Yooperlite portrait

[fuss]

Gathered this group together from the shores of lake Michigan in WI.

 

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[Kray Gelder]

Those are neat. I hadn't heard the name Yooperlite before, so I had to look it up. Interesting recent "discovery".

 

[stdenis_jd]

yeah, the guy that "discovered" it and marketed the name recently trademarked it too so nobody can SELL under that name. You'd have to use the mineralogical term of sodalite bearing (insert name of foid-bearing intrusive igneous rock here)

 

[Kray Gelder]

yeah, the guy that "discovered" it and marketed the name recently trademarked it too so nobody can SELL under that name. You'd have to use the mineralogical term of sodalite bearing (insert name of foid-bearing intrusive igneous rock here)

I read that too. You have to hand it to the fellow, he's giving tours at $50 a pop, and he even let's them keep their finds! Ain't America great?

 

[stdenis_jd]

I read that too. You have to hand it to the fellow, he's giving tours at $50 a pop, and he even let's them keep their finds! Ain't America great?

haha "Murica

even some guy in the 70s made millions selling pet rocks. Capitalism FTW lol

I gotta give the guy credit, he even admitted this was his plan all along - he started posting pictures and got everyone used to saying "Yooperlite" and got people interested in buying them, going on tours, lapidary art, etc. Then went ahead and TMd it. Brilliant...some say it was a D1$k move but I say meh, why not? Everyone can still collect them, call them Yooperlites (free advertising for him), make stuff out of them, etc. but just can't sell under that name. Whole hoards of people bent out of shape about it, but that's the way it is with anything these days.

 

[Professor of Engineering]

Very cool!

 

[Steve1236]

Nice finds Fuss, I need to get some uv lights and head out to the deserts, we have a lot of fluorescent minerals here in Az, I went one time with a cheap 10$ short wave uv light and I was walking along a dirt road shining the light best I could to see if anything would fluorescent and I noticed a lot of cow patties in the road, turns out one wasn't a cow patty and I had a close call with a mohave rattlesnake, been kind of hesitant since....

 

[ToddsPoint]

Too much rain this year and I never go to use my new UV light at all. I'm sending it down to FL this Jan. with my wife to look for sharks teeth at Siesta Key. Maybe she will get some good out of it. Gary

 

[fuss]

I do give him credit as well and thanked him personally for his efforts at a local rock show a couple months back. Without all the hoopla he helped create about these my son and I would not have become as interested in rock-hounding (most likely). The whole trademarking of the name thing is silly IMO but I get his motives for it, he is all in on these with merchandising and what not.

haha "Murica

even some guy in the 70s made millions selling pet rocks. Capitalism FTW lol

I gotta give the guy credit, he even admitted this was his plan all along - he started posting pictures and got everyone used to saying "Yooperlite" and got people interested in buying them, going on tours, lapidary art, etc. Then went ahead and TMd it. Brilliant...some say it was a D1$k move but I say meh, why not? Everyone can still collect them, call them Yooperlites (free advertising for him), make stuff out of them, etc. but just can't sell under that name. Whole hoards of people bent out of shape about it, but that's the way it is with anything these days.

 

[stdenis_jd]

Nice finds Fuss, I need to get some uv lights and head out to the deserts, we have a lot of fluorescent minerals here in Az, I went one time with a cheap 10$ short wave uv light and I was walking along a dirt road shining the light best I could to see if anything would fluorescent and I noticed a lot of cow patties in the road, turns out one wasn't a cow patty and I had a close call with a mohave rattlesnake, been kind of hesitant since....

Much of the chalcedony that I've seen from AZ, especially associated with copper deposits, seem to have trace amounts of uranyl nitrate and glows green under short-wave, so I'd recommend getting a UV light with multiple filters from ~250 - ~375nm - just using long-wave you'll miss out

 

[tamrock]

Those are cool. How rare is it to find those and are there better areas to search over others? I keep thinking of heading out on a get away vacation sometime around the Great Lakes during the fall season. Sometime when all the bugs call it quits would idea.

 

[stdenis_jd]

Those are cool. How rare is it to find those and are there better areas to search over others? I keep thinking of heading out on a get away vacation sometime around the Great Lakes during the fall season. Sometime when all the bugs call it quits would idea.

Anywhere along the North shore of the UP of MI, but they can be found all over the region - problem is, they're starting to thin out because EVERYBODY is looking for them on all the beaches. What I usually do is try to go to the out of the way places nobody else goes to, or hard to reach areas, or get out in deeper water, etc.

 

[Steve1236]

Much of the chalcedony that I've seen from AZ, especially associated with copper deposits, seem to have trace amounts of uranyl nitrate and glows green under short-wave, so I'd recommend getting a UV light with multiple filters from ~250 - ~375nm - just using long-wave you'll miss out

I had a cheap short wave uv flashlight and a lot of the chalcedony did have a soft green glow but the cheap thing broke already, I shake it and it sort of works for a short period of time lol but what do you expect for 10 bucks. The calcite crystals glow orange and some parts bluish and some none at all in one cluster, I'll look into those uv lights with multiple filters and go out there one night, thanks for the advice stdenis.

 

[Mudflap]

At the Mineral museum of Michigan Tech in Houghton, MI the lady at the front desk told me she is always getting requests to see the yooperlight so keeps one in her desk drawer! I never find any agates there so probably won't do well on the Yooperlights. <grin>