OUR WEBSITE INFO.  www.lepidolite.zoomshare.com 

My e-mail address for requests/purchases from the website the_wyoming_rock_shop@msn.com

Please note that all sales from the website will be completed through the eBay store! 

Biography

My name is Edwin A. Cole.  Eddy for short. I think I was born in Rapid City South Dakota 3/24/47.  As a boy I was interested in rocks and fossils and since the Black Hills and the White River Badlands were in close proximity I had ample opportunity to search for the treasures that the earth held for me.  After a tour in the navy I had several different jobs, but none of them seemed right for me, that is when I started prospecting for gold and minerals.

In 1972, I was fortunate to meet and become friends with Willard (Bill) Roberts, the author of the Encyclopedia of Minerals.  I was still a young man at the time and Bill took me under his wing, he started teaching me everything he knew about minerals.  On many of our collecting trips, questions and learning were very much more prevalent for me than the specimens that were collected. After a few years and much reading and discovering I happened on to a large skull of a Titanothere. The very next trip out I stumbled on to a saber tooth cat skull and I was hooked on learning all I could about Paleontology.  I was an avid student of the science and read all I could on the subject and listened very carefully to the people who were gracious enogh to help with my education.  Since that time I have worked side by side with many Doctors of Mineralogy and Paleontology, including such names as Dr. Dick Jefferies From the British Natural History Museum, Dr. Peter Dodson from the university of Pennsylvania, Dr. Takeo Suski from the University of Cal. And Dr. James Sprinkle from the University of Texas. This is by no means all the Doctors and Professors, Teachers and Students that I have worked with and helped over the years.

I have been fortunate to have gained enough knowledge over the years to be proud of the donations I have placed in many, many museums including the Smithsonian in the East to the Ray Alf Museum in California and many in between. I have also been rewarded for my discoveries by having some new specimens to be named after me.

In 1992 I made the biggest discovery of my career in Wyoming. While passing through a small town I noticed the Morrison formation was different from any other Morrison I had worked in. The local people told me that the area I had noticed had been hunted by many, many people over the years and produced nothing. After one day searching this area I had located 11 dinosaur remains and when I left this land in 1995 I had located 53 sites where dinosaur remains were exposed.

I have never thought to search for treasures of the earth in the established fashion of using the knowledge of previous prospectors (which they published) in other words, I do not use books to find new specimens or deposits, I use common sense and what the land tells me.

The deposit of fine lepidolite is rather unique in that, to my best guess, it is a late tertiary alluvial deposit from a granite pegmatite long since weathered away. What make this material so unique is the fact that there are so many different colors and crystal habits, plus there are only very few inclusions. Most all of the lepidolite which I have seen available from other areas of the US has a high content of quartz or many inclusions and lacks the intense color and purity of the material from our mine.

If you have any questions regarding our Lepidolite, feel free to ask me here in our question link or e-mail me and I would love to discuss the difference between our Lepidolite and other specimens found in other cities.  The majority of Lepidolite found today ranges in colors between white and a soft lavender, I've had the good fortune to find some smaller deposits of pink and  dark purple, these deposits sell for a higher price than what is the norm in color because of it's beauty and rareness and I have also found some deposits of green and black, both are extremely rare and we're holding on to the majority of these pieces until we see if there is more to be found.  For the true collector, I will sell only small quantities of the green and black specimens, but at a very premium price, due to it's rarity.