@AmericanGeode Is My New Friend!

Meet American Geode

I noticed a couple of weeks ago some of my tweets on Twitter being favorited by American Geode, so of course I reached out to them! I briefly chatted with Charles and the following article is from him. You should totally enjoy the video, photos and great read on American Geode!

American Geode is a geode, gem, mineral, and fossil excavating team founded by 3 friends who realized what they were digging up was actually more valuable to collectors and interior designers than as paper-weights, door-stops, and book-ends.

Joe and I, my name is Charles, both work for the same financial company. Joe was visiting the NYC headquarters where I have an office, and we had been social with each other, knew who each other was, but not well. Joe walked past my desk, noticed a rough piece of dolomite with a large quartz filled pocket on its side, and asked "where'd you get that?"

I replied, "well going to sound crazy but last weekend I took a train to Connecticut, then had a taxi drop me off on a Sunday at a construction site at the base of the former tungsten mine. I was digging and picking for gems and minerals while the construction site workers had the day off, and then called a cab to take me back to the train station. What did you do?"

Joe replied, "well my girlfriend and I snuck into a train tunnel, we had about 25 minutes between trains, to pick away at a ledge inside for kyanite."  I looked at Joe then and said "man, we need to be friends!"

So that was the start of American Geode.

Now why geodes? Well I have a college buddy who lives down in Southern Indiana, way out in "the stick," and beyond the "boondocks." He was throwing a college reunion, one of those kinds of parties where you stay up all night listening to live band, gathering around campfires, and carrying on till the morning. 

Well that morning I needed to clear my head so I went wandering on his property. I discovered a  dried out creek bed full of stones that I started overturning, and I found underneath the most amazing collection of geodes in the wilderness I had ever seen.

It was a life-time supply of quartz, baryte, chalcedony of all colors, crinoid fossils from the Indiana limestone too. So I started gathering geodes and crinoid fossils, filled up the trunk of the rental car, likely destroyed the shocks on the drive back to New York City, and started selling unusual geodes to collectors and interior design professionals.

Here is an account and video of how we rockhound for geodes in Indiana:

Here is more information about American Geode.

Since then, I return to Southern Indiana twice a year, and Joe and I have expanded our rockhounding to include sites in Connecticut, abandoned mines in Pennsylvania and New York, and a special site outside Fonda, New York for the New York state mineral, the Herkimer Diamond.

Here is a video of what we believe to be one of the finest Herkimer Diamonds uncovered:

We also bring in gems and minerals from other places, but they remain first-hand. For instance, Joe is from Arizona and goes yearly to the shows in Quartzsite. Last year driving back he came upon a truck with a flat tire off the side of the road in the middle of a desert. Joe helped the couple fix their flat, they offered to reimburse him, and Joe declined. 

Then they revealed that they were Apache Indians and had been mining one of the Apache peridot mines. The couple offered Joe a bucket of rough peridot, not knowing he was a rockhound and co-founder of American Geode, and that was reimbursement that Joe did accept. He had it faceted, and it's on display on our site as you can see on the image to the left. You are also able to purchase through Paypal. 

Below  is an account and photos from various rockhound excursions. Click to see details. 

Our gems and minerals are first-hand. We video when and where we dig so you have the provenance, documentation, and background of every gem, mineral, or geode we discover and share. 

We can be found most Saturdays and Sundays in New York City at the Hell's Kitchen Flea Market too.

We thank Dame Johnna and her readers, and urge you all to "Get Out and Rockhound!"

--American Geode

Just a note from me, the Gem Diva, here, about Peridot. Peridot was once a form of currency. So reading that part about how they exchanged Peridot is really cool.  You can get all access to Geodes, Peridot, and more by visiting their website.