Not your most active social environment or easy to get to but, for the die-hard mineral lover, mines are your best option. There, you will find minerals, ore,  gemstones and precious metals. Mines are ‘gems’ (pun intentional) that contain large amounts of these materials; however, access to them is not easy.

in the earlier years, it was straightforward to obtain permission to enter a mine and obtain minerals. Collectors would enter the mining areas and extract the minerals without interfering with the workers or collect on weekends. This is rarely possible today, due to insurance liabilities and other  bureaucracies. Many famous localities that have been abandoned are also difficult to access, due to trespassing laws.

Thus, the only way to collect a mineral is to either have connections to a mine operator or get permission from a property owner. Another possibility is to collect with a mineral group or club, which works on getting the permits and permission to enter active quarries where an individual would not be permitted.

Some minerals are also found in on the side of roads, highways, and railroads. Construction sites have also yielded many interesting specimens; however, these too have trespassing laws. Contacting the building management would b