This is Throwback Thursday #94. In these, we look back into the past at ESCONI specifically and Earth Science in general. If you have any contributions, (science, pictures, stories, etc ...), please sent them to [email protected]. Thanks!
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Dave's Down To Earth Rock Shop was established in 1970 by the then twenty year old Dave Douglass. He stocked the store with material from his own collection, which he started when he was just 9! The shop is located in Evanston, IL and easily reached via car, Metra, and El train.
Dave, his mother June, and father Lincoln all have Mazon Creek species named for them.
- Dave Douglass - Titanoscorpio douglassi, a 3 inch scorpion claw
- June Douglass - Jeletzkya douglassae, the very rare Mazon squid in Mazon Monday #89
- Lincoln Douglass - Mischoptera douglassi, a winged insect that Eugene Richardson called "one of the most important fossil insects ever found"
In 1988, Dave and his wife opened the "David and Sandra Douglass Prehistoric Life Museum" in the basement of the shop. It has fossils from the Pre-Cambrian times through to the present day, or at least as present day you can get with fossils...
Here are a few of the stunning specimens in the museum.
Give the shop a visit sometime, you will enjoy it!
The September 1973 issue of the newsletter had this article about the shop, which originally appeared in the Chicago Sun Times.
AN INVESTMENT THAT'S DOWN-TO-EARTH: ROCKS
Sun-Times, July 23, 1973 Submitted by Wylma K.Kelly
If you are tired of the stock. market, maybe you should try the rock market.
Prices of fossils and semi-precious stones have been climbing rapidly in the last few years as supplies dwindle and the number of collectors swells
The same thing, of course, has been going on in art, antiques, gens, stamps and coins. More and more people are chasing a scarce quantity of goods, and prices soar.
Part of the demand comes from investors worried about persistent inflation and currency erosion. Disillusioned by the performance of paper money and securities, they switch into more tangible investments that they can enjoy while the value goes up.
In the rock market, many buyers are simply looking for decorative items for their living rooms. Others are rockhounds, the hobbyists who roam the countryside searching for un usual stones to add to their collections.
Some enthusiasts claim that rock hounding has developed into a billion-dollar-a-year industry through sales of rock-cutting and polishing equipment, campers and other gear, as well as the rocks themselves. One Chicago area dealer predicts rock collecting someday will surpass stamp and coin collecting in popularity.
Most rockhounds live in the western part of the nation, where specimens are most readily available. But the hobby is spreading quickly in- to the Midwest.
David L. Douglass, owner of Dave's Down To Earth Rock Shop, says his sales are two or three times as high now as they were in 1970, the year his store opened at 1312 Chicago Ave., in Evanston.
Prices on common stones have not changed much, but on rarer items, they have soared. For example, fish fossils from Wyoming that sold for $5 a few years ago are $35 now.
Speculating in rocks is tricky. In general, any good specimen will go up in value, but how much it will go up is determined by a variety of unpredictable factors.
The most expensive item in Douglass' shop is a $600 Phareodus, a fossil fish from the Green River formation of Wyoming. The area later was made into a national monument and closed to collectors so prices have soared.
For $185, there is the fossilized skull of an Oreodon, an animal that. lived 40 million years ago. Douglass found the skull in South Dakota Badlands in an area that militant Indians now have virtually sealed off from collectors.
Paul Trowbridge, owner of Trow bridge Crafts in Prospect Heights, says the price of opal has gone up sharply because of Japanese demand. Like the art market, the semiprecious stone market has been influenced by European and Japanese investors anxious to unload surplus dollars.
Other popular items in rock shops include amethyst, quartz, jade, agate, petrified wood and dinosaur bone.
Douglass, 23, opened his shop by stocking it with his own collection. He started collecting at age 9 and has traveled to Mexico, Europe and Africa in search of rocks.
Last year he drove about 30,000 miles looking for mineral specimens. While he is away, his mother, June Douglass of LaGrange, takes care of the store.
Besides digging up the inventory himself, Douglass buys from mines and other collectors. Rock cutters, polishers and books account for about ono-fourth of his sales. Business is so good that he has bought a site for another shop in Libertyville.
Douglass already has achieved a rockhound's dream of having an animal species named for hin. Five years ago he found the fossilized claw of a scorpion in the strip mine area near Coal City, Ill. south of Joliet. Scientists decided it was an unknown species and called it Titanoscorpio douglassi.
Note: a few of the photos were supplied by Phil Anderson, Thanks, Phil!
