The older I get the more important and truer the word perseverance becomes. As has been the case while searching for amethyst crystals in California. Located near the border of California and Nevada is

I went downtown yesterday to see the new Mineral Museum my friends are opening in Ginza. Along the way I stopped off in Shibuya for a light breakfast at Starbucks. Normally I would order a coffee and a

A couple of weeks ago I re-re-discovered an important corundum deposit in California. The deposit has been talked about for 100 years, but due to it's size and remote location, it has stayed relatively

I climbed a mountain today looking for sapphires & rubies, aka corundum. It almost killed me as I didn't bring enough water, the temperature reached about 78deg and I had on a heavy winter coat since

I went to Tucson last weekend to buy some gems and minerals, meet up with Japanese dealer friends and see what incredible mineral specimens had been discovered since last year. The Tucson Gem And Mineral

Yesterday I was heading home from the Tucson Gem and Mineral shows, but I didn't quite feel like I had enough mineral hunting. So I fired up Mindat.org to see if there were any interesting places to hunt

Far away from Tokyo, in a foreign land lies Tucson(Two-sawn), a city in Southern Arizona. It was made famous by the many silver and mineral mines in the surrounding areas in the 1800's. In January and

A trend lately in Japan is accenting your office space or home with minerals and crystals, in part thanks to a Men's magazine, Brutus. They're nature's aesthetic artwork. So let's have a look at some of

I have to admit, I have a hard time finding shadow photos worth sharing, but I got one I liked recently. I'll get to it later in this post. First the story behind it. I was up in Utah and Nevada digging

I was up in the northern Nevada desert the other weekend hunting for copper minerals like malachite, azurite & chrysocolla. Hiking around various mines there were bugs and lizards everywhere it seemed.

Be warned, the photos below will show my finger in all it's mutant glory. With that said, here's what happened with my pinky finger up until today. I left off with the day after surgery in my last post.

What a way to ring in the new year in Japan. If you hadn't heard Japan's West Coast suffered a large, 7.6 magnitude earthquake yesterday followed by a tsunami. Thankfully the tsunami wasn't big enough

The more minerals my wife & I take pictures of the more I realize what an art form it is. This Coyamito agate kind of looks like a strawberry. Coyamito Agate - Mexico It takes not only a good photographer

Concluding my trip up to Nevada, I stayed in a small town called Tonopah, Nevada. Tonopah is an old mining town that was settled and prospered from the late 1800's to the early 1920's. It's known for the

As I was out escaping civilization the other weekend I was able to stop by a locality that I've long wanted to go to, Gemfield. Gemfield is located 30 minutes south of Tonopah, just outside of Goldfield,

It's been pretty hot in California, as I'm sure it is where you are too, I mean, it is summer. So I thought it would be a great time to head into the Nevada desert t get away from "Civilization".

Yes, it's a Tuesday, but I have a good excuse. Yesterday I was invited to look at an incredible mineral & artifact collection that took me all evening to comb through. But, more on that later. I spent

Alien poop identified -agate. Although not sure which kind of agate… bahaha . Found this at agate beach goosberry falls state park minnesota this passed weekend. The water is ice cold but it was a calm

This past weekend was the West Coast Gem and Mineral Show in Santa Ana, California. It's a good sized show for all types of mineral collectors and dealers. One of my good friends was exhibiting so I went

In another life, when I attended Dale Carnegie Sales Training, we learned one of the most important things you can do is to be a resource to your customer, in fact that was the top of the sales pyramid.