Search Results

Tips for Ethical and Safe Rockhounding If you live near a geological site, plan a family outing to hunt The Stone Circle’s own article “ Ethical Crystal Hunting in Scotland: What Can't You Take Home " provides

We got red jasper which was more of a brick red than we find in Scotland , some lovely looking obsidian We sell: Rough Jasper from Scotland Scottish quartz to home tumble Agate mixtures A Lapidary Mix specifically

Thinking of picking up a selenite lamp? We received a selenite lamp from Love Selenite about a year ago now, and it is high time we wrote a review. Let’s start with a brief overview of what selenite crystals actually are and how they form. If you are not interested in the geology, then feel free to skip ahead to the selenite lamp parts. What is Selenite? Selenite is a variety of gypsum, a soft mineral which forms in places where there used to be salt water, but there isn’t anymore. It is a sulfate mineral that is derived from the salts that used to be in the water, but that now have nowhere to go. Salty water left behind by dried up sea lochs and the likes can eventually crystallise into selenite… though it takes a theorised million years+. Selenite crystals are therefore found in places like desert basins, dried up valleys, and in places you might not expect to find them! Selenite is a sedimentary rock. There are three broad rock types, igneous (volcanic), metamorphic (‘morphs’ over time), and sedimentary (made up of smaller sediment particles). Since the small salt particles which make up selenite are sediment left behind from the ocean that then come together to form selenite, this sees it fall into the sedimentary category. There is a prevailing myth that selenite can’t get wet. It can get wet, but it is delicate. If you left it under the tap for a week it would eventually wear away. Dipping it in warm water to clean it once in a while won’t do any damage, just keep the chemicals away from it. What is a Selenite Lamp? The good folks over at Love Selenite got in touch with us last year and asked if we would host a guest post  for them. In exchange, they sent over one of their selenite lamps for the Stone Circle team to play with. Our Selenite lamp for review What does the selenite lamp look like? This selenite lamp comes in two parts. It features a USB connection on a white wire. On the other side of the wire is a small but bright LED bulb. It is almost identical in brightness to my daylight lamp when set to the one that reminds me of the sky just before it snows. The second part of the selenite lamp is a selenite tower with the middle piece removed and a groove carved into the base to accommodate the wire and allow the whole lamp to sit flat. How to use your Selenite Lamp There is no on or off switch, you just plug it in or unplug it via USB. I have a bunch of old chargers for phones around the house so I stole a plug from one of them to plug it into the wall, but you can just use your laptop or console. The wire has a USB connection at one end and a bulb on the other. What We Liked: There are multiple things we like about this lamp. It is very portable. I can pack it in my handbag if I want to. It’s a sturdy piece of selenite, a pretty piece which I think has been carved into this shape, but I could be wrong. The bulb is not permanently attached to the selenite. This is a great feature because even if you break the bulb or wire part, you can keep the selenite. Likewise, you can also use the bulb part for other purposes if you somehow shatter your selenite. We would use this type of bulb in a mineral cabinet. LED makes our quartz druzy sparkle. Here you can see where the bottom is carved to allow room for the wire. What We Didn’t Like: We would have to really nit pick to find something. Probably the ability to opt to put batteries in the wiring as well as plug it in? But that’s borderline ridiculous. I just can’t figure out how I can get it to display beside my other minerals in the enclosed cabinet. I will find a way, don’t worry. A Selenite Circle, photo by the Stone Circle. What is a Selenite Lamp Good For? If you are a geologist? It is pretty. It literally lights up the room. You can skip the next part. Crystal healers use selenite crystal charging plates  to nullify any past energies attached to their crystals. When they use other crystals in a crystal healing treatment session, they put those crystals onto the selenite plate to cleanse the energy attached to them so that they are ready for the next person. It stands to reason that the selenite lamp therefore promotes the same cleansing, purifying, and nullifying soft energy which selenite plates bring to the crystals, but into the very air of the room itself. Promote peace, calm, and serenity in your healing sessions or use these lamps to create an atmosphere of relaxation. This photo shows where the bulb goes. Where to Place Your Selenite Lamp? If you place it next to your bed it will give a nice, soft light which isn’t too intrusive for last thing at night. It gives enough light to read by, but not to light up the whole room. It is an atmospheric light. You might keep it in the living room where it will look great on a shelf. Just keep it out of the wet rooms of your house. Again, the damp will eventually wear it away, but the chemicals used in cleaning these rooms can do faster damage. Baking soda and citrus fruits can break down sulfate minerals eventually so be careful. Isn't it pretty? I have had this for roughly a year now and have never experienced any broken parts. (Touched wood, don't worry!) Where to Buy Selenite? We would obviously prefer if you bought selenite from us, but this is a review of the Love Selenite, selenite lamp, so we really ought to tell you to buy it there. Visit Love Selenite  and check out the lamps or buy selenite in our selenite section . There’s not much in it at the moment but bear with us. We are waiting on some to show up in an old crystal collection so we can buy it! Rating the Selenite Lamp Out of 5 Meteorites? If we had to rate this out of five meteorites, we would give it a 4.8. If it changed colour, had extra features, or literally grew legs and started dancing, we could give it the full five. This is a product which is full of potential – a potential Love Selenite are fully exploring in their product collection. We can confirm that they really do love  their selenite.   Want to Guest Post with us? If you are interested in guest posting, then contact us to discuss it . We will get back to you as soon as we can. Want The Stone Circle to Review Your Product? Use our contacts page to get in touch and tell us more!

