Now what?

Do you sell on eBay? Selling a tumbled stone or two on eBay is ludicrous, it's a waste of time IMHO

BUT, selling a bunch together makes some sense. I would put together nice assortments of several different types of rock that someone interested in wire wrapping would love to get ahold of.

I see auctions all the time for 1 to 5 tumbled stones and just pass them by. Who's gonna pay the postage for such a small amount of stones? It makes the price of each stone too high to bother bidding.

It would seem that offering 10 or more NICE tumbled stones that would be good for wire wrapping with reasonable postage may be something that would sell. Not everyone that wire wraps has their own tumbler. I doubt you would make a huge profit, but it may pay for your next grit order.

Or, sell them to the reeki reeki (whatever) crowd and tell 'em that your tumbled stones cure insert ailment of your choice here ;D

Yeah, The "New Age Voodoo" crowd will pay silly amounts for stones LOL.

Another thing you may consider is sterilizing a bunch of your excess tumbled stones. Put 2 pound sorted or assorted lots into ziplock bags, and take them around to pet stores that sell fish. Several people here have bought good rough from pet stores ... no reason it may not work in reverse!

Yep, and now you know who the main target audience is for my gemstone trees. I need money, dang it!

Hokay, you really need to be careful with doing something like this. Malachite, for instance, and any other stone that derives from copper or has copper in it, will kill everything alive in the tank. Snails et al will go first, followed by the rest of the fish.

Then there are stones that contain large amounts of calcium and will dissolve in an aquarium. Those will also cause problems. You can test those stones with a couple of drops of hydrocloric acid. If it doesn't fizz or start to dissolve, it's safe -- but watch the metals.

You really have to know what's in the stone before you sell it as tank safe.

Eileen, an Avid Aquarium Hobbyist

I have a place for just about everything I tumble. First of all I let my tumblers do the work of exposing some nice pieces to make into jewelry. I also just got approved for the local metephysical fairs so I will need tumbled stone. I break up slabs and put them through the tumblers and again select out what looks interesting and cab it. Otherwise I sell them at shows. Wire wrappers love them because they are polished on both sides. Then I always have a give away box for kids at every show I do. It slows the parents down looking at my jewelry.

Rick

Every rock club I have been in has always solicited tumbled stones for their annual show. SOme sort of kiddy givawau. THe Sweethome club is going to give away almost 500lbs. Last meeting they announced they had 450 (wow!). I think they put them into plastic eggs.

I have also gone to elementry classrooms and given a talk on tumbling and the concept of an abrasive polish and rock hardness. Many elementry cirriculum have units on rock types, or where rocks come from. I usually bring enough stones for each kid to ake 3 or 4.

With a little effort, they will go quickly!!

I have one of those old ceramic (huge) ash trays from the 50's I put my polished stones in it on my coffee table. Since I dont have a tumbler that works more than a week at a time now. I buy the little jewels for it. Now all my neighbors do too!
AgateHeaven

I knew I'd seen someone mention it here before...<grin>

What's even more amusing to me are the people who will come in, grab a rock or two out of the bowl, and play with them/hold them while they're talking to me. Once whatever they came to see me about is out of the way, usually the conversation will come around to what kind of stone it is, how do you polish them...and quite often, the last question is, "why do you do it?" For that, I just smile and ask them why they felt compelled to pick one up and hold it the entire time they've been talking to me.