Toysmith Crystal Mining

by Toysmith

Product Features

• Recommended Age Rage Five & Up

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 6.8 x 2.2 inches ; 1 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B000HGJJGI
• Item model number: 3564
• Our recommended age: 5 - 11 years
• Manufacturer recommended age: 5 - 9 years
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,512 in Toys & Games (See Top 100 in Toys & Games)
  • #8 in Toys & Games > Learning & Education > Science > Geology & Earth Sciences
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (25 customer reviews)

Product Description

From the Manufacturer

Excavate, study and then display your own beautiful crystals. Kit includes plaster rock with eight embedded crystals, digging tool, display case, drawstring pouch and more!

Product Description

Mine, Mine From Kidzlabs® comes the Crystal Mining kit with (8) genuine little crystals (clear quartz, agate, dolomite, amethyst or rose quartz) embedded in a big hunk of plaster, a digging tool, brush, magnifier, storage pouch and instructions on excavating your treasures. Careful parents might want to have the kiddles wear safety glasses (not included) when working in the mine. For ages 8 and up.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars great fun!, March 4, 2008

By 

momof2 "momof2" (Seattle) - See all my reviews

= Durability:5.0 out of 5 stars  = Fun:4.0 out of 5 stars  = Educational:5.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: Toysmith Crystal Mining (Toy)

This toy was really better than I expected. I purchased one for both my 8 and 5 year old. They started out chipping away little pieces of the hard outer plaster . After a while, my daughter got a container of warm water and realized that the water dissolved the plaster just enough to make their hammering/sawing work a bit easier. They were so excited to extract each crystal and looked at them with the magnifying glass and had a wonderful time exploring the differences/colors/textures. This simple toy kept them busy for about an hour 1/2 and they each have the 8 crystals to keep and enjoy. Would recommend highly.

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Not a bad purchase, July 23, 2008

By 

A. Williams (DC Metro Area) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

= Durability:5.0 out of 5 stars  = Fun:4.0 out of 5 stars  = Educational:4.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: Toysmith Crystal Mining (Toy)

My 10 year old really liked "mining" for these crystals. She did not attempt to get all the crystals out of the block in one setting. She did a little bit of chipping away of the block, whenever she felt like it. I actually found myself chipping away at it a time or two, it was thrapeutic for me:>. Once you see a piece of a crystal it's exciting. I'm going to look for a more challenging one for her this year. I recommend this, but you must have patience.

26 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Toy's much harder to use than you might think, July 24, 2007

By 

K.W. (Not specified) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

= Durability:1.0 out of 5 stars  = Fun:3.0 out of 5 stars  = Educational:3.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: Toysmith Crystal Mining (Toy)

I had to do the project myself as there's no way that this could be completed by a young child. The instructions read that you use the hammer part of the tool and then when you break the entire block up, use the scrapper to get the crystal out and scrap off the extra dirt. Well, as an adult, the hammer they give is definitely safe for kids because there's no way it's going to break up the block. I had to scrape the entire block until I finally found the crystals.
When you open the package, it does say something along the lines of "just like an archaeologist, you have to have patience and scrape carefully or you will scratch your crystals." Well, you must have patience because it took me some seven hours to get the crystals out. A couple times I gave up and had to put it away and come back to it. The one plus is that once you get one or two of the gems out, the others are often just underneath so it does get easier, but there's no way your item is going to look like the picture where you have mostly sand and just pick the gems out.

Oh, and if you are scraping one side and getting nowhere, turn the block over. Most of our gems were closer to one side.

Kit comes with a little gem storing page, a bag to put the gems in, and a plastic hammer/scraper. Our scraper was completely worn down once I was done.