hello all, my name is ryan i moved to NC this year due to my job. Im from pennsylvania . little on me i ve been picking things up and putting them in my pockets since i can remember... my first mineral find was a small pyrite cube in a camp grounds near cornwall pa . i may have been 5 or so ?? anyways as i got older i never stopped picking things up or looking down. in 1998 i got a construction job which took me around the east coast i started looking on job sites .... in 2004 i got into the quarry end of it all i meet up with a fellow named bob and he and i took over cornwall iron mine ... he over saw the operation of the quarry and i fixed the things he broke.... a tall skinny fellow one day came to the quarry asking to look around and told us of all these great minerals this quarry could produce... his name was skip so long story short myself bob and skip would meet up in the quarry over the months and find great thing s... skip had a collectiong buddy named scott we meet up with him one day at the quarry... from that day on it was the 4 of us ....4 guys with the love of the hunt !!! as a four man crew we have been able to get into the pa record books for minerals..new mineral finds and donations to local colleges and museums came to be a regular for us ....i will never forget those days and finds with the guys !!!! now here in nc its hard for me i dont know anyone and dont even know where to start looking... i go home to pa now and then and meet up with the guys and collect and still find great things !!! im hoping to meet up with some ppl here to keep the love of mineral collecting alive for me ....   ps i have close too 200 pieces of tourmaline so i guess that would be my fav mineral next to garnets and fossils 

Thanks for introducing yourself, Ryan.
It sounds like you have had pretty much the ideal situation
in PA. Being able to access good mineral producing quarries is
hard to beat. There are several quarries in NC that are known
to produce great specimens. Getting access to them is another
story. And then there are many quarries that produce nothing
but gravel.
As Scott said, you are on the right track by posting here.
There are alot of good specimen producing locations in NC
and we'll have to see about getting you to some of them.

Joe

Sounds like we need to make a trip to the Burgin ASAP.

Going to send you an e-mail, Ryan.

Ryan you sound like an interesting collector.  I think you will fit right in with Joe and Scott. They are both incredible folks.  But don't tell them I said anything nice...lol Welcome to the Lounge.

yes joe count me in !!!! ill try my hand at digging for quartz xl s .... im not used to digging in the mud for minerals but i gotta learn .... im used to looking at quarry walls... looking for veins and mineralization with in the walls .... but i do pick things up quickly soooo we ll just have to see what the mineral gods have for me    thanks john for saying hi ..... as far as the charge of my tourmaline i dont know about all that guys the site would have to be really good from me to give those up    hope to see ya ll sunday am