Olde Towne Gemstones

This place is great! Awesome prices and a great selection. The owner was very knowledgeable and helpful. When I shop for more stones I will definitely be back!

If you live in the Washington, DC area or are simply visiting, Olde Towne Gemstones is a MUST visit. Mike (the owner) is friendly, totally knowledgeable, and always carries a wide variety of beautiful specimens for very reasonable prices. Whether you are a novice, student, child, adult, well-​versed, or simply curious, it is well worth your time to stop by and see the beautiful rocks, minerals, gems, and fossils. I’ve enjoyed this shop for over 30 years!

Mike was so friendly and helpful with our stone selection! He also gave us a discount for our bulk purchase, which was really sweet. We found this shop through everyone’s reviews on Unilocal,and all the positive reviews did not steer us wrong! Great little «gem» of a store in Alexandria, VA.

This place is truly a gem! Not only do they have an excellent selection of quality stones and crystals at unbeatable prices, but the owner Mike is a truly wonderful human being and makes it such a pleasure to drop by the shop. He has a wealth of knowledge about his products and is just about the most pleasant person I’ve ever met. I’ve been shopping here for years, since a friend told me about the shop tucked away just off King Street in Old Town, and I’ve been a loyal customer ever since. I would give it more than 5 stars if possible!

Did a double-​take as I walked by this place the first time; was not expecting to find a shop like this! I’m glad quirky shops like this are still able to be found in Old Town. The shop has what you would expect, a diverse collection of stones, gems, and fossils. The one complaint I have is that many of the polished gems and rocks on display in the center of the store feature cards and books explaining how they are useful for «cleansing» or «healing» or other nonsense. I wonder if the owners actually believe this hokum or are just tired of people asking for «energy crystals» and have decided to roll with it.

Great service, owners are very friendly & helpful. Cool selection of stones, perfect place for my kids to start their collection.

This shop as such an amazing selection of gemstones for such amazing prices. My jaw dropped when I entered, I was like a kid in a candy store! Even though it’s a drive, I plan to come here often, it’s absolutely worth it.

This tiny shop is a marvel which will satisfy the needs of your average window shopper to that of the most diehard rockhound. I love to pop in here and take a look at the geodes, fossils, and gemstones. My favorite item, and one I have purchased as a gift for several friends, is a birthstone bonsai tree. Ok, if your birthstone is diamond don’t expect to get a diamond encrusted tree for your birthday, but I think you will be quite happy with little quartz leaves hanging from a golden tree.
However, what makes this store is the owner. He is always willing to answer all of your questions. He is fantastic at pointing out some creative uses for some of his more unique items. One of my favorite pieces is a polished cross-​section of a dinosaur bone, which looks like a speckled stone; however, there is something kind of cool about secretly wearing a bit of Jurassic Park around your neck.

I have been shopping at Olde Towne Gemstones for about 5 years now and I have never had an unpleasant experience. Mike, the owner and operator of the shop is very knowledgeable of all sorts of rocks, minerals and fossils that he carries in the store and even those that he does not. He carries all sorts of specimens that he has collected in the field himself or has purchased in order to sell.
In the center of the shop is a large compartmentalized table full of tumbled, polished stones and other small desirables. On the table he keeps several books in order to identify the stones and learn what you can or desire prior to purchase. He also has stools and baskets so you can spend as much time as you would like in comfort and get as many as you’d like. Mike doesn’t tumble these stones himself but they are wonderful and of very high quality just like everything else in his shop.
Mike doesn’t tumble his own pocket stones but he does create beautiful gemstone trees of most birthstones. For the more expensive birthstones such as sapphire etc. he will use a different, more affordable stone of the same color.
Mike is a long time resident of the area and his shop has been there for well over a decade as far as I know, I’d like to say he’s been there several decades. He carries a lot of nice things ranging in value from a few dollars to a few hundred. If you are looking for something he doesn’t carry he is more than willing to tell you where you can get it even if its a competing establishment. One benefit to having been there o long is that he knows where things are in the area.
Frequently I spend well over a hundred dollars there and as a show of his appreciation mike will throw in a few of the tumbled pocket rocks I pick up. I have gotten a lot of nice things at his store not limited to but including a beautiful septarian nodule, corpralite, labradorite, amethyst display pieces, various fossil fish, scallop shells and barnicles, cellestite, large geodes, raw copper, quartz crystals, selenite crystals, giant sharks teeth and much much more.
Whether you are a serious collector or just a hobbyist; you owe it to yourself to check out this GEM of a shop (pun intended) in Alexandria down by the water.

