Hello, fellow
rockhounds! Below is the schedule for my Spring 2026 rockhunts.
This is a firm schedule for me, given that there are no political or
environmental problems that make it impossible to get out to the
ranches. I will be in Alpine, TX, leading these field trips in March
and April just as I’ve done for almost the last 30 years. If one person
(you) signs up for the trip, it will happen. And there is no
maximum number of people allowed on my trips, so bring your family, friends,
and gem club members with you.
At this point, I
am the only person leading rock hunts in the Big Bend Region, and there are no
ranches available for hunting without a guide.
If you’ve dreamed of rockhunting in the Big Bend and haven’t yet done
it, I would encourage you to come out this spring. You never know what will happen in the
future, and since I don’t own the land where we rockhunt, I can’t guarantee
that we will be able to get on the ranches forever.
To sign up for a hunt, please text or email me your name, the date and location of the hunt, the number of adults and kids under 12 or so that will be hunting, and provide me with a phone number that will work while you’re out in the Big Bend. My cell number is (432) 386-3431, and my email address is agatehunter@sbcglobal.net. Please email your requests toagatehunter@sbcglobal.net, rather than replying to this email, because my email service insists on having my reply emails sent to it instead of my email.I’ll send you a confirmation text or email at the time you book the hunt.
I will try to send you a reminder about a week before your hunt, but even if I don’t, the rockhunt will happen unless you hear from me cancelling it. In the past 30 or so years, I’ve only cancelled six or seven rockhunts, mostly due to extreme weather conditions.
Rollin’ Rock Club membership required for all hunts. Cost is $10 per year for a single membership, or $16 for a dual membership.
We meet in the morning at the following places:
Alpine: in the parking lot of Little Caesar’s Pizza, on the southeast corner of the intersection of Holland Avenue and Highway 118 South.
Balmorhea: in the vacant lot across FM 2903 from the Alon Gas Station and Uncle’s Convenience store on Highway 17 in the town of Balmorhea.
Study Butte: In the dirt lot south of the Alon Gas Station and restaurant/store at the junction of Highway 118 and Highway 170 in Study Butte.
Maybe there will be some pieces like this red and black plume agate from the South Larremore Ranch in the box(es) I send you!
The spring rockhunting season has been quite good, with many lovely cutting agate pieces found on all 3 ranches I lead trips on. The most surprising finds have been fortification agates with unusual colors from the Ritchie Ranch. With just a couple of exceptions, I’m finished with leading field trips for the spring. It’s been warm to hot on the ranches, and of course the farther south you go the hotter it gets. Even if it’s too hot for rockhunting out in West Texas, you can still buy great rough agate from me to cut and polish all summer in your ocean-front condo, air-conditioned treehouse, houseboat on the lake, or the back porch and garage.
I’m still selling some of the best agates from my collection in the ½ bucket size, or approx. 2.5 gallons. This is enough agate to completely fill a USPS large sized priority box. It should weigh between 25 and 35 pounds, depending upon the sizes and shapes of the stones included.
These boxes of agate will contain all cutting and tumbling pieces, with the specimen pieces removed. You can specify tumbling or cutting and I’ll try to get you the right sizes for your projects. Quantities are limited, so order now. I’ll be leaving for California in mid-May, so if you haven’t ordered by then, you won’t get your rocks til Fall.
Walker Ranch $150 plus $25 shipping. May contain the following types of agate: red plume, black plume, flower garden, peanut, moss, fortification banded, tube, lace, and mixtures of those types. The agate occurs in many different bright colors, from red and yellow to purple and green. The Walker Ranch has been closed to hunting for many years now. I gather the material for each bucket and half-bucket when it’s ordered, so it may take a few days for me to fill your request. Eventually I’ll run out of the good stuff, and after that there will be no more available.
Singleton Ranch $150 plus $25 shipping. May contain the following types of agate: bouquet (plume agate in pastel colors), black plume, moss, water-level banded, fortification banded, brecciated opal (common, opaque opal in beiges, pinks and oranges, in a translucent background of black, blue, or white agate), and mixtures of those types. The agate occurs in many different pastel colors, from pink and yellow to white and green. The Singleton Ranch has been closed to hunting for many years now.
