We have just added 700 new Tumbled Stone items to the store! The new selections cover 65 varieties of minerals, including 19 varieties of Tumbled that we are able to offer for the very first time.
Adding Tumbled Stones to the website is, by far, the most difficult and time-consuming task we have in terms of stocking the store.
I started this project on May 1 of this year, and finally handed off over 3,000 photos to Kathi on October 1.
My part of the job entails:
Pulling what I consider to be harmonious sets of stones,
Numbering and listing on paper all of the sets for Kathi’s future use,
Measuring and weighing the stones in each set,
Pricing the selections,
Photographing each set of stones, and
Cropping all of the photos (this is mind-numbing work).
This is the single largest addition of Tumbled Stones that we have ever undertaken, and the process was overwhelming for me to be sure.
Kathi then takes all of the information and photos that I provide to her and methodically, over months in this case due to her being able to do only a little work on a day here and a day there because of her medical situation, adds the information and pictures to the website.
The various programs that she uses for making the website as amazing as it is turned those 3,000 pictures into 7,000 pictures in total… thumbnail photos, gallery photos, and lightbox photos (the big ones) for all of the 700 sets.
We firmly believe that the result of these efforts offers our clients an opportunity for perusing and selecting stones that is unmatched anywhere on The Internet (Where else could one find 32 sets of Tumbled Emerald Stones from which to choose?).
Without further ado and starting with the first time ever varieties, we have:
One of the most beautiful minerals from Russia, this likely will be the last as well at the first time that we have these amazing stones. The Seraphinite mine is apparently either dead or close to dead, which explains the scarcity of this material on the market.
Named after the highest order of angels (The Seraphim), to many the white chatoyant material in Seraphinite reminds them of the lacy look of angels’ wings.
We recommend that these stones be very near the top of your shopping list.
Also from Russia, we were amazed to find these beauties. We have seen these for sale only this one time, and we bought all that the dealer had available.
The blue color in these stones from The Congo is just incredible.
Speaking of blue, the color in these unusual stones is really stunning.
Staying with the blue theme, the combination of dark blue and light blue glass in these highly polished natural stones from Jalisco, Mexico makes for quite a show.
There are lots and lots of varieties of Obsidian, and Spider is one of those with which many people are not familiar. These are worth a serious look.
This unusual variety of Kunzite is opaque, with a beautiful Lavender color and really nice shimmer.
From Austria, this natural combination of Dolomite and Magnesite shows a beautiful color contrast of black/gray and white. The white Magnesite kernels in the mineral are thought by some to resemble pine nuts, thus leading to the stone’s name.
The stones are very clean with a nice polish, and these would make a nice gift for any rock enthusiast.
This Indonesian mineral has to be one of the most unusually colored materials out there. The combination of bright orange with black, green, gray, or even sometimes white, results in a stone which is hard to ignore. As production from the mine has progressed in recent years, different patterns and color combinations are beginning to appear on the market.
We do not have much of this very hard to find mineral from The Congo. The tumbled stones are somewhat rougher in texture than we would normally look for, but having seen these available only one time from one dealer, we are grateful to have what we have. On the other side of the scale, the coloring in these stones is really gorgeous.
Another one of our hard to find mineral varieties, these mostly clear crystal-like pieces are named after Danbury Connecticut, where the stone was first discovered.
We had never seen tumbled Petalite prior to finding these stones in Tucson. The mineral is known for its pink color and occasional shimmer.
As the name implies, these relatively flat pieces of Turquoise have an undulating surface. They have very nice color, and clients here at the shop have been purchasing them for wrapping.
Another hard to find one, these Nigerian stones have beautiful shades of green and glow like crazy under long-wave UV light.
These Carnelian stones have what look like little white eyes in/on them. Inexpensive and fun, these guys are just too cool for school (Millennials please ignore).
We used to sell these stones for years on ebay, and they were very popular.
Very pretty green with dark Epidote inclusions, we are now offering them for the first time on the website. These specimens are very attractive and unusually clean for this mineral variety.
Although we have had Mixed Fluorite stones on the site for years, we have not had ones like these.
These pieces are primarily yellow with a variety of other gorgeous colors mixed in. If for no other reason, visit the link just so you can see the beautiful pictures… I love photographing these beauties.
Although not unusual, we have never before had solid Yellow Fluorite in the store. Now we do.
Staying with the yellow theme, we have added 16 sets of wonderful translucent Yellow Opal stones. These are beautiful, unusual, and well worth a good look for any Opal fan.
Completing our yellow parade are really unusual Yellow Sapphire stones from Sri Lanka. These are very difficult to find, and would make a nice pairing with our Blue Sapphires from India.
Now on to restocks or additions to existing listings:
Sixteen beautiful new specimens.
Getting harder and harder to obtain, we have listed 16 new listings of this wonderful mineral from Peru.
I could kick myself for not buying more of this material when it was available several years ago. The 16 new listings of these Baltic Amber stones have come close to emptying our inventory.
