Professionally Curated Minerals & Fossils
The Taos Rockers resident geologist and mineral specialist is owner Cortney Stewart. His geologic studies focus on his home state of New Mexico; this is reflected in the museum-quality collection of minerals from New Mexico available in the shop. Cortney examines each specimen (not just the ones from New Mexico) to verify identification. Each unique specimen comes with a tag providing this identification as well as source locale, when available.
The Taos Rockers Way of Doing Things (by Cortney Stewart and Anne Brenner)
We attend various gem and mineral shows throughout the region as buyers. We have been attending the Denver spring (April) and Denver fall (September) and Albuquerque (March) shows since 2003, and the Tucson show since 2004.
Over the years we have established working relationships with many dealers throughout the world. When possible, we prefer to work with families who are active in the industry - those whose family actively mine or collect, prep, polish, design, manufacture and market minerals, fossils, jewelry, stoneware and related items. We are proud to be friends of a family of three brothers who operate mines in Brazil and whose sons are being groomed for the business. Our friends from Peru employ dozens of artisans polishing, shaping and carving material while operating a warehouse run by mother, daughter and son. There's the father/daughter team that supplies us with jewelry from India and the husband and wife designing jewelry in Canada.
The list goes on and on including families from China, Australia, Germany, Madagascar and Morocco. We also actively purchase from small mining operators and collectors - eliminating middlemen and keeping prices affordable.