South Larremore Ranch $110 plus $25 shipping. May contain the following types of agate: plume in various colors, moss, peanut, tube, flower garden, fortification (some with bands so close together that they can exhibit an iris effect when sliced thin), and petrified wood. The agate occurs in many bright colors and some pastel colors as well. The South Larremore Ranch is currently open for guided rockhunts that I lead in the Fall and Spring.
East Needle Peak $110 plus $25 shipping. May contain the following types of agate: PomPom (a rare pseudomorph of agate after aragonite), moss, peanut, fortification, banded, tube, lace, and agatized petrified wood. The agate occurs in many colors, but much of it is red, orange, or yellow, occasionally with areas of green. East Needle Peak is currently open for guided rockhunts that I lead in the Fall and Spring.
Ritchie Ranch $60 plus $25 shipping. May contain the following types of agate: Moss, banded, fortification, tube, plume, translucent chalcedony, and a lovely unnamed type of agate that has irregular blobs of opaque agate in a translucent background. The agate grew in two different occurrences, each with its characteristic color sets: translucent chalcedony in blues, greys, and carnelian, and a more opaque, complexly patterned agate and jasper in bright red, orange, and yellow. The Ritchie Ranch is currently open for guided rockhunts that I lead in the Fall and Spring.
Labradorite from the Walker Ranch. This labradorite is not like the specimens you see where the background of blue and grey has a chatoyance or cat’s-eye effect. At its best, Walker Ranch labradorite is bright yellow and almost transparent. It’s great for faceting and makes cool specimens. I’m selling it in 100 gram parcels for $25.00. Not all of the pieces are the same size, however, and those who order earlier will get the parcels with the bigger pieces in them. Shipping is $10, which seems awfully expensive, but you can ship several parcels in one small flat-rate box.
I will still also have full buckets for sale, and a few additional categories of cutting agate and specimens. I will be keeping my website current as to what’s available. You can find that information at http://terismithrockhunts.com/rocks-for-sale/.
You can order from me via phone, email or text. I will take checks, PayPal and Zelle for distance payments, and cash also for purchases when you’re here in Alpine. Twice a year I drive from Texas to California and back, so if you’re near I-10 in West Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and parts of California, I can possibly deliver rocks to you if it works with your schedule.
Hi y’all! Spring rockhunting season is here, and it’s time to round up the rock bags and oil up the wheelbarrow for some great rockhunting adventures.
This Spring my schedule will be more flexible than it has been in the recent past. Aaron Thomas has said he’s not leading field trips this spring, so I have no reason to just schedule hunts for Thursdays, Fridays, and Mondays. I’ve waited til now to send out my schedule because I’ve been trying to make contact with the 06 Ranch to see whether anyone else would be leading hunts on the 06 this Spring, but I haven’t been successful, so I’m assuming that there will be no hunts there at all. If that changes, I’ll let you know ASAP.
Instead of scheduling rockhunts now and hoping those days work for rockhounds, I’ll tell you when I can lead rockhunts, and you pick the days that work best for you and let me know. It only takes one person to sign up for a rockhunt to happen, and I love to go on rockhunts, so I will be glad to lead a trip for one person. And if you’ve got a group, so much the better. I’ve had up to 30 people with me on hunts, and everyone had a good time and found great rocks!
I’ll still be leading rockhunts on the Ritchie Ranch, the South Larremore Ranch, and East Needle Peak. Jean and Bryan Larremore will also be leading trips to the South Larremore Ranch when they can.
For further information on the ranches I lead rockhunts on, and what you’ll need to do to prepare, follow this link: http://terismithrockhunts.com/for-rockhunters/ To sign up for one of my rockhunts, send me an email at agatehunter@sbcglobal.net or text me at (432) 386-3431. Please include a phone number so I can call you if necessary. I’d prefer not to have you call me because I’m forgetful, and having a text or email that I can refer to will ensure I remember the right dates and other information.
The only requirement for my hunts in addition to the fees stated below is that you need to join the Rollin’ Rock Club. This club costs $10 per year for a single membership ($16 dual membership), and provides insurance that protects the landowner from any damage we may accidentally cause.
So without further ado, here’s my schedule:
Green= Ought to be available Yellow=Probably not available, but it doesn’t hurt to ask.
Once again, the hunts will begin highway 118 south.in the parking lot of Little Caesar’s Pizza in Alpine, at the corner of Holland Avenue and Highway 118 south.
