We love the American Museum of Natural History; we actually love all the museums of New York City. The American Museum of Natural History, AMNH, contain so much information to be read, observed, viewed and not to be missed, that you may want to devote two days to a visit, but here are a few tips and suggestions that are especially relevant to rockhounds and geology, mineral, and fossil enthusiasts.
The first and we do mean first tip to enjoying your visit to AMNH is to enter on the Columbus Avenue side. Enter on the side opposite, on the other street, on the backside, and do not wait in the long line on the Central Park West main entrance with the pair of lion stone sculptures. That main entrance always has a line that can last up to an hour. On the other side of the museum is another entrance that rarely has a line, and you can walk right in if you pre-paid for your tickets and you can buy your tickets there too. This is a very important trick that you will thank us for once you experience the difference and convenience and ease of entering the museum on the Columbus Ave side.
A benefit of entering the museum on the Columbus Avenue side is that the first major hall and exhibition you enter is the newly remodeled famous Mignone Halls of Gems and Minerals. This is a fascinating gem of an exhibition that contains some of the largest minerals in the world, some of the most rare minerals and fossils in the world, and education and insight throughout. When we were there last, we spent 2 hours just in the area for gems, minerals, and fossils, and then right next door is the equally fascinating insect and bug hall and exhibits where you get to see live insects as well.
So plan your visit wisely fellow rockhound and gem, mineral, fossil enthusiasts, and start your visit to the American Museum of Natural History from the Columbus Ave entrance. Enjoy photos below from our March 2025 visit to New York and contact American Geode with any questions. #NewYorkRocks
American Geode are a team of explorers, rockhounds, self taught geologists, and occasional gem, mineral, and fossil dealers. We are also buyers and consumers here in America of US and foreign goods, and for all the talk lately about the effect of Trump Tariffs on the price tag of every day items, we are sharing the profound and crushing effect the Trump tariffs will inflict on the US gem, mineral, and fossil market.
Finding a site, mine, vein, outcrop in the United States with semi precious or precious gems or interesting fossils is very difficult as most US land is off limits to exploration. The majority of US land is privately owned or is protected state or federal land like forests, parks, and preserves. State and federal laws prohibit collecting stones in abundance, if at all. Private property owners with precious stones on their property may permit access, such as Graves Mountain, https://www.americangeode.com/blog/graves-mountain-a-rockhounds-mecca/ or the sites in upstate New York near Herkimer for the Herkimer Diamonds, http://www.americangeode.com/herkimer.php. Sites like those do permit mining and collecting of minerals or stones for a fee, with limits on how much you can retrieve and carry out. So there are very means or opportunities for someone in the US to sources and sell US stones or minerals. Even mining from the pay-to-dig sites do not allow enough access or chance to mine enough stones to sell in the market. So gem, mineral, and fossils dealers turn to China, India, Brazil, and Mexico for wholesale minerals and fossils they can resell here.
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Dealers are able to sell online and at various weekend shows throughout the country. The stones are heavy to transport, safely pack and unpack, and most often the dealers are driving to transport their “rock shop” in a car as flying is not an option due to the high chance the stones would be damaged in a checked bag. So the costs of doing business as a stone or fossil dealer are high enough already. Many dealers import and buy their stones from other countries where, like all the other items that Americans enjoy, they are so much cheaper. The private property laws are different overseas, so there are companies able to mine the quantity, volume and scale to sell their stones overseas. The labor costs in these countries is also lower than the lower costs in the US, and these are also “mining” jobs that few in America in 2025 and onward would seek out to pursue. So China, India, Mexico, or Brazil are able to sell stones and ship them to US dealers at prices that the US dealer would consider at or below wholesale, and so low that they can add a 50% margin so they have room to lower the price when a customer wants to negotiate. Trump tariffs with these countries would remove the viability and opportunity for full time and part time dealers and sellers to continue their small business. The overseas minerals are affordable for US dealers to import, until the Trump Tariffs kick in, and in many instances, China or India are the only source of the stone. Take Jade for instance. While some types of jade are found on the US West Coast, the vast majority is only found in China and India. While Indiana does offer some curious geodes, http://www.americangeode.com/, the most sparkly, colorful, and largest geodes are from Mexico and Brazil. Any major fossil producing site in the US is on protected land except in the most rare occasions such as when we visited the haunted and abandoned town of Centralia, Pennsylvania, http://www.americangeode.com/blog/fern-fossils-discovery-centralia-pennsylvania/. Many fossils sold in the US come from Morroco for instance, where laws allow for the excavation and digging necessary to steadily provide fish fossils.
