have been finished from my mom.

Since I can only claim to collect rocks myself....what is faceted????

Is it hard??? Do you need special tools? training?

 

[debilorrah]

Quote:
Yes, yes, tell us more!!!!

Here in California, you can find all of quartz, in many colors, different colors of jasper, jade, amethyst, crystals, etc. The desert is rich with stones just waiting to be uncovered. People much think I am nuts when I am walking all over the backyard stopping and digging.

Here are a couple I found just in the back yard:

 

[Funky Feathers]

These are my favorite stones/gems:

Tourmaline (esp. Paraiba)
Apatite
Sky Blue & Swiss Blue Topaz
Russian Diopside
Citrine
White Fire Opal
Blue Fire Opal
Pink Fire Opal
Black Australian (Boulder) Opal
Rubellite
Agate
Banded/Botswana Agate
Red Garnet

Ooh, if only Santa would bring me a bag of gems with some of each of these!