Mineral Show Vendor Insists Rock Is Worth $500 Because 'It Has Good Energy'

A vendor at the Tucson Gem and Mineral Show has listed a common smoky quartz specimen at $500, approximately thirty-three times its market value, on the grounds that it possesses 'exceptionally rare vibrational energy' that justifies the premium. 'This isn't just quartz,' said vendor Crystal Moonstone, whose legal name is believed to be Craig Petersen. 'This is a high-frequency transmitter that has been charging in the Arizona desert for millions of years. You're not paying for the rock. You're paying for what the rock has absorbed.' The specimen, a 6-inch smoky quartz point of moderate clarity and no particular distinction, was examined by three visiting mineralogists, all of whom valued it between $12 and $18. 'It's a perfectly nice smoky quartz,' said Dr. Nathan Cleavage of the University of Arizona. 'There are hundreds of identical ones within a fifty-foot radius of this booth. Several are priced at $10. This one is $500. I am baffled.' Moonstone/Petersen attributed the price difference to his specimens' provenance in what he called 'a sacred mine' whose location he declined to reveal. 'Most quartz is mined carelessly, which damages the crystal lattice at an energetic level,' he explained. 'My quartz is extracted by hand, in silence, during specific lunar phases. That's where the value comes from.' 'The crystal lattice is identical regardless of extraction method,' Dr. Cleavage responded. 'You cannot damage a crystal's energy by mining it, because crystal energy, in the way he means it, does not exist.' The $500 quartz had not sold as of press time, though Moonstone/Petersen reported brisk sales of his $200 'ethically harvested amethyst clusters,' which a nearby vendor was selling for $25. 'Some people understand value,' Moonstone/Petersen said. 'And some people are still stuck in the Newtonian paradigm.'