Collecting Rocks, Gems and Minerals: Identification, Values and Lapidary Uses

Got this for my husband, big rock hound. He really enjoyed reading and adding this to his library. Has great information and easy to read.

My son collects rocks and meteors and so this book was very informative as a reference guide for him. It has a lot of color photos and information about many of the rocks in his collection as well as some he hopes to add in the future. He thoroughly enjoyed the book.

Very nice close up pictures. This is a perfect gift for an adult or older child who is interested in minerals. Good information on several minerals. Easy to use. Nice resource. Cover is not completely hardback quality but is sturdy. Binding is very tight. Nice colorful illustrations and easy text to read. Great addition to a collector and home library.

A great book for your coffee table or nearby your rock collection! Filled with excellent photographs, the author does a great job of covering the basics of mineral and gem collecting. The book does not go into the nitty gritty details of identifying minerals, cutting or shaping gemstones, etc., etc., but rather gives you just enough information to get started. It is written from the author's extensive personal experience and covers most of the topics. I keep my book out and displayed near my rock collection because it is enjoyable to pick up and thumb through from time to time. Even non-collectors enjoy looking at this book!

This book is geared toward collectors. I have other books that are geared towards geologists-bunson burner and HCL required! But this book is great because it focuses on hobby collecting. It shares trade names, costs (a little older, but it gives you a sense of relative pricing which is so helpful!!), lapidary uses, among other things. There are tons of pictures of polished minerals/rocks which are helpful as well as notes about treatments that are sometimes done to minerals to enhance color-so useful for the novice collector. I find myself going back to reread portions of the book as I expand my collection. I highly recommend this!!

Informative for the mature, seasoned rock hound as well as the curious youngster developing an interest. Great photos with fine detail to easily identify the rock in your hand.

As an amateur crystal and gem hunter I found this book to be very informative and well worth the money. Nothing is worse than being new to rock hounding and throwing away good specimens because they look bad and keeping poor specimens because they look good. 'Collecting Rocks, Gems and Minerals: Identification, Values and Lapidary Uses' does a great job of showing you what the rough and finished versions look like with a great index that provides information on how to identify what your digging up and the value it should generally fetch. Out of 5 books I bought to start out, this is my favorite.

This is a very informative book. If you like to rock hunt I would definitely recommend giving this a read.

Good

Está muy bonito el libro, bien ilustrado!

Present for brother in law starting out. He loves it

To a beginner rockhound, 'collecting rocks, gems and minerals' is worth it for the pictures alone. The descriptions include commercial uses and lapidary uses for the stones, areas they're commonly found, and values. There are sections on locating and collecting, uses and care of rocks, and buying and selling. It would make a decent field guide but a lot of pictures are of finished stones(that as a beginner would be hard to imagine in the field). Inspiring photos, and lots of info for all types of rock hobbyists. Five star book for sure. Unfortuneately amazon's bubble mailer failed miserably. I was going to drop it to 4 stars because of it, but the book deserves 5.

Have been a hobbyist since childhood, on and off. Recently renewed my interest in lapidary. This is the clearest and most succinct, useful book on the subject.