About Us

Hi and welcome to my/your rock shop.  Let me start out by saying that I’m a certified rock licker, in this sense, does not mean that some august body said that I am a great rock licker and that I have the paper to prove it.  Certified, in my case, means much the same as when one says that someone is certifiably insane.  Not particularly official but the possibilities remain open to interpretation.

I like rocks.  I like looking at them, touching them, smashing them with hammers, slicing them with diamond bladed saws, grinding them to dust on diamond studded wheels (and incidentally forming cabochons).  I like buying some and selling some.  I like talking and writing about them.  But, I still don’t know much about them.  Each day with them is a learning experience.

I’m Lee Parker and I started really liking rocks fairly late in life, like in my 60’s.  You should be glad.  If I started earlier I probably would have written books about them and would know so much about them that I would not talk to anyone about them because I would know that I was so much smarter than “you”.  Not the case here…About all I know is that if I lick a rock and it stays shiny for a while, I can polish it.

Now that I segued into the polishing idea.  You can buy highly polished rock just about anywhere.  Where I shine(?) is that I don’t impose my will on every rock I get my hands on.  I let the rock dictate what it wants to be with minimum enhancement on my part (polishing is an enhancement).  When I get done with a rock, it will be perfect…as it will be what it will be.  There may be what we would call imperfections in it such as pits.  That’s natural.  They may not have a mirror shine…mirror shines are not natural.  (I wrote the above a while back.  In my dotage, I decided to not work so much and I buy all my cabochons.)

So be aware.  If you are looking for human perfections, there are other sites to visit and thanks for reading this far.  If you are looking for natural perfection, keep browsing!

The internet has to be worth something besides being a time waster.  I get most of my rock stock from friends on the internet, specifically from people I know on the Rock Tumbling Hobby website.  If you go there, read a whole bunch of stuff then scroll down to the message board link.  There are a lot of people there that actually know what they are talking about when they are talking rock.  You can get lost there so don’t forget to come back here by closing that window.

I also get a portion of my stock from various sellers on Ebay, Facebook, wholesalers, and a small amount from actually going out in the field and digging my own…whoooaa…that is real rock hounding!  You see, I live in an area that has, well, not much in the line of polishable rock.  There is a lot of shale and sandstone with a little granite and schist that was kindly transported from Canada by a series of glaciers.  All other rock that can be polished is a drive or a flight away.  I don’t sell enough so far to make more than one trip a year to dig my own.  A few years ago, I went to Quartzsite, AZ…bought a bunch of stuff and had a chance to go out in the hills to pick up some jaspers and chrysocolla.

Most of the cabochons will be free-form, designer cabs, one of a kind.
Specimens will be what they are.  I describe them to the best of my ability.

I keep getting asked if I have a store besides doing shows and I have been saying that the only store I have is online.  Well, no more!  I recently bought a shed to store rocks and make my wife happy (by getting rocks out of the house).  It will be open by appointment only.   Keep up with my Face Book page to be up to date on what is happening here with the Rock Dude.

So, look around, have fun, talk to me!