East Needle Peak
S. Larremore Ranch
Ritchie Ranch
Meets at 8 am in the parking lot of Little Caesar’s Pizza
in Alpine
Meets at 8 am in the parking lot of Little Caesar’s Pizza
in Alpine
Meets at 9 am in the parking lot of Little
Caesar’s Pizza in Alpine
Cost: $50 per
day. First bucket of rocks you collect
is included in cost.
Cost: $60 per
day. First bucket of rocks you collect
is included in cost.
Cost: $20 entrance fee and $1 per lb for cutting material
and crystals.
Leader: Teri Smith
(432) 386-3431
Leader: Teri Smith
(432) 386-3431
Leader: Teri Smith
(432) 386-3431
Regards,
Teri
P.S. I’ve still got great rocks for sale. I‘ll be cataloging
what I’ve got starting next week when I’m back in Texas, and I’ll send out an
email about that as soon as I have an idea what I have.
Hi y’all! It’s Fall, and with the cooler weather comes opportunities to hunt for agate and other collectible rocks in the Big Bend Region.
In a “normal” year I’d be attaching a schedule of my field trips to this email. But 2021 is not a normal year. COVID is still with us, and it’s still killing people. And we have no clue to what the long-term aftereffects of even a mild case may be.
I came out to California in May. Here in California there’s a mask mandate, and the rate of COVID infection is 25 people per 100k. In Texas, it’s 56 people per 100k. Since my #1 goal this year is not getting COVID, it makes sense for me to stay where the infection rate is much lower. So as of now I’ll stay out here. I’ll check in the middle of October whether the rate in Texas has gone down, and then decide if I’m coming back for November.
So while I may get back to Texas in time to lead field trips in November, it’s also possible that I won’t come back this Fall and Winter at all.
By the way, the photo above is from Patrick’s Point State Park in California, where they encourage you to pick up the agate and jade you find on the beach and take it with you. But you have to hike back up a cliff with it, so you end up being quite selective.
Until then, please consider Aaron Thomas’ field trips to the 06 Ranch, the Larremore Ranch, and Needle Peak. They are wonderful. I’ve attached his schedule to the bottom of this email and will put it on my website.
I’ll also be selling rocks when I get back there. I have 400 or so buckets yet to sell or sort through to pick out the best material to sell. I hope to make several more sorted Singleton buckets and Walker Ranch buckets out of the things I have left. Then I’ll sort and sell some smaller lots of things and perhaps special individual rocks, and the equipment I decide not to take with me to California.
I hope all of you are healthy and doing well in this unsettled year. I’ve done some rock hunting in California, and had fun, but a lot of the places I’ve wanted to go have been closed due to the wildfires or the concern that new wildfires could break out and there would be no firefighters left to put them out. The largest fire, the Dixie fire, is almost a million acres, and has been burning for over two months.
I miss seeing a lot of you and keeping up on what’s going on in your lives, going out with y’all to the beautiful ranches, and getting to see the lovely things you find. But when COVID recedes and we can gather in groups again without concern, the rocks will still be out there, waiting to be discovered. I look forward to that day.
Note: For details about attending one of these incredible hunts, see the note at the end of this post.
The hunt at the 06 was amazing. We drove north of Alpine on 118 for a ways, out onto the flat valley. We turned right into a dirt road, and drove east on dirt roads for about half an hour. We stopped at a huge valley with a pipe-and-wire corral in the middle of a lovely set of mountains. This was a new place Aaron and James had only hunted once before. The hills were similar in height to the bluffs at the Walker Ranch, and of course steeper in some places than others. There were outcroppings of basalt here and there.
There were 9 or so rockhunters on the trip (I believe 10 is the limit) and we were pointed to a hillside about half a mile long. We could fan out enough that we would have not been able to see each another. Aaron & James handed each of us a walkie-talkie to use, and since it’s deer season, we were loaned bright fluorescent vests to wear.
