For those of you who may have thought that Kathi and I had fallen off the face of the Earth, that, fortunately, is not the case.
Because of surgeries earlier in the year, as well as other medical issues, we have been slow in addressing the needs of the website, and apologize to all of our clients who have been waiting so patiently for us to restock the store.
However, we could not be happier to announce that we have just finished adding 1,131 new Palm Stones to the site covering 79 different mineral varieties.
I started this project on May 1, and handed 5,500 photographs over to Kathi at the beginning of August. She has since been mistressing the website to the best of her ability given the terribly debilitating nature of the severe Fibromyalgia from which she suffers. Kudos to her for struggling through the process of this update.
The project is finally finished, and we could not be more excited.
This is going to be one long post, so I will try to break things up into groups for easier digestion.
I have one favor to ask before we get started.
If you notice anything on the website that does not seem to be correct (e.g, missing photo, wrong photo, missing or wrong text, incorrect link, or anything else), please send me an email to let me know of your discovery. There are now so many thousands of pictures on the site, and so many links, it is almost impossible to avoid a few errors no matter how hard we try. Thank you.
Here we go!
New and Exciting Finds… These are stones that we have never had before and that we are absolutely thrilled to now have in the store.
Simply the nicest soap-shaped Charoite Palm Stones that we have ever seen. They have incredible chatoyance, color, and pattern.
We have included videos of the stones as there really is no other way to fully communicate the beauty of these specimens.
These were becoming so popular in our direct sales that we had to hold many back in order to be able to offer them to our online clients.
 From India, and among the most sparkling stones that we have ever had the pleasure to offer, when I first saw these I thought that this material just had to be man-made… not true. I saw a huge piece of the rough material.
These Fuchsite pieces are just loaded with green Mica that shines like crazy!
Fuchsite is, by nature, a very soft mineral, and these stones have been stabilized like many other soft minerals in the marketplace… Turquoise possibly being the most well-known for this type of treatment.
We have very little room left in our personal display case, but we had to find a place for one of these stones.
Again, we have included videos of each stone so that you can see them at their very best.
These slices of Sugilite as it normally forms in Manganese are just incredible.
We have never seen these before and bought all that the dealer had. The stones have a mirror polish and many show layers of other minerals as well… in particular, Hematite, Richterite (blue), and Bustimite (red).
In our direct selling, clients’ jaws have dropped when seeing these Sugilite wonders, and I would consider one of them to be a must for any lover of this pricey and highly-prized mineral. I don’t know if we will ever have the privilege of acquiring these again.
We had never found any Sugilite Palm Stones until this year in Tucson, and we were really glad to come home with these smaller yet awesome pieces.
We have had tumbled Amber for several years, but never pieces large enough to be called Palm Stones until now.
These irregularly shaped pieces have fantastic color and clarity. I love to hold them in front of a light source and look at the stunning yellow to amber glow that comes through the pieces.
This past winter in Tucson was the first time that we had ever found Ruby in Zoisite Palm Stones. These soft rectangles are just gorgeous with the dark green Zoisite and inclusions of real Ruby.
One thing to note is that, because Ruby is much harder than Zoisite, as is often the case with this mineral variety the Zoisite portions of the stones have a deeper polish than the Ruby portions. If the Ruby was polished hard enough to bring out a bright shine, portions of the Zoisite would likely be ground into oblivion.
Of special interest is that, just as with any stone containing true Ruby, the Ruby portions of these stones glow a brilliant red under long-wave ultraviolet light, and we have included UV photos with the listings of the individual pieces.
One season, several years ago, many of the dealers from Madagascar were offering opaque Green Opal stones. These stones are gorgeous and we have several listed on the website.
Recently we found one dealer who had a quite gemmy variety of this Green Opal material. I photographed our pickings outside holding them up near the sun (yes, my arms are 93 million miles long) so that you can better see the beautiful translucent nature of these wonderful examples of true Green Opal from the third largest island in the world.
We were really excited when we found our favorite Madagascar dealer offering these amazing stones.
