My son found all this in our backyard. A pretty large smoky quartz, a small amozonite, quartz and granite with crystals and gold? is the multicolor Jasper? .....and we don't know what the silver and gold bunch is? Any suggestions? He thought it would be cool if any of it was worth a buck or two. He called around some rockshops in the Springs and in Woodland with no luck finding out where to take and value or even sell these rocks. Opinions and advice are welcome. Thanks!

Hello there... that's awesome your son found these, tell him to keep looking, it looks like you live in a great area...

About the multicolor rock, yes it is jasper, nice colors...
Great smoky crystal, finding amazonite in the same area there's a possibility of a combo...
With the little pocket of crystals indicated in that one sample you might run into larger pockets which would be awesome.
I can't tell from the pictures if you might have some gold there or not, it looks like one piece had a crystal structure
to it... in that case it's probably pyrite, sometimes you can use a magnet to find out...

As to selling them to a rock shop it's been my experience they are looking for specimens like this:

http://pinnacle5minerals.com/GlacierPeakWe...talPeakSpec.htm

Happy hunting...

I'm jealous, that is an awesome back yard!! I'd have my whole back yard dug up!!

Hi BoxOfRocks and welcome to the CP forums! Very cool of your son to show interest in all the cool rocks he has found in your yard!! To me it looks like they may be from different locations though. The colorful one (Jasper) looks like a classic piece of Arizona Petrified wood I think. Did your son find all of these on the surface in your yard? Sometimes us prospectors tend to have lots of extra rocks that spill over to our yards. I know we left several rocks behind when we moved.

Make yourself right at home around the website and foums and tell your son sweet finds from us!

Denise

Hey Denise... I believe you are right about the "jasper"... it does look to be petrified wood... nice call...

I like the name. I am a Box as well.

Did your son find these on the ground or in the ground? Is he a digger? Do you have land or is this a suburban backyard?

Thanks for all the friendly replies. Yes, we live in a suburban area. We assume that it must have been collected by the old man who lived here before us for 40 years. We tore-up our whole back yard for landscaping and the rocks were kinda all over the place. Some on top, some buried behind a tree. We like to hike and go on exploring adventures and its fun look around at nature and rocks. My grandpa had a huge collection of rock. My grandparents drove around the US and he would take something special home, that was his souvenir.. it's kinda in the blood.

Very cool BoxOfRocks! All it really takes is interest, knowledge, motivation and your on your way to some fun adventures. We have alot of great people and information here on the forums so make yourself at home browsing around.

We hope you and your family have a very Merry Christmas!

Denise im still looking for that Jasper for you! see what happens when you get old! but im not forgetting to keep looking!

Thanks Russ! It will just be like Christmas all over again when you do. No rush, you know where to find me when you do.