At the bottom of the hills, there was a field of rocks about grapefruit to football size. There were agate and quartz crystal pieces in those fields, partly buried in many cases. As you went up the hills, they got rockier, and in some places there was grass stubble between the rocks. Now and then you’d find a patch that had several good sized agates on the surface, and more partially buried. In between those patches were smaller sized agate and quartz crystal pieces and some small nodules that were interestingly colored and otherwise marked on the outside. There were lots of worked pieces and evidence of a native American campsite. We had been advised to go around the campsites when we found them, and although the one I saw was full of broken agate and jasper pieces, there was enough good stuff all over the hills to make it easy to bypass the camp sites.
Some of the agate and jasper there looked
like material from the Ritchie. The dominant agate was
yellow/gold/brown moss in a background of cream, white, or blue
chalcedony.
The moss patterns varied from filaments of gold in lacy patterns, to
larger patches and islands of moss, to patterns as dense as the flower
garden moss from the Walker Ranch. There was enough of it on the surface
of the part of that hillside where I was hunting to fill up the beds
of several pickups. And the gold moss was ubiquitous: you would go
into and out of areas with other types of agate, but you never got far
away from the moss agate.
Along
with the gold moss on that hillside there was red moss, black plume in
cream and blue backgrounds, occasional pieces of red and gold moss, and
some really neat stuff that they call “crayola”. It looks like the
opalized agate that we found on the Ritchie, with much smaller opalized
bits in a chalcedony background, often in a regular pattern. There were
small and big pieces of that, some partly buried and a lot on the
surface. Many had surface pits that were in a regular pattern, as if
there had been filaments of aragonite or another material in the cavity
as the agate formed. Some of the prettiest colors were lavender, maroon
and mauve. I didn’t seen any ‘rind’ on any of the pieces, so they
probably came from a large seam somewhere up the mountain.
We had 3 hours there and I probably picked up 100 lbs of what I thought
was good material. Aaron wandered around collecting full bags and
buckets, which he carried back down to the cars for us. Since I don’t
carry a rock hammer, he helped me get a couple of large pieces of the
‘crayola’ agate out of the ground, then carried them down for me. On
the way back down to the cars, I followed Aaron to another part of the
hill, which was covered with beautiful quartz crystal specimens. I
picked up some individual crystals that were at least 3” long, by far
the biggest I’ve found on any of the ranches. There were lovely crystal
on agate specimens sticking out of the ground everywhere! This was one
place where I didn’t mind picking up gold moss agate!
I didn’t get to see what everyone else found, so I have no idea what was
on the rest of the hill. We got back to the car a bit late, with Aaron
carrying all sorts of nice things for me. Everyone else on the trip
were people I had taken on fieldtrips, and everyone was excited by what
they had found. Some of them were making their second special trip to
Alpine from Houston, Schertz and San Antonio to hunt for one exciting
day.
Then we drove back the way we’d come for a
while, and took a different branch of one of the roads. In about 20
minutes we were at an area that was the other side of the mountain we
had hunted before. The valley we were in now was not very wide, and
there was supposed to be good agate basically everywhere.
There was a dry creek in the bottom of the valley, and since I was
looking for the ladies’ room, I wandered into the brush in the
creekbed. There were a lot of large pieces of blue chalcedony, some
quite vivid, with gold moss or plume in them. There were different
colors of blue and grey in fortification patterns or bands, and one had a
red coating inside, all over the botryoidal surface, but only on the
surface. I found several nice pieces of tube agate: one was blue with
blue quartz crystals on the outside of the tubes, another was blue with
black and grey fortification lines at the ends of tubes and then around
several tubes. That one had gold moss that looked like it was in the
middle of the tubes on one side that was broken obliquely to the
pattern. There were also several small pieces that were spectacular!
Although there was supposed to be agate up on both hillsides of the
little valley, I never got very far up the hills. I stayed in the creek
bed for a while, then ventured only a little ways up each hillside. On
one hillside I found several large nodules (the size of one of Johnny’s
croissant sandwiches) that were orange or yellow chalcedony throughout
and really big compared to the ones I found at the Ritchie and the
Walker. I also found some pieces off a large seam agate that had a
dense pattern that included red, blue, black grey and gold, and appears
to have some plume in it.
It was there that I came across the only annoyance of the day, in the
form of an individual bee that wanted me to turn around and leave. The
bee hovered around my face and hands for several minutes until I got the
hint. Since I’m really allergic to bee stings, I took his advice and
wandered away from there. Full grown human: 0, Bee: 1.