Some sellers may be offering this material as Rubellite in Quartz, Rubellite, however, means different things to different peiople, often referring to a very special subset of Red Tourmaline, so we will not be using the term with these stones.
Either way, these represent a great new form of Tourmaline for us and our clients, and we are very happy to be able to add them to our family of Palm Stones
We just got these at the Denver show this September, and if I had ever seen this material before I didn’t know it.
These incredible stones are a variation of Obsidian that is similar to Rainbow Obsidian, but very different.
Velvet Obsidian (also called Seafoam and Peacock Obsidian) shows gorgeous color under bright light, but the color is somewhat mottled such that one can actually see into the glass, and when the stone is moved under the light one gets the sense of movement in the stone as the light plays into and off of these lighter and darker areas of color.
Another difference is that many of the stones exhibit color even when not under the bright light, although nothing like when they are.
For best viewing I recommend either a Halogen light or, even better and cheaper, a simple 100 watt equivalent daylight spectrum curly fluorescent bulb… we use these for showing both Kathi’s jewelry and the rocks in our “warehouse”, and they do a great job.
NOTE: Any white spots that you see in the photos are bubbles in the Obsidian. The stones are perfectly smooth with perfect reflection. One cannot feel the white spots.
We had never seen anything like these before Tucson this year.
Fluorite stones are hard to buy if one cares about quality, because the material is often chipped or cracked. We got these from a dealer who takes care to present “at risk” stones in a nicely protected manner, and these hand-picked beauties are very clean and really pretty.
I photographed them in front of a daylight spectrum bulb to show the color and translucence, but even so they are prettier in person than in the pictures.
When I took my selection of these beauties to the dealer table for purchase (we have bought from this dealer for almost a decade), the manager of the operation told me that he thought that I was going to buy them given our appreciation of the unusual
Dendrites are one of my favorite stone characteristics. These inclusions resemble tree- or fern-like structures, and are almost always comprised of Manganese.
We have only a small number of these very translucent Opal stones from the western side of South America, and have listed the entire inventory.
More New Stones For Us
We have sold Botswana Agate for years, but this is the first time that we have had these wonderful smaller slices of Botswana nodules.
These are fully polished, including the edges, and some of our local clients have used them for making jewelry.
This higher form of Garnet is very popular for faceted jewelry, and while these stones are not jewelry grade, they have wonderful translucence and color.
We have had the tumbled version of these Garnets for a couple of years, and now have found some slightly larger ones that we are listing as Palm Stones
This pink, white, gray, and purple/red Jasper has been a favorite of Kathi’s for years.
The stones that we have listed are very flat and would make for great wire-wrapping.
From Mexico, this volcanic glass has a beautiful golden shimmer when moved in certain angles in the light.
These smaller soft rectangles of high quality Aquamarine are just gorgeous. The stones are very translucent and would make great pendants for those who do wire-wrapping.
We have two very different forms of this fabulous variation of Obsidian from Jalisco Mexico.
First is a large selection of big soap-shaped stones. I hand-picked each one of these and they are just awesome. Of course they have a polish like glass… because they are glass.
Second is a smaller selection of tumble-polished flat stones. Amazingly, some of these show alternating thin bands of clear material such that looking through the stones is like looking through window blinds. We had never before seen this characteristic in Mahogany Obsidian.
This beautiful Jasper comes from near the Idaho-Oregon border.
It is basically petrified mud, but is known for portraying amazing landscape scenes resembling desert terrain with or without blue sky. There are often tree-like patterns, mountains, and even sun- or moonrise patterns.
This pink and yellow Jasper from Mexico is drop-dead gorgeous, and very hard to find. I think that any of the pieces that we have listed would be a great gift for anyone who is into wire-wrapping.
This mineral which is full of Mica has tremendous sparkle and lots of bang for the buck.
We have only a few of these stones and they are awesome.
These are a combination of red to yellow to orange Jasper, with areas of very reflective Hematite. The stones are even nicer in person than in the photos.
These large soap-shaped stones in some ways resemble Poppy or Brecciated Jasper, but they have their differences… in particular, the specimens that have silver colored inclusions.
