PebbleSky’s rock collecting - 11/21 international package

[pebblesky]

Got a box of rocks shipped from the other side of the Pacific a month ago.



Some famous "sugar heart" Gobi agate. They are crazily expensive these days so I only got the smaller ones. Can actually see the sugar heart when wet. When they are dry they look cute in another way. I am wondering if I should just polish them so they keep their surface features while showing more of the colors inside. One tiny piece even has running sand in it. Better keep it as is.







Also got a lot of soft carving stones. So called Agalmatolite from China. Just realized these kind of stones probably require applying mineral oils to look polished.

[pebblesky]

I got this mineral sample box for my son:



The minerals look fine but the English names are way off. The Unakite in the 4th row was labeled "flower fort" and the rutilated quartz in the 3rd row was called "Blonde crystal". The snowflake obsidian was called "snow pine" . I will need to fix the labels.

Some closeups:

[electrocutus]

Nov 22, 2022 12:27:24 GMT -5 pebblesky said:

I got this mineral sample box for my son:



The minerals look fine but the English names are way off. The Unakite in the 4th row was labeled "flower fort" and the rutilated quartz in the 3rd row was called "Blonde crystal". The snowflake obsidian was called "snow pine" . I will need to fix the labels.

Some closeups:

That is a cool box. Where did you get it from?

[pebblesky]

Nov 22, 2022 13:05:30 GMT -5 electrocutus said:

Nov 22, 2022 12:27:24 GMT -5 pebblesky said:

I got this mineral sample box for my son:



The minerals look fine but the English names are way off. The Unakite in the 4th row was labeled "flower fort" and the rutilated quartz in the 3rd row was called "Blonde crystal". The snowflake obsidian was called "snow pine" . I will need to fix the labels.

Some closeups:

That is a cool box. Where did you get it from?

I believe I got this box on Chinese taobao.com online shopping website. You can find similar boxes on etsy and amazon, but I thought it would be a nice feature to have Chinese and English names on the box for my son to read... just to realize the English names are so off...

[pebblesky]

Just washed some of the Gobi stones I got in the same international package. Most of them are jaspers with smooth surface and waxy feel. All the photos below are shown dry.



Some are more colorful than the others.


A few of them are chalcedony.


Still not sure how to do with them. Maybe polish those with nice surfaces with small ceramic balls in the vibe, and tumble the less interesting-looking pieces.

Some of them look to interesting to mess with so I will keep them as-is unless I get more of the same kind in the future.





This is "interesting":


This one is purple-grey chalcedony.

[pebblesky]

I went to the Monterey Bay beaches during the Christmas. My family and I got to find more sea lives than the rocks that are worth picking, but here are some of my rockhounds (shown wet):



The beach is full of rocks like these but I don't know how well these will tumble. Are these "confetti rock" conglomerate? The matrix seems to be finer than the matrix of conglomerate though. Some of them feel smoother than the others, and I would hope at least a few of them could polish.

I also hand-picked some slabettes from a local antique shop with the smallest piece less than 1" wide (pictures shown wet):



With backlit on - I always like the moss agates but my tumbled pieces tend to undercut: