Valuation of my amethyst

Hello,

I am trying to sell a box full of amethyst that I found in the woods when I was a kid. I've been googling for awhile trying to put a value on it and am having a read hard time coming up with a way to guess or a place to go locally to find out.

I am hoping some of the knowledgeable people on this board can give me some educated opinions. I have attached the only pic I have access to right now (at work), but I could take some more closeup photos when I get home, if that would help. I put the best pieces around the top of the box.

I'm just looking for a ballpark idea ($5? $50? $500?) so I have some idea what to ask for it - I don't need to get full, exact value for it.

Thanks in advance for any advice you can give!

I should add: I know absolutely nothing about stones and minerals - total noob!

attaching photo (or at least trying...)

I will not be able to comment on the value, but I would suggest getting a larger, more detailed photo. Or maybe good shots of a few representative pieces.


Cheers,

Kyle

What Kyle says is exactly what you need to do. That photo you posted gives almost no information; from that photo alone, the pieces look like mostly massive Amethyst with no crystals. Those probably won't be worth much of anything. There are hundreds of thousands of pounds of that stuff sitting around idle out there; little demand and huge supply = not worth much. If you could find a buyer it might be worth something; but finding someone who wants to buy that will be very very hard. (Sorry this probably isn't what you want to hear! And it's not necessarily true, but, this is my expectation.)

Now, if there are some pieces in there that have large, well-colored, sharp crystals, those might be worth something. Spend some time on mindat looking through pictures: search for Amethyst, and check out the first and second pages of images. Those are the kinds of pieces that are worth something; huge crystals, really dark purple, etc.

Sadly, Quartz is for all intense and purposes the most common crystal out there. And Amethyst is probably the most common variety, other than colorless Quartz (rock crystal.) Collectors tend to want unusual or exceptional pieces of Amethyst. From that picture it looks like you don't really have any with crystals, and probably not any with large sharp deeply-colored crystals. So, more than likely, no one will want to buy your stuff, and if they did they wouldn't be willing to spend much on it.

Now that's not to say that your material isn't cool or valuable. Some of my favorite pieces are the ones I found myself. There's probably some cool stuff you can do with them if your artsy, or maybe a pretty rock garden, or something like that. I'll tell you my story: I bought a big box of Amethyst specimens one time, thinking they would be great to resell and that people would go crazy. They were from Brazil I think, or somewhere where they formed good crystals with decent color. Nothing even close to as good as the ones on the first couple pages of images here, but still I thought they were really pretty. So when I tried to go out and sell them, absolutely no interest. Because if anyone was really interested in Amethyst, there is tons and tons and tons of it out there, and there's always a place to find bigger and better Amethyst for cheaper.

So I took all the prettiest pieces and gave them away to my friends; the rest I still have in a box somewhere, probably until I can find more people to give them away to. Definitely the best thing I could have done with mine. So if you have any great specimens in there, take a picture for us and maybe they'll be worth something. Otherwise, find something else to do with them that will make you and others way happier than a few bucks would!

Ben Kirchner

Also where the specimens were found will have some effect on the value.

I am afraid that Ben is right. I do have some amethyst bui much larger. In England many Cornish roads are made using amethyst yet it is rarer than you might think. Ndugu, you say you know nothing about minerals. I am assuming you are in Africa. THERE ARE MANY INTERESTING SITES. yOU NEED TO READ
UP ON THEM OR FIND A LOCAL GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. All the people on mindat have found the subject interesting and spend much of their lives collecting all over the world. It could be for you. I got my son interested and he is now a geological doctor and a senior university lecturer, so there is even a living if you wish to try.

Malcolm Chapman
England

Wow, great, great info! To address some of the questions:

I am located in Minneapolis, MN, USA. I can see how the Ndugu screen name would be confusing. I simply took that from the movie About Schmidt (Ndugu is the African boy that Jack Nicholson corresponds with by letter) - I just like it and sometimes use it as an online screen name

All of these were found scattered in the woods in a suburb of St. Paul, MN back in the early 80s.