The other hillside had some blue botryoidal pieces with crystals, a
couple of nice red moss pieces, and my trip rock: a long, narrow nodule
of tube agate with the edges broken off in several places. The
chalcedony at the outer edge of the nodule was stained yellow and
orange., and only part of the nodule was filled in around the tubes. In
the lower part of the nodule, which was solid, there were filaments of
pink that went to maroon and gold. The other end of the nodule was
quartz crystal covered tubes.
We hunted there for another 3 hours, got back to the cars at 5 p.m., and
the rocks were weighed up. I had 153 lbs., which included a very large
piece of gold moss that was covered on one side with quartz crystals.
If it weren’t for the help of Aaron and James in carrying my rocks back
to the vehicle, I wouldn’t have gotten a third as much.
Today as I was washing the rocks and sorting them, I’ve found about 10
lbs. that, in retrospect, I should have left there. But first thing in
the morning you don’t know what you’ll find later, and when you’re
finding good stuff and having it carried back to the car for you, you
don’t take much time to high grade.
My total adventure cost $213: $60 entrance fee and $153 for rocks. Was
it worth it? Oh yes! It was exhilarating, hunting on ground that had
not been hunted much before. It will be years before that particular
hill runs out of large pieces, and there are hundreds and hundreds of
hills on that ranch. Aaron and James and the other guys that were there
to help dig and carry were helpful and nice. Aaron explained a bit of
the geology to us before we started in the morning, and told us where we
should find better material. I’ll admit I didn’t understand much of
the geological information he was telling us, but his advice on where to
find the good stuff was similar to what we had been practicing on the
Walker, Singleton and other ranches. And the good stuff was indeed
there. I’ve been on a lot of field trips (over 1000 when I quit
counting), and this is one I’ll remember for many years. I’m going back
again in 2 weeks.
Regards,
Teri
Note: The rockhunts on the 06 Ranch are being led by Aaron Thomas and
James Winn VI. They begin at the Tri-La-Bite food trucks in Alpine.
They currently happen only on Sundays, and are limited to 10 rockhounds
per hunt. As of publication time, all hunts scheduled through 1/31/21
are full, and a new schedule for the Spring will be published in
February. Once that schedule is published, I will try to schedule my
rockhunts to other ranches (if indeed I am leading any) around the 06
hunts so you can come out to the Big Bend and go on hunts ion 4
different ranches in 4 days. If you have any questions about the hunts,
you can reach Aaron Thomas at noraathomas@msn.com or
roadcutgeology@yahoo.com
It’s time
again to start considering what to give your favorite rockhounds for the
holidays. Obviously, the answer is not just ‘rocks’, or
even ‘great rocks’, but ‘large
quantities of great rocks’. To make your
rock shopping easier, I’ve gathered more Walker Ranch cutting agates, and
dropped the price on some other categories of rocks. And, if you order soon, I can pack them and ship them to you before
the holiday rush. Or, you can come out
for rockhunts and pick them up yourself.
Here’s what I’m featuring:
Walker Ranch
cutting agate, $250 per bucket.
Walker Ranch
and Big Bend Crystal and Botryoidal Specimens, $100 per bucket.
Ritchie
Ranch agate, $100 per bucket.
As you may recall,
I ran out of buckets of Walker Ranch cutting agate last spring. However, I’ve figured out a way to gather Walker
Ranch agate from a number of different types of buckets (Walker Ranch
specimens, Misc. Agate, Misc. Rocks, Cut Ends, agate sorted by color, agate nodules,
etc.) That idea is working well. I’ve gone through different buckets to find
the Walker Ranch agate, and I now have 2 buckets of Walker Ranch agate to
sell. I believe I’ll have perhaps 10 more by the
time I’m done. Although these buckets
are not ‘unsearched’, they are full of great stuff! I’m not holding out any cutting material that
I find in the other buckets or anything like that.
Because the
Walker Ranch specimen buckets have been raided for Walker Ranch cutting agate,
I can’t say they’re ‘unsearched’ anymore, so I’m selling the Walker Ranch ‘searched’ specimen buckets, and many other buckets of
crystal and botryoidal specimens, at $100 per bucket.
I’ve also
reduced the price on the Ritchie Ranch buckets to $100 each, through the end of
the year.
Shipping
cost is $50 per bucket. I take checks, PayPal,
and cash.
