Nowadays the net gives the opportunity of visiting hundreds of exciting and interesting websites dealing with gems, rocks and minerals. In practice each of them includes a section of links, so that you can browse more and more pages by often looking at exceptional specimens and having a chance to find and buy new items for your own collection from any remote angle in the world.
Of course, any specimen can be appealing and desirable... if you like it! Thus, the more websites you visit, the more you will be able to find some interesting and convenient stuff for you. Nevertheless, I cannot list all the minerals websites I know (it should be probably an unpracticable task), but just a few that in my opinion often offer specimens of good quality and/or many useful informations for collectors.
This way, I hope to provide my guests with a limited selection of very valid and special Links.
Enjoing your hunting on the Web and... good luck!

Yon can't be a mineral collector if you don't know the Mineralogical Record, the most famous and authoritative magazine worldwide dealing with minerals. The site is amazing as well, and exhibits a professional web design with an impressive quantity of informations concerning new finds, scientific articles, mineralogical museums, institutions and companies, mineral collectors and dealers: any kind of useful and interesting data about minerals can be found here. Absolutely a must for any minerals lover!

The site of the Mineral/Gem Expo, held in France at Saint-Marie aux Mine every year. Besides many useful information about the annual exhibition, the site includes an amazing database of mineral pictures, classified by the best photographers, best collectors and best French minerals. A lot of impressive and wonderful images!

John Veevaert is a famous minerals dealer from USA. He started his online activity in 1996 and his site is well known among the collectors. The graphics of the site is essential, but the presentation of the specimens is very well done, through a clear description of each item and many excellent photos (despite John himself declares not to be a professional photographer!). In general, the quality of the minerals is high and the prices look quite good. The updates are not very frequent, but this site gives no doubt the opportunity of enriching any collection. Thank you, John!

Within the wide survey of minerals websites, "The Arkenstone" simply represents a milestone. The number and the quality of the specimens offered by Rob Lavinsky is exactly what any mineral collector is looking for on the Web. The site proposes very aesthetic minerals so that often the prices are not for everyone, but here the overall quality of the specimens is guaranteed. Moreover, Rob updates weekly four different auctions (two for minerals and two for gems) where the starting bid is very low and it is actually possible to buy very good specimens at a low price. Try and enjoy!

This brief summary, as any other "Links" section you can find browsing the Web, is really nothing when compared to "The Vug", an incredible collection of links which allows to visit hundreds of sites all over the world. When a mineral collector enters The Vug is very difficult to go out! Even better, the attention is daily focused on all the updated sites, so you are continuously informed on what's news on the Web. Simply the best way to see what the net-market offers day by day!

I believe the Spanish site of Jordi Fabre is the most famous in Europe, and this is certainly not a case! The site is very well structured, usually offers specimens of a high level ed is no doubt followed out (many guests even complain about the capability of purchasing the minerals, because they are sold out immediately!). Jordi is well known on an international scale and has an undebatable and relevant market penetration capability. Recently (during a brief holiday trip to Barcelona) I had the opportunity to meet him and I was strongly affected not only with his knowledge and experience on minerals, but above all with his kindness and helpfulness; furthermore, the quantity and the quality of his specimens are really impressive! A true professional in this field...

The German site of Wolfgang Wendel is devoted to the auctions, which are weekly proposed and often offer many interesting specimens, not easy to be found on the market. The site is designed with care and has a good software engine which allows to follow the auction trend in a simple way. Very often the site offers minerals for a sistematic collection, very interesting from a scientific point of view, but it is quite common to find also specimens with a good aethetics. Simply a site you should keep under control...

The E-rocks slogan ("We will move mountains for you") is really fitting! This site is a real point of reference for who wants to put up his minerals on sale or to start an auction all over the world. Consequently, the update is very frequent (daily, in practice) so that you can look at a huge number of specimens every day. The aesthetics of the specimens is often not comparable with what you can find on the websites devoted to the sale, but the opportunity to find some fine specimen is real, especially when the minerals come from old collections. Moreover, the site is very well done!

I really think the site proposed by Stuart e Donna Wilensky is the most professional one I've ever seen on the Net. It has been realized through some sophisticated tools and programming techniques which are not so common for sites devoted to minerals. On the other hand, the love for beauty and the refined taste of Stuart and Donna are easily recognizable by looking at the crystals in their web pages and even in the covers of the books available for sale in the site. Moreover, Stuart offers his own capability and experience to find, on request, some particular specimen for high-level collectors... even though such a service is probably not for all! In any case, for all minerals collectors and any lover of the Mother Nature beauties, this site is certainly worthy of a visit!

The website proposed by Tom Spann and Irv Brown distinguishes itself for the simplicity and the attractive design, but (above all) for the very high quality of the minerals. Generally speaking, the specimens are often miniatures and small cabinets, with an excellent aesthetics and worthy of a top-level collection. All the pictures and the descriptions of the minerals are very well done, and even though you will not be able to afford the shopping (...the prices are quite high), I strongly recommend to all of you to visit the many "Galleries" of minerals: it will be a pleasure for your eyes!

Within the quite limited range of italian websites devoted to minerals, the site proposed by Giuseppe Siccardi is, in my opinion, very complete and professional. The site is updated frequently and offers a lot of fine specimens. Last year I met Giuseppe at the Bologna Mineral Show and, in addition to his knowledge on minerals and helpfulness, I recognized in his exhibition the same qualities appearing in the site: a great variety of minerals, a good aesthetic level and very reasonable prices. To make a long story short, he is a lovely anomaly in the minerals market, characterized by many crazy prices which often (unfortunately) dampen the enthusiasm of possible new collectors.

A friendly guide to identifying popular gemstones, devoted to passionate and young collectors, where you can find a lot of interesting news and alternative links! While almost all gems are minerals, only few minerals are gems, and it is very important to know and recognize them, since (contrary to popular belief) it is not always an easy task to distinguish the two. I would like to sincerely thank my friend Rachel for bringing this lovely site to my attention!

Other interesting links for all fans and collectors...