Earth's Treasures — Attraction in Bozeman

After years of "meaning to", I finally, made it into Earth's Treasures. I promise, I have no connection with this store other than being a customer who went in to have a look. Whether you're a serious expert, or a rockhound who just dabbles for the fun of it, this shop is worth traveling some distance. Before I go into the really interesting part, I want to tell you about their gorgeous and imaginative gift items. Among my purchases: a delicately carved, 3"-tall, soapstone elephant. It’s a lattice-type “framework” of gracefully-shaped openings, through which the figure has been completely hollowed out -- save for a "baby" elephant carved inside it! One piece -- no tricks; no seams. Price: $14.50. The prices at Earth’s Treasures are wonderfully reasonable. If you’re a rockhound, now comes the really interesting part. Earth’s Treasures does not boast a very large showroom, but its walls contain an amazing collection of rocks, minerals, and fossils -- both raw, and polished & mounted -- including, many considerably rare items. I was assisted by Polly and had an awesome time. She doesn’t follow customers around, breathing down their necks, idly detailing every item they glance at, but she has great passion for the subject and is happy and enthusiastic to share her great wealth of fascinating information -- IF you're interested. Take my advice --- be interested. Along the course of strolling the shop with Polly, as she was teaching me so many wonderful things, I recognized 2 items which were lurking, unidentified, in my own collection. One of them, until yesterday, was being regularly, and, haphazardly, tossed from place to place in my front garden every time I pulled weeds. Turns out, it carries a retail value of about $150. As for the second item, one of their customers is offering $600 for the specimen they have. My sample is not quite as good as theirs. Its retail value would, probably, be $350-$400! But, dollar value has no meaning to purists. It’s rare and it’s beautiful and neither of our specimens is for sale. When I, finally, managed to drag myself out, I was delighted not only with the “earth’s treasures” in my sack -- but, better than that, -- I felt I’d been on a trip to a museum. ...

A wonderful little shop with all manner of our earth's treasures for sale. I have a friend, a teacher of grades 1-4, whose class is studying fossils and dinosaurs. I promised her that I would bring back anything that I could find while visiting in Montana (I live in Illinois) related to fossils and dinosaurs. At Earth's Treasures I met a wonderful woman (I wish I could remember her name!!) who helped me find several great specimens. I wanted each student to have their own collection so I needed 12 of each item. I had a budget and she helped me with the cost so I could get 12 each of everything we picked out. She could not have been more wonderful. I so appreciated her kindness and generosity. I even picked out a few things for myself!!! If you're ever in Bozeman Earth's Treasures is definitely a place to check out, you won't be...

This was quite an interesting store. The staff were very friendly, they welcomed us as we entered and twice asked if we needed assistance. What I don't understand is how they've stayed in business this long! The selection seemed limited to minerals, small fossilized items and a wall of framed, sun dried bugs and animals! I can't imagine the market is too large for this type of item but, I found it interesting, none the less. As a side note, they also carry metal detectors and related accessories; gold panning equipment (think small scale, sluice pans, gold pans of various shapes & sizes, and gold panning kits for kids which include gold flakes). I also saw rock tumblers and the necessary medias for doing so. Overall I enjoyed my time there and I'm impressed that they've continued to thrive in...