I am not looking to find any other uses for these - just to move them out of the basement and get a few bucks for them if they're worth a few bucks. I'm doing the old "if you haven't used it in 3 years, it's gone" method of cleaning. These have been sitting in a box unused for at least 20 years now, so time to move them out to someone who will appreciate them

I sort of suspected they were largely worthless, so don't feel back telling me that I put them on Craigslist as a Best Offer a few weeks ago. I got a lot of $5 and $10 offers for awhile. Then someone came in and bid $20, when I told them $10 was the high bid. Then they said they were going out of town and would give me $40 if I held them until they returned. Running up the price when unneeded made me start thinking they might be worth more than I was giving them credit for, hence this thread.

OK, I am attaching closeups of the best pieces. If I understand what crystal vs. "mostly massive Amethyst with no crystals" means, I think Specimen A would be the only ones with crystals (though I may be misunderstanding that - I did spend some time search the site and looking at photos). That's why I took 3 different views of it (each side and the top - it's a thin piece). Specimen G is probably a better indication of most of the box: filled with large rocks that have some amethyst parts to them, but it's a minority of the rock.

Loving the useful info and hoping these photos will enable some more precise opinions!

More photos attached.

More photos...

Last pic - better picture of the entire box.

Amethyst from Minnesota sounds quite unique to me. Is there a deposit that you extracted these from? Maybe you could pin down the locality and post some photos to Mindat.

Steve

Steve, I don't think they were native to the location where I found them. This was in a residential area. I found them on a wooded lot next to a convenience store. The lot was surrounded by lots with houses. The rocks were just laying scattered on the ground in the woods, almost as if they had been dumped there (i.e. I didn't dig them up).

There's now a house sitting on the location.

Hmm maybe it's just me or maybe a temp. Mindat thing but it seems that those pictures have errors and can't be displayed. I'm guessing it's just a temporary thing with the site. Anyone else having these problems elsewhere?

Well if you really want to sell them it sounds like what you were doing is the best way. I could be totally wrong and they could be worth something to someone. If I were you I certainly wouldn't give up on selling them just because I said so. Well hmm. It's hard to say without pics! Hopefully they'll work at some point and maybe that will give a better idea as to their worth. Either way, good luck! Hopefully it'll work out for you!

Ben Kirchner

without an actual locality and considering that the color is not great, and that being stored in a heap in a box probably has
damaged them. you might be best taking them to the owner of a metaphysical shop (yeah I cringe too)and asking for fifty bucks. For a more satisfying result though, you may be best to give them to neighborhood kids on Halloween might again generate an interest in some of them to pursue mineralogy as a hobby or career.

Ndugu,

Now I can see the pics. They're pretty but probably the most you could get for any single piece would be $5, if you got lucky with a buyer. And in bulk, the price would have to go down significantly. I like Donald's idea a lot - take it to a healy-feely shop, or do what you were doing, put it on Craigslist and next time take the $40!

By far though the best suggestion is giving them out on Halloween! Kids would absolutely love those things and not care a damn if they were worth $1 or $5. Well, some kids anyway. But yeah, whatever you do, good luck! It's not completely worthless so keep trying, and $40 or $50 doesn't seem unreasonable, assuming there are at least 20-30 such specimens in there.

Or, put it on Craigslist and give it a good healy-feely name, ask $500 and you might get lucky. It's been known to happen like that! Marketing may be your best trick. Good luck.

Ben Kirchner

It looks like some quartZ left over from a trip to the Thunder Bay, Canada amethyst mines. Maybe a pet store would be interested in them as aquarium rock? I like the idea of Donald Vaughn and give them to some kids!

JT



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/22/2009 12:45AM by John Truax.

Ndugu,
Bottom line the amethyst you have is mostly rubbish. Probably Brazilian rubbish. Take the $40 and run.

Rock Currier
Crystals not pistols.

I agree with Rock. Take the 40 dollars (even if it's Canadian) and call yourself lucky.

Isn't that what Charlie Brown got at Halloween while trick or treating...." I got a rock......"?