Same geo interest here. My dad took me up on a local mountain digging for quartz crystals, sheet mica and garnets when I was about 8, have been hooked ever since. Around that time he also bought a pan for gold panning. At best we ever found a flake or two. My aunt lived in AZ, sent me rock specimens and polished rock through my childhood. I have a beautiful 2ft long piece of petrified wood about 5" in diameter, numerous geodes, petrified dinosaur bone and other artifacts from AZ. And yes, Most of my rocks are in boxes and bags on the cellar floor, beside the boxes of old antique bottles I dug up as a kid. I too need to liquidate a lot of that stuff.
I'm sitting on a lot of my deceased aunt's stuff, my deceased folks stuff, my deceased grandparents stuff, my stuff. I've liquidated some - things with little emotional value, integrated some, but have way too much old "stuff" and really need to liquidate 90% of it. It's a daunting task - I have no one left in the family to leave it to and I'm getting old myself. That makes it harder to let go of the memorable stuff. I have cousins and their families a few hours away that will get whatever is left when I am gone, but I do hope to weed it out before then.
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