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Agates & Thundereggs Featured in the books and Calendars |
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There is an error in Page 40 of Zenz's Agates II book about myself. I actually never visited any far-away countries to meet other collectors. I meant to say that I have personally met some agate collectors and enjoyed seeing their collections when possible. I should have asked Johann Zenz to send me what he typed to check for any inaccurate. Stupid me. :)
I was born deaf in September 1976 and it was not
an easy life for me mainly due to the difficulty of communications (naturally!).
Difficult communications to tend to result in misunderstanding or giving
unintended offense to others. I have graduated from Gallaudet University
and Michigan State University with geological science degrees. I started
as a general mineral collector when I was 14 and Rock Crystal Quartz mines
in Mount Ida, Arkansas was my first visit to a major collecting site. My
interest in agates and thundereggs began in 2003 when I took on a job at
a Nature Gallery to help with sales of rocks and minerals from Brumms's
warehouse full of rocks including agates. That was my first direct exposure
to the agates but I wasn't quite that interested at first, because I have
no way of cutting and polishing those until I met Paul "GeodeKid" Colburn,
owner of Baker Egg Load Mine. It was his generosity that inspired my interest
in the agates and thundereggs and he have taught me the basics of his time-saving
polishing methods. I owe it all to Paul "GeodeKid" Colburn for supporting
my interest in collecting agates and thundereggs as well as my supportive
father who happen to enjoy meeting other people and help me with the communications.
:) Bit thanks also goes to any people who help with agate collecting
hobby as well as my "rock buddies" like Patrick, Cecil, Joe, and others.
Back to the nature gallery, the owner of the nature
gallery's health have became poor to the point that he no longer can manufacture
artworks for the store and the manager allowed me to take the rocks especially
the agates with me to pay off the wages the owner owed me . That is when
I decided to start a business of selling any agates I cut from the rough
and that's how Dwarves Earth Treasures came into being. I was thinking
of how the dwarves love to mine for rocks and I was playing fantasy games
with my younger brother that included dwarves so that's how the name stuck.
I went with "Earth Treasures" because the agates are not the only rocks
I sell, I also sell a bunch of other minerals and fossils.
I just started collecting agates and the "easy picking"
as well as best popular agate rough are mostly gone, so I decided to let
the luck of digging and cutting the agate rough build up my collection.
Of course, I don't rule out the luck of finding good agate specimens from
old collections as well as trading with any collectors when possible. I
like to search through old rough lots since I sometimes can find good stuff
in them like finding an outstanding Fairburn agate in an "50 cents each"
rock lot. My knowledge of geology also have helped a big deal with locating
and digging for the agates and thundereggs.
I know that I don't have much of top quality agates
for sale especially since I'm the one who is collecting best agates I could
obtain. So I decided to focus more on chartering to general agate collectors,
and try to inspire the people to become interested in agates. After all,
if we can't help people get interested in agates, there would be no future
for the agates.
I tend to prefer to collect pairs because I consider
each pair as a complete specimen that proves the fact that I personally
cut and polished them from the rough. I do take in the halves from an old
collections and any locations that I know I would have no chance of obtaining
any roughs. There are cases when I did curvative polishing to preserve
a pattern on whole agates like Lake Superior agate or any broken agates
with outstanding color/patterns and added them to my collection.
I tend to go after the agates that are either
poorly known or in my opinion seem under appreciated like Baker Eggs, Union
Road and others and I usually don't have much of luck with highly popular
agates like Laguna agates, Dryhead, Fairburns and Lake Superior Agates
mainly because they're too popular, hence too expensive to obtain unless
I get lucky enough to get some from old collections or among rough lots.
Plus that there are people who are able to get to the best materials before
I do and it could just be they have far more money than I do.
That is all and please enjoy the online museum galleries
of what I collected so far. :)