Tag: geode

Posted on

Tariffs will CRUSH the US Gem, Mineral, and Fossil Market for Dealers

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.

(Analysis Continued Below the Images)

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.

Posted on

How do you wash your stones or your rocks?

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.

Posted on

Rock Tumbling Advice, Insight, Tips, Tricks and what not to do

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:

  1. 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!
  2. We use 4 stages of tumbling grit, one week each = coarse grit, fine grit, pre-polishing, then polishing.
  3. 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.
  4. 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.
  5. 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.

#getoutandrockhound

Posted on

South Carolina Rockhounding trip for Garnets

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.

#getoutandrockhound

Posted on

Gem and Mineral Wonders of the Midwest

American Geode was honored to be the monthly speaker in March 2025 at the Northeast Georgia Mineral Society, negms.org. We are members of the Northeast Georgia Mineral Society, in addition to other clubs and societies, so this was a friendly and warm crowd of rockhounds and geology enthusiasts. The society was nice enough to record the talk and lecture, and here is their record of our fascinating lecture about the gem and mineral wonders of the Midwest.

Charles grew up in Indianapolis, Indiana, but lived in New York City for many years.  His love for Indiana geodes started with a trip to rural southern Indiana (the Bedford / Bloomington area), as an adult, to visit with friends.  He went for a walk one morning in a wooded area along a creek and saw geode after geode embedded in the creek banks and the dry creek bed.  Many of them were basketball sized or larger. The area had experienced drought that year, so the geodes were more exposed, than usual.  Charles managed to lug some geodes out of the creek bed to take back to New York in his luggage…airport TSA was full of questions, which led to a 15-minute geological lecture.  Later, he returned to the area to get more geodes but drove his car so he could take back more and avoid TSA altogether. 

Indiana used to be covered by shallow seas filled with crinoids, sea lilies, and sea urchins (during the Mississippian time frame).  In addition, glaciers once covered Indiana and created the flat terrain, provided the rich soils, and exposed the limestone outcrops and geodes.  Most of the geodes Charles brought back are fossilized crinoids heads / crowns that were buried under sediments, swelled with gases during decomposition, and finally were replaced with calcite and silica.  The fossilized crinoid heads are called “popcorn” by locals.  They use them for landscaping and building decorative mailboxes. Since the Midwest geodes are sedimentary and not volcanic, they do not contain bright colors like the western US and Mexico geodes and are not gem grade.  However, some of them do contain blue chalcedony and large calcite crystals.  Most Indiana geodes are located on federal, state, and private forest and farmlands, which remain unstudied. 

Charles visited the Indiana State Museum, http://www.americangeode.com/blog/gem-and-mineral/ which has a geology room.  He spoke to the museum curator to learn more about them and donated a couple for their display.  When he returned to New York, he took the geodes to a car wash to get them cleaned up, which was very smart.  He sold some of them to interior designers and at flea markets, in New York City.  At 6AM he’d pull his wagon to the flea market site at 48th street and set up a table.  Most people who stopped by had no idea what they were, and he gave them mini-geology lectures and he managed to sell some.  If he was there early enough, he even caught people leaving the nightclubs and managed to sell a few to them as well.  He jokingly said that the people leaving the nightclubs had probably over-indulged in alcohol or stronger things and found that once they sobered-up, they were confused as to why they now possessed a rock, and their wallet was $30 lighter.  Ha-Ha.  Charles also sold them at rock and gem shows.    If you wish to see videos of his geode rockhounding adventures, they can be found at americangeode.com.