This is my new favorite old town stop. There’s this huge compartmentalized table in the middle of the shop with all sorts of (totally affordable) shiny happy stones ripe for the picking. There are even STOOLS to sit on for the serious rock enthusiast.
I spent… AWHILE looking through each little square. Once I made my rather awesome selections I went to pay and the owner told me a little about each of the stones I chose. Great shop :)

What a lovely little shop! Mike, the owner of the shop is incredibly friendly and very helpful in answering any questions. This shop has a great variety of different items all at very reasonable prices. I will certainly be back.

I gotta tell you, I have been eying this place for about 6 months, but somehow I never managed to get down there before it closed for the day. Well all that changed today and I’m glad it did! Such a humble little shop tucked away at the end of Prince St. but with very cool (and reasonably priced) crystals, gemstones, fossils and jewelry. A great place to take the kids for some cool souvenirs that won’t cost an arm and a leg!
But the real treasure here is the owner, Mike. I chatted with him for about 20 minutes about the history and future of his shop. He’s been in town forever and is a local through and through (got the pictures to prove it too). He’s very friendly and gives the whole place a relaxed atmosphere, not stuffy at all!
I encourage EVERYONE to take a little detour and check this place out!

This place rocks!
I love collecting rocks (yes, i’m a nerd) and this place is just amazing for gemstone collectors, admirers & novices. The service is friendly & the owner is an expert in the gemstones he offers. I overheard him talking about several other gemstones to a customer and this guy knows his stuff. A great selection, this place is perfect for families too. They offer small tumbled gemstones, breathtaking larger specimens & even those ‘tree sculptures’ made of gemstones. The stones are pretty affordable too. You can fill a bag of tumbled gemstones for less than $ 10, that’s a great deal.
I even got a military discount, I love this place, it rocks! haha get it?

This is a great shop! Mike, the owner, was incredibly helpful and friendly. He reminds me of the times when customer service was the real priority for businesses. I had an amazing piece that I could not move across the country because it was just too delicate. He took a look at it and agreed to trade for it rather than just sending me off with «good luck packing that»! He explained many of the pieces he had and made suggestions based on what I shared with him. I ended up with two beautiful Ammonites. His recommendation — keep one and give the other to someone significant in my life (for me, this was my sister).
A wealth of information, good prices and phenomenal customer service — five stars!

i bumped into this little «gem» (trigger kneeslap) of a shackshop sometime ago, and probably should have written it up then because 1) no one else has, 2) i’d like the place tucked away off the park side to stay in business, AND 3) it’s pretty freaking great.
i know this business is tagged in the jewelry category, and maybe that’s the next closest thing, but it’s more of a place for paleontologists, geologists, rock-​huggers, and gemnerds to come together and be happy dorks. actually, if you’re looking for actual finished jewelry, i can’t recall really seeing anything here at all, but if you’re wanting to indulge your eyes with some pretty amazingly colorful and fascinating raw materials, polished and for sale in various sizes and with some prices for small samples going for as cheap as a buck, this is your place.
i know the first time i entered the shop on some random weekend in ’08, i had just recently visited the gem & mineral exhibition at the national museum of natural history, oogling over many a crazy rock and color formation, and thinking to myself «fuck those cut gemstones, these natural formations are pretty goddamn amazing… i don’t need anything pulling down my wrists, ears, or neck, but it would be pretty sweet to have a few of these wonders laying around the house»…sure enough, i bumped into this little shop just a few days later, exclaiming «holy shit! you mean i can buy some of that amazing stuff afterall. and for a dollar or two a pop!». yup. needless to say, after spending probably an hour sifting through and admiring the hypnotic combinations of azurite/​malachite, rhodonite, calcite, quartz geodes, tiger’s eye, obsidian, petrified wood, and a great many other minerals (including that pinkgreen clock-​like looking one for which i can never remember the name), PLUS some ridiculous examples of fossilized fishes, bugs, birds, and other once-​fidgeting prehistoric creatures, i left this store with a smattering of amazing polished pebbles, tilting them in the sun and mezmerizing myself the whole way home, and all over again many times since.
the shop-​keeper here was also amazingly patient, and more genuinely helpful than just about any storekeep/​owner i’ve met in these parts. he even offered to pack and wrap a few stones in boxes free of charge and without us even asking, which was great since those small colorful stones also make for some pretty cool oddball gifts.
if you like anything rock-​like, gem-​like, or fossil-​like, want to rekindle that longlostchildhoodschoolbookdinoasaurmuseumfascinat­ion, need to do some present shopping, or just like beautiful, colorful things, i’d recommend stopping in here anytime and often… after another visit to the museum’s «dynamic earth» exhibit yesterday, i know i’ll be making my way here soon.