Collecting Rocks, Gems and Minerals: Identification, Values and Lapidary Uses

Got this for my husband, big rock hound. He really enjoyed reading and adding this to his library. Has great information and easy to read.

Very nice close up pictures. This is a perfect gift for an adult or older child who is interested in minerals. Good information on several minerals. Easy to use. Nice resource. Cover is not completely hardback quality but is sturdy. Binding is very tight. Nice colorful illustrations and easy text to read. Great addition to a collector and home library.

I love the flexibound binding. I think this binding will result in the book's pages not coming out eventually as it is well used in the field. The paper is thick, white, glossy and has brilliantly colored pictures that are absolutely beautiful. Not only do the high quality pictures help me identify rocks, it is so beautiful that I just enjoy browsing through the book. I'm a complete novice and love rocks more than I like to admit. But I have to say, that I ALMOST enjoy going through this book as much as going through my rocks. Patti Polk writes in a style so that I remain interested and want to continue to learn. It's no wonder since she wrote the book for novices as she states, "ease of use is a priority, with special emphasis on the beginning collector". I especially enjoyed the sections "Introduction to Collecting Rocks and Minerals", "How to Locate and Collect Rocks and Minerals", and "Use and Care of Rocks, Minerals, and Gemstones". Who knows, with great books like this that make learning fun, I may get past the novice stage at some point

This book is almost one of the best mineral guides. Beautiful photos, much information well presented, a vast assortment of mineral species. Unique among guidebooks I have is a listing of the typical price for the specimen. But for some reason, in the later part of the book this price is printed in white type on a light silver-gray background, instead of the red-violet background of the rest of the book, making it almost impossible to read and costing it a star.

This is a very informative book. If you like to rock hunt I would definitely recommend giving this a read.

This book is geared toward collectors. I have other books that are geared towards geologists-bunson burner and HCL required! But this book is great because it focuses on hobby collecting. It shares trade names, costs (a little older, but it gives you a sense of relative pricing which is so helpful!!), lapidary uses, among other things. There are tons of pictures of polished minerals/rocks which are helpful as well as notes about treatments that are sometimes done to minerals to enhance color-so useful for the novice collector. I find myself going back to reread portions of the book as I expand my collection. I highly recommend this!!

My son collects rocks and meteors and so this book was very informative as a reference guide for him. It has a lot of color photos and information about many of the rocks in his collection as well as some he hopes to add in the future. He thoroughly enjoyed the book.

Informative for the mature, seasoned rock hound as well as the curious youngster developing an interest. Great photos with fine detail to easily identify the rock in your hand.