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.
Bet you don’t get asked often about how you wash your stones or rocks! American Geode loved a product called Mex, but it has been discontinued. It was a great product, not something you would want to inhale, but safer than acid for instance. It was recommended to us by an interior design professional who said hotels and resorts used it to wash and clean their high end marble. But alas it is no more and we can not find any spare Mex on eBay or elsewhere on the internet for sale anymore. So we reach out to the good rockhound community for advice and suggestions.
We would prefer NOT to use acid, but these rust covered specimens with garnets from Seneca, South Carolina (see http://www.americangeode.com/blog/south-carolina-rockhounding-for-garnets/ for full rockhound adventure tale) have already been soaked for 4 days in CLR. So we are seeking your suggestions, but we can not use acid. We are in rural Georgia and don’t want a critter to get in the mix, and if there was an accident, the closest hospital is 45 minutes away. Also, the garnets that cover these ferrous rocks is a little delicate and we would dislodge them if we used a scrubber or some sort of sponge to rub off and rinse off the oxidation and rust, so we need to soak them to preserve the integrity of the specimens and to not knock out any of the garnets.
So please add your suggestions in the comment of the YouTube video, or contact us directly with your suggestions please. American Geode is very grateful for your suggestions on how to wash your rocks and stones and we will thank you for your suggestions on how to wash rocks and stones and may request to interview you about various ways of cleaning and washing stones and rocks.
We have tumbled some very fine batches of rocks, and have also (s)tumbled along the way so we are sharing our rock tumbling advice with the world.
Here are our tips and observations on rock tumbling best practices:
We use an MJR Tumbler with a 20 lb barrel. The 20 lb barrel allows us to tumble large (fist size) rocks. Ours has worked great for 5 years, and while we do keep it cleaned, and oiled per the MJR instructions, the maintenance is easy, and it’s how we tumble LARGE ROCKS!
We use 4 stages of tumbling grit, one week each = coarse grit, fine grit, pre-polishing, then polishing.
We also BURNISH! Burnishing is when you tumble the stones in an ivory bar soap flakes bath for 2 days. We always have foggy stones after the last polish, but then the burnishing process removes any films, and lets the polished surface shine. It really makes a big difference and we have never not had to do it. So our time for tumbling is 4 weeks and 2 days.
Not for any metaphysical or spiritual reason, but just because it is cool, we try to collect rain water and use rain water for our tumbler. It is not easy, but if we are going to tumble and storms are coming, we collect as much rain water as we can in 5 gallon buckets. Some people use distilled and filtered water to ensure no particles at all are present, but if you can collect rain water, it adds a nice touch and a great story.
If you have questions about our MJR Tumbler (https://mjrtumblers.com/), or the stones we use, or anything at all, please contact us for further rock tumbling advice or rockhounding questions.
This was a special invitation to rockhound for garnets in South Carolina for American Geode to explore the private property of a collector and rockhound who owned acres of forest land, some cleared, in Seneca, South Carolina. This had been relatively unworked, so almost virgin land for rockhounding, which is very exciting and a rare opportunity. The owner of the property, a serious collector as well with excellent taste claimed to have found epidote, garnet, quartz (in its various forms), arrowheads, actinolite, hematite, magnetite, and other iron minerals.
Wow! Was this area full if iron, aka Rust! These kinds of rockhound excursions are most fun for American Geode because so many gem and mineral sites are exhausted and over-mined, or seeded if they are commercial, but this gentleman just wanted some semi-professionals to look over the land and see what they find. There is never enough time!
We did find plenty of garnets, when we found the right veins. We saw a tree that was uprooted and that is always a good place to hunt as you are already at least one foot below the surface. That was how we were able to recognize the edge of a vein that we uncovered and chipped at for the garnets. See the photos of the kinds of areas we were digging around. We needed all our shovels, pick axes, rock hammers, and chisels. These are good looking garnets, not too tiny, but holy moly they are covered in rust.
We will follow up with a video and photos of the garnets when we get them cleaned, hopefully without using acid! We used to use a stone cleaner called Mex, and it was awesome and it was safe! Sadly it was discontinued for some reason, but this stone cleaner was excellent at removing rust and oxidation from your rocks and stones: https://x.com/AmericanGeode/status/716694283089264641
Until then, please enjoy all our rockhounding stories and tips, tricks, and advice, and contact us with any questions.
