Inexperienced buyers must take whatever steps are needed to ensure that
gems they intend to purchase are exactly what the seller purports them
to be and that they are being offered at a fair market price.
More and more synthetic gems—and inferior grades and cuts of natural
gems—are being sold to unwary buyers by unscrupulous sellers.
Since 1935, the mining of gemstones in the United States has been
almost entirely a recreational activity of mineral collectors and hobbyists.
In recent years, very few individuals have derived their entire income
from gemstones mined by themselves.
This is not to say that the proprietors of roadside rock shops buy all
of their stock from others. Rock shops are abundant in areas of the
United States that are rich in gem materials, and the shops tend to
specialize in the local gem commodities, most of which the proprietors
gather.
Rather than doing the mining themselves, owners of land that has a
deposit of gem-quality minerals sometimes charge hobbyists for the right
to collect gemstones. For example, diamond in Arkansas, opal in Idaho,
and agate in Oregon and Washington are mined by hobbyists under this
“fee digging” arrangement.
However, the flow of money into the local economy by paying these small
fees and by the purchase of gemstones is minor compared to the money the
enthusiasts spend for lodging and other living expenses while visiting
an area to dig for gemstones.
Several kinds of natural gemstones have been found in every State of the
United States, but much larger deposits of the most precious kinds are
found outside the United States.
The 1990 U.S. output of natural gemstones was primarily from Tennessee,
California, Arizona, Arkansas, Montana, Nevada, and Maine.
An estimated 80,000 visitors found a total of 315 carats of diamonds in
the Crater of Diamonds State Park in Arkansas. There were sizeable
yields of freshwater pearls in Tennessee, turquoise in Arizona and
Nevada, tourmaline in Maine, and tourmaline, kunzite, and garnet in
California.