Rockhound Resource have a good list of identification methods, but you can also send minerals you fail Usually these are packed with geologists and rockhounds who can give you answers. You can support me as a writer and rockhound by donating to www.buymeacoffee.com/katrionawrites. Every penny helps me produce more articles like this one, to help other UK rockhounds find their feet

Geologists, archaeologists, rockhounds, gem collectors, and miners the world over are all familiar with gone to the effort of hunting for rocks then they are displaying the keenness needed to become a true rockhound

We didn’t just start out as rockhounds knowing about how to test minerals for hardness or specific gravity You can support me as a writer and rockhound by donating to www.buymeacoffee.com/katrionawrites. Every penny helps me produce more articles like this one, to help other UK rockhounds find their feet

We all have to start somewhere with rock identification as baby rockhounds, but identifying minerals Can you Rock Hunt for Aventurine in Scotland? would like to say no to this, but we have actually found two separate pieces of green aventurine in Scotland

We buy minerals second hand from other collectors, we go out into Scotland and we find them ourselves , and we create Rockhounding content so that you can see for yourself how the crystals we sell are found You can also read about the meaning of agate already, or learn about Hagstones freshly picked from Scotland

Other rockhounds providing us with amethyst are from Dumfries & Galloway, Fife, Ayrshire, and the north of Scotland. Mineral and crystal hunting in Scotland has a long history going back to crofter times. Although we have limited quantities of amethyst here in Scotland, you can get it from Brazil, China,

The Stone Circle buys and sells preloved and second-hand crystals, rocks, and minerals. Unfortunately, we cannot buy every crystal collection that we come across. If you are looking to sell your crystal collection online, read this first! A Flower Agate Tower we recently bought up on eBay Here at The Stone Circle, we have recently taken a step back to look at how we can improve the ethics of crystal collecting. We know that the best pieces are mined, and we know that mining takes a huge toll on the environment, and as rock hunters we know that even hunting crystals in the UK in areas local to us takes an environmental toll. It is our aim to keep that toll as low as possible. We Buy and Sell Preloved Crystal Collections Recently, we decided to expand into the purchasing and reselling of unwanted crystal collections. Do you ever wonder what happens to all the rocks that people collect? Rather than being put in a suitcase and forgotten about, we would love those old crystal collections to end up here. We will rehome them and they will find love in the end. How We Work Out Preloved Crystal RRPs Since preloved crystals come to us second hand, we check the RRP against the first few pages of Google shopping. If we don’t believe what we see (because the price is too high) we check Etsy, then eBay. We take the average cost across the different marketplaces to be the actual RRP. After we have a Recommended Retail Price, we can work out what the resale value is for the crystal as a second hand, pre-loved mineral. We promise to keep the prices on the cheapest side possible. After all, do we own the rocks or do the rocks own us? Would The Stone Circle Buy Your Old Crystals? We might. Here is what we are looking for – in fact, it is easier to tell you what we do not want, instead. We are open to any and all offers of minerals, be they donations or offered for sale. However, we do not want  to buy the following: Fake minerals – if it is glass, we won’t buy it. Lab grown is acceptable, but we need to know. Dyed minerals – especially dyed agates or geodes. If it is neon, then it is fake. Anything ‘Aura’ – aura quartz and rainbow crystals have been coated with a mix of other minerals. We do not want to encourage this market in any way, shape or form. We see these as vandalism… like spray painting over a DaVinci or scrubbing a Banksy off a wall… Heat treated agates or heat treated “citrine” (amethyst). If you have a few of the above but have an otherwise natural crystal collection, then we won’t mind. If your crystal collection is mostly dyed or rainbow aura coated, then we won’t buy it. It’s not that we are judging your taste but more that our customers expect rough rocks and natural crystals when they shop with us. Also, we haven’t perfected a formula for removing the dye from agates yet. We stopped experimenting just shy of trying bleach. What is Your Crystal Collection Worth? This is a tricky question. If you want to sell it all at once, you will make less money. Selling items individually on the website is how we make a small profit (we hope!) If you trust us, we will make a fair offer that makes everyone happy – especially the people who get new rocks! When selling your crystal collection, you might do better selling all of your towers or spheres at once and selling your tumble stones separately. Tumbles are worth less than other minerals. Prices fluctuate based on what is popular at that time on the market. The best way to find out how much your crystal collection might be worth is to ask. Drop us an email at thestonecircleshop@gmail.com with some photos and we will make an offer if we can. We are not rich so please don’t approach us with meteorites. Where to Buy Cheap Crystals Second Hand? You can rehome crystals, rocks, and minerals through the Stone Circle’s preloved crystals program. Donate or sell your old crystal collection and pick up new (old) crystals second hand at www.thestonecircle.co.uk .

Taking up rockhounding isn’t the hobby for everyone. In Scotland the main one is in Edinburgh. It is the Scottish Mineral and Lapidary Club.

We started tumbling in the 2020/21 season of rockhounding, so we have a few years under our belts now