My name is Justin and after many years in the business of minerals, I’ve come to find the NEED for people to alert mineral collectors to fakes and scams.

Who am I to be so bold as to alert you to these fakes? Well, I have been an active member of the mineral sales community for several years, as the sales manager of a large wholesale mineral warehouse, a mineral show producer, member of many mineral clubs and frequent lecturer and publisher. I guess it helps that I’ve been to over 400 mineral producing locations.

I have a special place in my heart for fakes. When I worked at the wholesale company I kept a collection of fakes that would come through our door. Importers would bring in samples of everything, including mind blowing fake rocks. Getting in a shipment of tumbled and polished stones from China would often lead to us trying to figure out what the material ACTUALLY was, rather that what they hoped it would pass for!

In fact, my very first experience with field collecting was a 10 hour one way trip to the Emerald Mining district of North Carolina. I have no doubt that if I were to go to North Carolina now I would know EXACTLY what to do to have a BLAST in that mineral wonderland! However, being a newbie to the whole thing, I went to a pay to dig place and it was a scam, pure and simple. Some people would get turned off to mineral collecting right at that moment, early onto collection, when they get scammed. Well, I think it is my duty to inform you, the mineral collecting public, of any scams, fakes or questionable business going on in our community.

HAHAHA….Disregard that, I do it for the LULZ!

Thanks for reading, I’m all to happy to be of service to the mineral world!
Justin@the-vug.com