Regards,
Teri
P.S. I’ve had people ask me for details of the new
ranch Aaron Thomas is beginning to lead fieldtrips on. I really know nothing about it, except that
it’s just north and east of Alpine, and Aaron has shown me photos of wonderful
agates that came from there. If you would like further information, please
email Aaron at noraathomas@msn.com, or
roadcutgeology@yahoo.com.
I’ve finally got a rockhunt schedule for Fall 2020. Right now, with COVID and the resulting
changes in how things are done, we are fortunate to still have three great
ranches available for rockhunting: The
Ritchie Ranch, the South Larremore Ranch, and East Needle Peak.
I’ll be leading my field trips, cycling between all three
ranches, each Thursday and Friday in October and November. Aaron will be leading trips on most
Saturdays, October through December.
This will give y’all three days in a row for rockhunting on your trip out
to the Big Bend, and you can pick and choose which days you’d like to hunt.
I’ll also be leading additional trips now and then, so if you have a special request, let me
know. You can sign up for Aaron’s field trips the same way you sign up for
mine: send me an email with the days you
wish to attend, and make sure to include the phone number for a cell phone
you’ll have with you. Both Aaron and I
will be leading trips to the South Larremore Ranch. Aaron’s field trips will be limited to 25
people, and there’s still no limit to the number than can attend my field
trips.
If you haven’t hunted
with Aaron, his fieldtrips are different than mine. He keeps the group together and hunts with
you. He’ll even carry your rocks back to
the car. On my hunts, I give you
instructions, make sure everyone knows what they can find, and then you hunt by
yourselves until it’s time to get together at the end of the day. I try to meet with everyone once they’re out
hunting, to make sure they’re having fun and finding good stuff.
All field trips will begin at Tri-la-Bite, which is the food
truck run by Aaron and his wife Katrina. It’s at the corner of Holland Avenue
and Garnett Street in Alpine. It’s on
the left side of the street, across from the Sonic Drive-In.
There will be some protocols in place for extra safety
during the COVID pandemic. I’m asking
everybody to wear a mask whenever we’re grouped together, and have your group
stand 6 feet away from other groups and me.
Once we’re rockhunting, however, you and your group can remove the
masks.
Rollin’ Rock Club membership is still required for my field
trips. Cost is $10 single and $16 for a
dual membership. Membership will run
through the year 2021.
Aaron and Katrina have also opened up a rock shop in Alpine,
called the Circle T Rock Shop in honor of Aaron’s family’s ranch. It’s located on the east side of 5th street
in Alpine, just north of Holland Avenue.
They’re usually open Thursday through Monday from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. They also have a Facebook buy and sell group
called Circle T Rock shop, https://www.facebook.com/groups/2555173857901636/,
where you can buy agate from local ranches by the pound. And there are lots of other goodies available
in their shop.
As for me, I’m still selling agate by the bucket, as listed
on my website, www.terismithrockhunts.com.
I’ll get back to Texas at the beginning of October and hunt through lots
of buckets to re-sort the material into more single-ranch buckets, especially
Walker Ranch buckets. I’ll be also
offering special deals, and going through my studio to see what else I have to
offer. If you aren’t coming out here for
field trips, I can mail a bucket of rocks to you for $50. Last Spring, I mailed more than 150 boxes of
rocks via USPS, and every one of them got there in good shape with all of the
rocks protected! A couple of them did
take scenic trips around the United States, however, before getting to their
new homes.
So here’s the schedule.
Be sure to look at the start time for your field trip because the Ritchie
Ranch hunts begin at 9, not 8. That’s
because the drive to the Ritchie Ranch only takes about 8 minutes, so we
can still get out hunting by 9:30 or so.
Hi
Y’all! June is upon us, and with it the
hot weather. I’m working on my plan for
going to California at the end of June. My current thought is that I will indeed come
back to Texas this Fall to lead more field trips, probably from Mid-October
through Thanksgiving, or perhaps all the way til the middle of December. You can look for a schedule from Aaron and me
sometime near the end of August or beginning of September.
As
you know, mandates from the government to ‘shelter in place’ or not travel can
indeed cause me to change my plans, but barring something like that, I want to
lead trips this Fall to get to see everyone I didn’t get to see this Spring,
and have lots of fun picking up agates and other goodies.
