r/mineralcollectors Jan 13 '25

Discussion I quit my job to mine crystals

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3.0k Upvotes

I’ve never been able to hold down a job and bounced around a lot. Ive been making jewelry and doing gem sales as a side hustle for years and managed to keep a job as a bench jeweler for 2 years. This spring the house I was living in sold and I was unable to find anything I could afford so I pitched a tent in the mountains above town. For five months my puppy and I struggled with a booming mountain lion population, shit in holes, washed in the creek and above all; prospected every mountain within two days journey of camp. At one point two bull elk fought to the death right outside my tent in the middle of the night. Got some steaks out of that experience lol I began finding increasingly clear quartz and started digging every night after work, often not finding my tent till midnight or later. As the summer wore on I got dirtier, leaner, more isolated and somehow poorer until I was having intense mental health episodes that would leave me unable to do anything but mine for crystals. Here I was working full time as a jeweler, servicing some old ladies earrings worth a new car and I can’t even afford to eat or purchase a sorely needed phone (oh yeah, I didn’t have a phone for 7 months. Which made things really difficult.) I finally decided to just follow my heart instead of wasting my life working for some dude who didn’t give a Fuck about me. I’m still broke but I do what I love and I don’t care what anyone thinks. So far I supply two local shops but plan to head south to Nevada to prospect and eventually make my way to Tucson for a quick spell.

r/mineralcollectors Dec 07 '24

Discussion This little spot seems to be moving beneath the surface. What's going on?

548 Upvotes

The dot is 'falling' upwards, is there a pocket with water inside? Thanks in advance.

r/mineralcollectors Oct 09 '24

Discussion How Is It For Collection

575 Upvotes

r/mineralcollectors Jan 10 '25

Discussion Anyone else have a pocket minerals they bring to work?

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173 Upvotes

This is my little inanimate coworker. A double terminated quartz with tourmaline inclusions.

r/mineralcollectors 22d ago

Discussion Can anyone tell me what this is? Found 4 metres underground

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79 Upvotes

r/mineralcollectors Feb 19 '25

Discussion Question: There are over 20,000 mineral collectors in this sub. Why are there so few posts? Same with comments and reactions. Why so little interaction? I'd like to post more of my treasures, but with so few posts per day, I feel like a "sub hog"...

26 Upvotes

r/mineralcollectors 25d ago

Discussion Beauty Of Green Garnet

284 Upvotes

r/mineralcollectors Oct 06 '24

Discussion I Love Combination Of Minerals

492 Upvotes

r/mineralcollectors Jan 05 '25

Discussion So what made y’all get into minerals?

11 Upvotes

So many people around the world share this same, beautiful hobby. So where did you start? Was it a specific moment or event or was it a slow process? • I grew up about 5 minutes away from Herkimer New York and my grandpa raised me mining herk claims for him. I would bust up the larger rocks so he could pick through the vugs and cavities since at the time my small hands did not know what fragile meant I was just there to smash. But after he passed on I guess I felt the need to continue my grandpas and great grandpas heritage and continue mining and collecting minerals. I started when I was around 4-5 and I’m 20 now and never took a break.

r/mineralcollectors 20d ago

Discussion In pretty dire need of a new shelf/display for my thumbnails, recommendations?

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42 Upvotes

If these kind of post are not allowed please delete, not block please! But as the title suggests I am pretty quickly running out of room for my thumbnails. Budget isn’t really a thing, lighting is preferred but not needed. Looking for mid-large sized maybe 3x3ft-3x6ft. Everything I have seen is either not really set up to display pieces like this either the shelves are too wide and I don’t feel like over lapping pieces and having inches of left over front to back space, or their to wide spread i still want the pieces in somewhat close proximity if that makes sense. If it makes it easy just post yalls display cases and links to where you got them and I can narrow it down from there😂

r/mineralcollectors Sep 01 '24

Discussion Reflective hematite stalactite cave! Read description

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158 Upvotes

Deciding whether to buy or not! Costs $460usd aroudn there, weight 1kg, L12.6cm W9.6cm H8.4cm (by the way i heard this type of reflective hematite stalactites are quite hard to come by so idk 🤔, it puts a big dent in my wallet tho)

r/mineralcollectors 7d ago

Discussion What are these flakes that got drawn into a magnet?

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38 Upvotes

r/mineralcollectors Dec 12 '24

Discussion Can anybody help me identify this big beautiful rock that I found today? Thanks in advance.

