Here are some photos from a mineral shop for this #marketfriday
Last weekend we took a trip to Galena and got rained out from our nature hikes. So we ended up poking around the shops in the small historic town. This town is like a sister city to Bisbee Arizona that I visited a month or so ago.
One of the shops was full of minerals. Here's a big chunk of fool's gold.
Quite a few fossils were for sale there as well. These are horseshoe crabs or trilobites.
This is another fossil of a nautilus shell. It actually had interesting iridescent highlights.
Here are some Cephalopod fossils. These are sort of like a hybrid of squid and snails that used to be all over the place in the oceans zillions of years ago. Now their shells are encased in stone forever.
This was a large pink crystal rock of some sort. I can't remember the name of this mineral but it might have been artificially colored as most of the pink quartz I've seen wasn't nearly this bold in color.
There was also quite a bit of jewelry for sale. These earrings seem to be made out of the pink crystal above.
Here is some interesting aura quartz on various pendants. These are just basic quartz crystals that are bonded artificially with metal like gold, platinum or cobalt. It ends up creating really interesting iridescent colors.
This is labradorite and it is naturally iridescent. It is fairly inexpensive and polishes really well. I've seen it used on all sorts of jewelry but I tend to like it in its polished rock form better.
This is large piece of quartz crystal, the most common diamond around.
These are some raw and sculpted pieces of fluorite. There are quite a few varieties of color in fluorite.
This is lapis, a nice bold and blue color. This has been used in jewelry in some of the oldest civilizations because of its bold blue color.
Here is some zebra jasper. Supposedly it has some metaphysical properties to make you more motivated. I just like how colorful and swirly it looks when it is polished.
Here is some ocean jasper from Madagascar with quite a variety of different colors.
We ended up buying a fossil and a couple other minerals while it down poured outside. After talking with the shop owner it turns out all this stuff was brought to Galena from Arizona where we had just been last month lol.
That's all for now, thanks for looking :-)
Haha "this stuff was brought to Galena from Arizona" I guess for those midWestern snowbirds that can't make it all the way south. Very fun #marketfriday. I like the nautilus shell especially.
The shop owner said she had hundreds of pounds worth of minerals from the Tucson gem and mineral show. Galena is almost the Bisbee of Illinois with less hot dryness and less hippies.
I love crystal and fossil shops! So many shinies. Lapis and turquoise are some of my favorites. Did you find any galena in Galena? If you didn't know, galena is a metallic silver-blue mineral that lead (and small quantities of silver) are extracted from. I would have both some quartz points. I'm short on those.
I didn't even know there was such a thing as a galena mineral. I know that town was started as a mining town so its probably a lead type of mineral right? I wanted to hike around the mines of spain in dubuque but it was too rainy.
You are correct!
Exploring old mines is great. I once went to the Valenciana mines (named after the Spanish city) in Guanajuato, Mexico. Lots of crystal shops in the vicinity too!
One day I want to see those giant crystals in Naica, those things are huge.
Wow amazing market! Quite informative. Love the photography too ❤️
lapis look so gorgeous 🙂
Yeah one day I have to add some to my collection. There's just too many nice minerals out there.
Please drop your link on the #MarketFriday post here.
Thank you!
Thanks I forgot about that :-)
I love going into rocks shops and antique shops.
Ah yeah the antique shops will be next #marketfriday's post, quite a few around there too.
wowwww! Are these jaspers are the local antic of that area?
Most of these minerals were brought there from Arizona, but there is a quartz mineral named after the town called Galena which is a mixture of lead and quartz. Most of the mines around there were for lead.
Do you have the picture of that?
Also did you cover the neighborhood in photos? Like the old settings of houses and surroundings you mentioned about?
This is what galena looks like https://geology.com/minerals/galena.shtml apparently the mineral can be used in radios. I mostly just took photos of the downtown area. Next time I go back there I'll try and get more photos of the old fashioned mansions.
It indeed looks like that! Like any time if you reckon a carriage going down the street, you won't be surprised. 😆
yes yes! Lots of picture. And do mention me please in case I miss the post.😇
Funny you mention the horse carriages, they do have them there but I didn't see any while I was in the downtown area, probably because of the rain. They also have trolley tours because it is really hilly there. But they were shut down that day because of the bad weather.
Damnn! so classic! very much suitable for perhaps sweet summer vacation! I wish I could visit one day (it's a very distant dream, almost impossible)!
Looking forward to your next visit.