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Mining consists of digging pilot holes roughly 3 meters deep and 1/2 meter wide into known geode-laden grounds. If miners hit a seam, they next try to determine the size of the pocket by digging exploration holes at 400-yard intervals to the right and left. Once they’ve got a sense of the geode pocket’s size, they excavate the entire vein.

To discover which geodes are hollow, and therefore drusy candidates, workers tap each one with a metal bar to hear if it’s solid or not. Those that are hollow are sawed in half to see if they are among the one in a hundred with drusy linings. Cutters reject most of the drusy-bearing geodes as unsatisfactory for jewelry. Many of these rejects make the final cuts for less demanding buyers from high-volume jewelry manufacturing centers such as China and India. Variable standards of acceptability helps to explain the vast price ranges for similar-looking drusy quartzes—anywhere from $15 to $20 to $150 to $200 per piece (and, in special cases, more than twice this upper end).

When selecting drusy, it is advisable to let beauty, rather than cost, be your guide, since drusy quartzes are not bank-breakingly expensive to begin with. Lazar says he looks for at least five things when buying drusy: color, pattern, crystal quality, extent of the drusy overlay, and craftsmanship.

Drusy color refers to the color of the base material, or matrix, over which the drusy topping has formed. Usually, the base color is gray or brown, but once in awhile you find luscious value-jumping shades of orange, yellow, and white. Expect to be charged more if the base is banded or spotted with colors. The cost spikes even higher if the base contains tree-like dendritic patterns.

Next, evaluate the drusy lining. There is some latitude given for crystal size. Some like drusy layers to be coarse and distinctly granulated while others like them smaller, less defined, and more velvety. No matter what your preference, make sure the layer has brightness and sparkle and is evenly spread to the edges of the piece. Dull, non-reflective drusy layers are penalized. Areas of exposed matrix give buyers extra leverage with sellers.

For the past decade, thanks largely to Bill Heher of Rare Earth Minerals, Trumbull, Connecticut, thin-film coated drusy with metallic colors have been more popular than untreated drusy. That is why durability of treatment is of paramount importance. Every U.S. dealer I talked to urged jewelers to buy drusy treated by high-tech specialists like Azotic Coating Technology, Rochester, Minnesota.

Last, examine the drusy for artistry and craftsmanship. Many are cut for weight rather than wonder. To add insult to injury, they are cut too hastily and sloppily. At first, you may not see where cutters have skimped on precision. But keep looking and you’ll begin to see the lack of detail in cheap, volume-cut drusy and you’ll be willing to pay top dollar for stones that show the attention to detail that sets apart drusy masters like Greg Genovese.