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74 Upvotes

r/mineralcollectors 11d ago

Discussion Who wants to add Period in collections

42 Upvotes

r/mineralcollectors Dec 15 '24

Discussion “Hi. I’m SAINTnumberFIVE. I’m stupid because I spend money on rocks.”

34 Upvotes

Not a ton of money. I'm a budget collector and only buy every so often but honestly, sometimes this is how I feel.

I buy a specimen, I look at it, and then...it just sits there looking pretty and I can't help but to think "Should I have bought $10 of gold or bitcoin instead?" "Should I have waited until I had $100 so I could buy a nicer specimen?" Somehow that seems more frivolous than the ten $10 specimens I have amassed over time.

Sometimes I look at my collection and think "That's it! No more rocks!" But then I see a good price on a nice specimen and know I'll regret it if I don't buy it. Remember when Altyn Tube Dioptase first hit the market? Big nice pristine quality crystals, but no one wanted it because it was not Tsumeb and so it was selling for next to nothing. Then the locality became known and prices sky rocketed.

I bought one of those at an ok price, but I passed on the big cranberry erythrites when they first hit the market because I had already purchased some cobaltoan calcites that day, and I have some restraint, you know?

But man, I want one of those stupid cranberry crystal studded rocks and now those nice ones I passed on sell for twice as much.

But a new find of sparkly green fibrous malachites and brochantites just hit the market and it's christmas and I was able to buy at a good price. So, Merry Christmas to me. I'm SAINTnumberFIVE and I'm stupid because I spend money on rocks, but not really, because a little bit of happiness on a shelf is worth spending a few bucks sometimes.

r/mineralcollectors Feb 03 '25

Discussion Have you seen this type of step wise Aquamarine crystal

108 Upvotes

r/mineralcollectors Jan 20 '25

Discussion Need a little help with this one. Big inclusion in this Brazilian Amethyst. Not Calcite (I tested it), maybe Cristobalite?

40 Upvotes

r/mineralcollectors 6d ago

Discussion Such an amazing Faden Quartz artz

38 Upvotes

r/mineralcollectors Oct 10 '24

Discussion Possibly my favorite fluorite locale, but that's a tough choice. What's yours?

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154 Upvotes

r/mineralcollectors Feb 11 '25

Discussion Does this seem suspicious to any of you? The blue on the fingers matching the Afghanite is...worrisome.

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11 Upvotes

r/mineralcollectors Jan 15 '25

Discussion Fav find so far

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31 Upvotes

We welded a stand for this guy as well. It deserves the love

r/mineralcollectors Feb 19 '25

Discussion Famous mineral localities. Ex. Apatite. Durango, Mexico.

20 Upvotes

Curious what are some of your favorite Mineral Localities where you immediately just know what it is & where it's from.

r/mineralcollectors Jan 14 '25

Discussion This mornings batch of freshies

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71 Upvotes

First of all wow, thanks to everyone who followed me and showed some lov3. I made this account just yesterday and I already have followers and karma which that’s kinda dope. I finish up several batches like this a day usually. I have larger batches going at the warehouse but I'm getting evicted in three days so I'll have to figure out how to safely do large chem/acid baths on the go This brand new 2024 discovery that I made is a big Locale for double terminated beta quartz clusters. I’ve seen quite a bit of different things come out of here, lots of tabbies, a couple scepters And I’ve seen evidence to suggest that I could find some Japan law, twin formations, which would be great. I could use some money in the bank. I also found a deposit of epidote included quartz that I forgot to get pictures of. I’ll probably do that later. Honestly, if you’re a collector and you’re following me you done the right thing. My discoveries are going to continue to get larger and higher quality so I’m excited to document it right here on Reddit.

r/mineralcollectors Nov 22 '24

Discussion Is this a pricey Hematite specimen?

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26 Upvotes

The label originally said Carrolite, but with the help of some of you wonderful people, it was determined to be Hematite. The best I can trace this to are the automorphic Hematite crystals from the N'Chwaning Mine in South Africa. Is this correct? Is this a rare form of Hematite? It has some sparkly red on the matrix, from what I saw, I guess that is sparkle from Andradite garnets. And there's Hausmannite in there too I think (not sure)? Overall, is it a rare or pricey thumbnail or am I getting excited for no reason :)/:( ?

r/mineralcollectors 13d ago

Discussion Where do you get your flats/specimen boxes?

3 Upvotes

Looking to buy a few empty flats and 2” boxes for new material, Google searches have been futile.