About

This web site is designed and managed by John Merritt.

After rock hounding for about six months I decided to start this site to share the many experiences that have happened to me while participating in the hobby. I also thought that this would be a good way to meet others from which I could meet up with and learn from. Another reason was I thought that I could sell some of my creations to help support my hobby.

Over the past few year my design, writing style and topics have changed a bit but for the most part I have been able to stick to my original plan. I have met many people and learned a lot. I did run into one slow down with the selling of lapidary materials. Who knew that it was not legal to collect rocks on public lands to sell online? Actually most people involved in this hobby learn that pretty fast. I had some issues with that and took the steps needed to make sure that what I am selling is legal. All items found for sale on this site have been acquired from dealers, rock shows and other sources. I still collect many things found on public lands however, I don’t sell them.

I am still learning more about the hobby of rock hounding all the time. I will continue to learn more about the hobby whenever I can and will be sharing a lot of it on this site. You can expect stories about my successes and failures. I will also continue to post photos of the many places rock hounding has taken me. As many of you know this hobby takes you to many places off the beaten path that few others will ever see.

The best source for knowledge when it comes to rock hounding and lapidary arts is other rock hounds. This site gives you the ability to post comments in response to almost every article. Please feel free to make comments even if you are in disagreement. I may or may not agree with every comment and that doesn’t matter. If a comment makes my readers, or me, stop and think or encourages them to share information it adds to the quality of this site. I do monitor all posting to the site to make sure everything is family friendly so comments may not appear to other viewers until after I get a chance to approve them. Also, if you want to share or ask questions in private please use the contact page of this site.

Thank you visiting this site. I hope you enjoy it and come back often.