Welcome, I'm Steve Rose, a geologist who has been around the mineral specimen business as a collector and dealer since the 1960's. Specimens in my stock include 'Old Timers', more recent finds and some unusual finds from little known localities.

All the mineral specimens on this site are for sale. Some specimens are available in wholesale quantities. See the wholesale page for additional information. We are continuing to add specimens so please check back often.

Included are a selection of fine jewelry-quality crystals. Selected in the 1980's, these crystals were stock for a natural-crystal design and wholesaling business. The suite of gem quartz (Herkimer Diamonds) is particularly fine.

Enjoy the website! You will see an occasional note about a specimen or locality. If you have questions, please contact me.

I was collecting with Mel Dyck and after the drive down from Bloomington, we checked in at the quarry office to secure a waiver (most quarry operations were fairly easy to deal with in those days before the proliferation of liability lawsuits.) We were in luck, as there had been a blast on the previous Friday evening, so there was a lot of fresh rock to examine and we climbed the pile to check out a thin layer of productive but usually inaccessible sandy dolomite at the top of the quarry wall. This strata contained wonderful, gemmy, golden crystals in smaller caviies. The crystals were found in small clusters, singles and small matrix pieces, most under an inch in size.

The other bit of luck was that Bill Groves, the shovel operator, was at work cleaning up the edges of the blast area. Bill was a story in himself. He was a bachelor and lived in a small trailer on the quarry property with a lot of cats. Some he kept in cages, some ran loose, but it was clear that they were a big part of his life and he didn't mind the odor. Cats and Calcites, or as he called it, 'Calcelite'. He collected it regularly and had flats available for sale. The problem was that he had little feel for quality and a ding was just something to be drenched in oil. All of his specimens were soaked in oil.

Harry Sering, a big-time dealer in Indianapolis in those days, carried a lot of Bill's specimens. Over the years, we all tried to educate Bill about quality in calcites.

Bill was always friendly and helpful and it was he that really uncovered this wonderful crystal. I was working about a hundred feet from where Bill was operating his shovel, when he cut the diesel and called to me to watch. He then started up the equipment, picked up a vuggy boulder about 6 feet in diameter and dropped it. Twice. It cracked a bit and he stopped and signaled me over to have a look. There were a number of promising cavities with crystals, but one glance and the crystal stood out. It was actually barely attached to the matrix and I was able to carefully remove it by hand.

I remember Bill climbing down from the cab of the shovel and standing on the track looking rather ruefully at the crystal in my hand. "That's a nice one", he said. It's always been one of my favorites.