So there is not a way for Americans to bring back these mining and excavating opportunities or sites to our shores. American dealers and sellers can’t turn to their backyards and start digging up new American inventory. The return of a gem, mineral and fossil market to America is as unlikely and difficult for gem, mineral, fossil dealers as it is for the cellphone, TV, laptop, avocado, wine, cheese markets, etc. and so on (and the list keeps growing). Also, gem, mineral and fossil buyers are infamously and notoriously frugal and seeking bargains. They will shop around, they will pit two dealers at the same show against one another for a lower price, and they can walk away from a purchase too. So this is not a market filled with wealthy buyers and consumers, so the dealers keep their prices close to fair market value anyways, making becoming rich off selling rocks highly unlikely.
While gems, minerals, and fossils are not eggs or fruits or cars, to these dealers and sellers, this is their livelihood and income. Selling rocks is hard enough. We know from experience. Only someone whose head is full of rocks would think the Trump tariffs will help the US gem, mineral, and fossil markets.
Knoxville Gem & Mineral Society 2021 Annual Gem Show
Rothchild Conference Center 8807 Kingston Pike, Knoxville, TN 37923
Friday, October 15, 10:00 am – 6:00 pm Saturday, October 16, 10:00 am – 6:00 pm Sunday, October 17, 11:00 am – 5:00 pm
As a precaution for Covid masks will be required for admittance.
The show will feature 23 vendors with a wide variety of jewelry, fossil and mineral specimens, meteorites, gemstones, and decorative objects. There will also be educational activities and gem and mineral ID tables. Admission Adults: $6.00 Run of Show Pass: $10.00 Children Under 12: Free
Through one of the gem and mineral clubs to which we belong, we were invited to rockhound for lace agate, banded agate, moss agate, and druzy quartz from a private mining site near Summerville, Georgia.
I arrived and was lucky to have the entire mining area to myself except, over the course of the morning and afternoon, 2 different couples stopped by to collect agate, and a family was out on a rockhounding trip.
American Geode takes that attitude that if you can, take a lifetime supply. We filled up every bucket and bin we brought, and also picked up many large and heavy agates. The stone was plentiful. The only time we used our tools was to break apart a behemoth stone into more manageable sections. We found moss agate, lace agate, banded agate, and our favorites had druzy quartz pockets.
The beauty of these stones were not easy to see without being splashed with a little water, but we ran out of water, so started collecting more than enough to overcompensate as we expected to have some stones better suited for the garden. On a recent gem and mineral meeting over Zoom, when I was showing off these fine agate specimens, I learned that the agate, and the stone formation containing covers a lot of Northwest Georgia, even into Tennessee, but it is on private land, or federal park land, so not available or accessible to the general public.
This agate tumbles well, but it loses a lot of surface area during the tumbling. It is beautiful however, and we are sure that a cabochon or lapidary person would have even more fun with this agate.
We have been tumbling North Georgia river stones, and most recently the Summerville Agate, in a 20lb barrel from MJR Tumblers. Each stage of tumbling takes about a week, and at the conclusion of each tumbling stage, I have been dumping the grit and the agate and river stone grit into the flower garden. The flowers LOVE IT! The rose bushes are more plentiful than ever before, and deeper colors than they were last year. One small rose bush that was red last year, was almost tie-dyed looking with streaks of white. The red impatiens are now a shade of orange. The mint and parsley plants are overgrowing! While this is not fertilizer, I can only guess the plants appreciate this concentrated mineral content in the otherwise mostly red clay soil. After I do dump the tumbling grit sludge into the garden I dilute it, and that happens naturally because I need to clean the tumbling barrel before the next stage, and also need to rinse thoroughly the stones before starting the next tumbling phase, or polishing phase, so I am hosing down the barrel and stones over the garden too, and that helps dilute the sludge and make it run over more of the garden to be soaked up. I am sure that the sludge mix from a cabochon workstation would have the similar effect on your outdoors flowering plants. Never dispense of tumbling or cabochon grit down a drain, and no never, dispense of that valuable mineral sludge, but add it to your garden. For any questions about gardening, or rock tumbling, feel free to contact Charles at charles@americangeode.com.