Always a favorite, these 16 new listings will hopefully last a little while on the site.
These incredible stones have to be one of our biggest sleepers.
Locked away in German for 20 years, this material made its way to our favorite South African dealer, and then to us. The quality of the Amethyst is extremely high, and the form of the stones, with the clear tooth point, is just amazing.
If you have never looked at these rare beauties, please do. The bang for the buck with these specimens is as good as it gets.
We have a very hard time getting high quality Chevron Amethyst Tumbled. We found 4 very nice sets and they are now up on the website.
We were out of stock in the store, but now have 32 new listings of these amazing stones.
These combos of Hematite and colorful Jasper have good bang for the buck.
If you like shimmer, Hypersthene should be on your list.
We have added 8 more sets of our very popular Siberian Jade.
It is getting increasingly difficult to get very high quality small Labradorite stones. We have added 9 new sets, and hopefully Elka will have more for us in Tucson.
Is there anyone who doesn’t like Malachite? We are back to having a full page of listings.
Boy this stuff is hard to get! These smaller stones, which are a combination of Amethyst and Citrine, are really special.
We added two more sets of our beautiful and unusual hand polished flat stones.
A stranger to many rock lovers, this Bronze colored mineral has yellow/gold colored shimmer or sparkle.
We have added the last of our large Chrysocolla tumbled, and have not seen any in Tucson for several years. I plan to search high and low for more this winter.
Several new sets, including a handful of more natural specimens.
These are among our very most popular offerings. This AA grade material will be among the first to go of all of the new additions.
Nice new darker colored stones.
Very hard to get in good quality, even with the new additions we have very few of these listings.
Exact same comments as with the Blue variety.
We have not been able to obtain any old-stock material for two years now, and the small amount that we have left will probably be it.
This is Dodo Bird stuff, and if you don’t spring for it soon, chances are you will not ever have the opportunity. Almost everything being offered online as Ocean Jasper is, well, basically garbage, and lots of it is not even Ocean Jasper at all.
We have a few new listings to round out the page.
There is now fake Larimar on the market, so be careful!
We have lots of nice sets to choose among, and these are all the real deal from the Dominican Republic.
We have added 9 awesome selections of very high quality mixed color Tourmaline stones.
These smaller stones have outstanding color.
Hand-picked one by one in the blazing sun in Tucson, we just love being able to bring stones of this nature to our clients. There are now 14 new selections on the site.
Preseli Bluestone (Stonehenge Stone)
From the hills in Wales, this is the exact same material from which Stonehenge was built. We have added 25 more listings of this historic stone.
We added the last of our inventory. Whereas Pyrite is a very ubiquitous material, it is very hard to find in tumbled form.
Six new sets of this high-demand mineral are up on the site. Getting lots more very high quality Pietersite will be at the top of my shopping list in Tucson… I will just have to find the gentleman who owns the one and only mine.
This is a hard stone to find, and we have added the best of our remaining inventory.
We have added more sets of the AA grade smaller stones, and also sets of larger stones of a somewhat lesser grade.
Several new selections of these gorgeous AAA stones.
These AA grade gemmy cousins of the green beauties came to us from Australia.
It just gets increasingly difficult to get high quality specimens of this incredible mineral from Argentina. Our favorite Rhodo dealer passed away recently, and our thoughts and prayers are with Odi and his family.
We are running low on this unusual variant of Rhodochrosite that we have seen for sale only one time.
We have been told that this material is very close to being mined out. The two sets of tumbled that we have added is the last of our inventory of Tumbled. If you are a Ruby fan, I highly recommend taking a look at these wonderful stones while there still are any to be had.
Over the years we have purchased our tumbled RF from only one dealer, Dr. Arvind Bhale. We were told recently that he experienced very serious medical complications resulting from a fall. He was not at the shows in Tucson and Denver, and we sure hope that we have the pleasure of visiting with him again.
He has always had the highest quality Ruby in Fuchsite, and we fortunately still have a decent supply in inventory. We added 13 new sets to the store.
This mineral and the above are often confused by both sellers and buyers. RZ is more valuable and harder to find in really high quality.
We had only one new set of stones to add this time, and I will definitely be looking for more of this material in Tucson.
We have added 16 sets of a combination of AA and AAA grade stones. This material has become almost prohibitively expensive… up to $500 per pound wholesale.
There are 16 new sets of this very popular mineral now in the store.
The store has been completely restocked with these extremely high quality small Sunstones… a real must see in person.
I think that more clients here at the shop ask for Schorl than for any other stone, and now the website is fully restocked.
We have added 14 new selections of these unusual stones from a Copper mine in New Mexico.
There are 5 listings of nicely polished larger Lepidolite stones.
For some reason, we have never had Tumbled Moonstones on the site before. We now have 10 sets of nice multi-colored stones.
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That’s it! We hope that you enjoy looking at all of the beautiful new stones. As always, if you have any questions or comments, just holler.