Also, the ones that have the most “stuff” going on in them are just fascinating and beautiful
We have had small tumbled Tanzanite for a couple of years, and have now added some larger pieces in the Palm Stone category.
The stones are gemmy and some have rainbow sparkles.
This gorgeous variety of Pectolite from the Dominican Republic is named after the daughter (Larisa) of stone’s discoverer, and the Spanish word (mar) for sea.
Fake Larimar is now appearing on the market, but we guarantee that these stones are the real deal.
This Jasper from Mexico is named after the beautiful blankets/shawls from south of the border which usually contain very vivid colors and beautiful patterns.
We have a few pieces listed that would make great pendants.
Stones Worthy of Special Note… Although these varieties are not new to us, the new additions are very different in form or nature from what we have been able to offer in the past.
We have added a ton of new Palms, including some incredible large soap-shaped ones. Be sure to check out the sun pictures of these new beauties.
High quality BTE Palm Stones are getting harder and harder to find.
Our new ones are on the smaller side but have really great chatoyance.
We have added some Laguna Agate pieces that were obviously cut from the same stone and are absolutely gorgeous and unusual.
For the first time ever we found true soap-shaped Malachite Palms Stones this year in Tucson. These are really really nice pieces.
Not seen by us in years, these smaller soft rectangles are great examples of this particularly unusual mineral variety.
The wholesale price of high quality Rhodochrosite has gone through the roof in recent years so we have been somewhat limited in what we could acquire.
We have added 6 very gemmy specimens with great color.
We have a hard time finding nice Palm Stones in this variety, but this year in Tucson we were lucky to find some really nice large soap-shaped ones.
There are 10 of them listed and the only reason that we were able to get these was because we sneaked into the dealer’s tent before it was officially open and put them away for safe-keeping
Many new ones are up now, and several of them have lots of Pyrite inclusions.
This is one of our favorite stones, and we stumbled upon some gorgeous large soap-shaped specimens in Tucson. There are a dozen of these big ones in the store.
We don’t often see any Blue Quartz stones but, as with some of the varieties noted above, we acquired some really nice large soap-shaped Palms in Tucson. There are 14 of them listed on the site.
We have added more beautiful large soap-shaped stones, and a new form for us…Â very pretty smaller soft rectangles.
These are the last of a few hundred incredible stones that we purchased about 8 years ago. If we had only known at the time that we would not see them again we would have taken every bag that the dealer had.
The Rest… These are all of the other new additions that are basically adding to existing stock or restocking stones that have been showing as “out of stock” for some period of time. I may, with some, add a short comment.
In alphabetical order we have…
Botswana Agate, Crazy Lace Agate, Turritella Agate, Amazonite (great shimmer), Amethyst, Chevron Amethyst, Apatite Flat Stones, Aquamarine
Bowenite, Bloodstone, Green Calcite, Orange Calcite, Chiastolite, Chrysoprase, Dumortierite, Fuchsite, Garnet, Hematite, Iolite
Kabamba Jasper, Landscape Jasper, Picture Jasper, Red Stripe Jasper, Tiger Jasper, Jet, Nuummite, Black Obsidian, Rainbow Obsidian
Prehnite, Prehnite with Epidote, Clear Quartz (2 with amazing rainbow sparkles), Rose Quartz, Smoky Quartz, Tourmalinated Quartz
Rhodonite, Sapphire, Selenite, Seraphinite, Tiger Eye, Petrified Wood (Some gorgeous Arizona pieces)
That does it for the largest single addition to the website in our history.
Kathi and I are well aware that many other categories in the store need restocking, and we will get to them just as quickly as we can. In the meantime, we have most everything in stock that is showing not so on the site. Please just ask if there is anything that you would like me to photograph for you.
Thanks for visiting this blog, and we hope that you enjoy looking at many of the new stones.
As always, if you have any questions or there is any way in which we can be of assistance, please do not hesitate to email or call. Without all of you, there is no way that we could have the privilege of doing what we do.