This event brings together vendors, miners, artisans, and crafters from around the world – including Russia, China, India, Pakistan, Brazil, Morocco, Madagascar and more – who sell everything from 50-cent tumbled stones to $50,000 museum-quality mineral specimens. About 200 retail and wholesale vendors are on-site who sell mineral specimens, fossils, gemstones, beads, jewelry, meteorites, crystals, geodes, decorator items, and lapidary supplies and equipment. One of the highlights of the show each year is a special exhibitor showing off his or her finds. Every child attending the show gets a free mineral specimen, and kids of all ages can select an inexpensive geode and watch as it is cracked open to reveal never-before-seen crystals. Also, for a small fee, kids can pan for gemstones and fossils. Visitors of all ages can bring their “unknown” minerals for free identification. And for those who want to continue their learning about nature’s geo-treasures, there are free lectures on topics related to rocks and minerals offered every day.