Also,
I’m still selling rocks by the bucket, and shipping them out. I’ve sent over 100 boxes of agate and other materials
to rockhounds across the country via USPS, and every box has gotten there safely.
I still have agate available from the Singleton Ranch ($125 for an unsorted
bucket, $250 for a bucket where I’ve sorted two or more buckets together and
removed everything that isn’t cutting material). There are a few buckets left
of Stillwell Ranch material ($250 per bucket), South Larremore Ranch rocks
($200 per bucket), East Needle Peak rocks ($200 per bucket) and Ritchie Ranch
agate ($200 per bucket). I have mixed
agate ($150 per bucket), Agate from Mexico ($175 a bucket) and all kinds of
other goodies. You can look at a
complete list of what’s available on my website, at www.terismithrockhunts.com/rocks-for-sale/.
I hope to add selected specimens to the
list of things for sale, but I don’t know when I’ll get that done.
If
you wish to get your rocks before I head west for the summer, you need to order
them by June 15th. You can
either have me save your rocks until you can get out here this Fall, or you can
have me pack and mail them to you at the cost of $50 per bucket.
I
hope y’all have a good summer and stay well.
See you in the Fall!
Tired of being unable to go outside and hunt rocks? Would some good agate from the Big Bend help
you fight the “stay at home ‘til further notice” blahs? And what better present for Mother’s Day than
a few buckets full of agate?
I’ve spent my quarantine time learning how to
successfully ship agate, and reconsidering some of the prices on my agate
buckets. So here are the deals:
FIRST, $50 SHIPPING.
I can send you a bucket’s worth of agate via USPS for $50. Your rocks will arrive in 3 or 4 days in in 2
large, USPS flat-rate boxes. It takes me an hour or so to pack a bucket’s worth
of rocks into the boxes and tape it up with enough filament tape to make sure it
will get to you in perfect condition. So
far, I’ve shipped out more than 40 boxes, and all have arrived safely with no
damage or loss to the rocks.
SINGLETON RANCH AGATES ON SALE! Unlike the Walker Ranch buckets, where I
separated specimens and cutting material, the
buckets of agate from the Singleton Ranch are completely unsorted. That means you’re apt to get specimen
material along with the cuttable agate. In order to make sure you feel like you’ve
gotten a good idea, I’ve lowered the price of a bucket of Singleton Ranch agate
to $125 for an unsorted bucket. Or you
can spend $250 for a bucket where I’ve combined two of the unsorted buckets and
removed most of the stuff that won’t cut.
OTHER CATEGORIES STILL ON SALE: In my first email about selling rock buckets,
there were several categories of rocks that were at a low price until I could
get around to sorting them. But with the quarantine, people haven’t been
able to come out rockhunting and pick up their buckets, so I’ve been spending a
lot of my time packing and shipping rocks. Since I won’t get to sorting those categories
of agate anytime soon, the lower prices are still in force. Those categories are:
Buckets of agate either sorted by color or marked ‘mixed’ or ’misc’. $150
Buckets of Rocks that Aren’t Agate or Jasper $150
Buckets of agate from Margarita Gardner $175
I have only a couple of buckets of Walker Ranch cutting
agate available at $250 per bucket. I have
had the chance to look at the contents of some of these buckets as I packed
them, and I was amazed at what wonderful things were in there. Lots of red
plume, black plume, flower garden agate, pastel fortification agates, and very
amazing moss agates. There are occasional
Native American artifacts (mostly scrapers) in there, too, and a few geodes. Once these last buckets are gone, there won’t
be any more available from me, unless the ranch opens up for rockhunting again
in the future. Better order one right
now if you want it! Those of you who
have reserved buckets already don’t have to worry: I’ll keep them for you until you can get here
to pick them up, or decide to have me mail them!
Since it looks like most of us will be staying home for
the foreseeable future, these prices will be good through the end of May. In June, if we’re free to travel, I’ll go to California
for the summer and won’t be back for a while…
I have a lot more types of agate for sale than I‘ve
mentioned in this email. I’ve updated
my listing on my website to show the number of buckets of rocks available in
each category now. Some of the smaller
categories are sold out. To see the
complete listing follow this link: http://terismithrockhunts.com/rocks-for-sale/.
