Prospecting and Sourcing

In the beginning, I learned how to scour the deepest, most untouched parts of New Hampshire, and Maine in search of treasure.  Originally, it was the fitness of hiking that had attracted me to the woods, but I was fortunate enough to meet a mentor and friend who keyed me in to the secret world of crystals hiding right beneath our feet.

I searched for gems and crystals with him, and lots of our friends for years, as I developed intimate knowledge of prospecting, and the nuance of identifying minerals in the field.  Of course, with that, I also developed a first hand knowledge of field extraction.  That is to say, I've swung a hand sledge at a chesel wedged in ganite more than enough times to know how hard it is to gain access to a fresh, new crystal pocket 'in the wild'.

On the rare occasion that a new pocket IS discovered, maybe a dozen times in my ten years field collecting, wonderous treasures can literally spill out of the earth into your hands.  It is an incredible feeling to pull glimmering treasure into the light.  

With this love of prospecting - some might call it 'gold fever' - I carried my energy for mineral hunting to Nepal, on two trips, to source one-of-a-kind tourmaline, and the world's best kyanite in remote parts of the Himalayan mountains.   

A few years later, I traveled to work in Tasmania, Australia, where there is an absolute myriad of gemstones lacing the bottoms of the creeks and rivers.  These water-worn wonders include: topaz, zircon, sapphire, peridot, chrysoberyl, and sometimes a few other oddball gem types.

Hunting for these is a whole other kind of gem hunting from ledge-cracking.  You have to have incredible patience in either case, but sifting the river bottom for alluvial gems is a slow and steady process, where the hammer is loud, and forceful. 

Though I love to stock interesting items from all of the places I have traveled in the pursuit of gems, I have also carefully curated a range of ethical suppliers who source rough gem materials in Central Africa, Brazil, and the USA.  Tanzania, and the USA are my primary source locations. Other occasional sources include Congo, Canada, Kenya, and Indonesia.

My suppliers go out of their way to buy material from individual-scale miners, or small collectives of miners; Not large companies, or strip miners. 

Regarding my USA material, please feel free to inquire, if you don't see what you are looking for.  I have more variety of species and other various USA localities that have not been processed into gems or posted as available yet.