Our Story
Every collection starts somewhere. Mine started in a paint supplier's shop.
It was 1967 in Dunedin, New Zealand. I was eight years old when a mineral display caught my eye. That curiosity stayed with me through my early teens in the Netherlands, where finding a mineral shop gave it fresh life.
By 1981, I'd joined the Western Suburbs Lapidary Club, discovered thumbnail and micromount collecting, and run my first gem and mineral exhibition in Prahran.
What followed was forty years in the mineral and fossil trade, built around a lifelong passion for collecting.
There were exhibitions across Australia and annual trips to Tucson from 1985 to 1998, stopping first at Quartzite to buy from traders selling out of RVs across the desert. There were also eight weeks in Hill City, South Dakota, learning fossil preparation hands-on under Leon Thiessen.
Those experiences shaped Earthstones Australia and the approach we bring to PJ Minerals today.
We specialise in Australian mineral specimens. We care about where a specimen came from, how accurately it is described, and whether its price is fair. We photograph carefully and provide provenance wherever possible.
That experience is also something we want to share through articles, locality stories and conversations with fellow collectors. Our aim is for around 80% of the group's content to focus on Australia, alongside selected overseas specimens and stories.
After all these years, I still feel that same curiosity when I pick up a specimen.
If you know that feeling, you're in good company here.
