Deluxe Mohs' Hardness Pick Set for Mineral Identification, Wooden Case

A nice tool to help determine hardness of minerals. We often use knife and coins for rough hardness determination. Here is a way to get hardness of 2 to 9 in one easy package. Having the extra items of a streak plate and sharpening plate will allow the small picks to be used over and over again. The wooden box holding it together means everything is one place. Easy to find and not have to search for the tools in a drawer. Also comes with a nice list of 250 minerals and the range of their hardness. I did not know that Ice and Mica had the same Hardness range. 1.0 to 6.0 range. The chart is setup to list the hardness by Name or by Hardness. So you have two lists organized in a way to quickly find what you are looking for.

Cheap plastic box and inaccurate testers. #8 and #9 appear to be inverted. Very low quality.

This Mohs' harndess pick set is made by Mineral Lab. The picture looks much bigger than the real set itself. You can get it cheaper here at Amazon.com than from Mineral Lab. Postage is a little bit stiff for such a small set. Comes with four metal pens with two hardness picks on each end (i.e. 2 & 3; 4 & 5; 6 & 7; 8 & 9). The 2 & 3 and 8 & 9 are almost worthless since I use mostly the middle two. Not the easy things to use. You have to keep the pick sharp and then you really have to press down to test the stones. Also, the numbers on the picks are difficult to read. I kept getting confused the 4 with the 7. You can almost buy one set and make it into two sets by purchasing extra replacement points from Mineral Lab and then turning them into two sets. The customer service of Amateur Geologist was extremely helpful but that of Mineral Lab was not quite as friendly. Is it really worth the money? It is really hard to say. I think it should sell at around the $ 45 to % 50 range. Also, the sharpener comes with the kit is way too small. However, this is the only hardness pick set available in the States.

This is a complete set of picks that is well made and looks nice. It's kind of bulky for field work because of the nice wood case. The scratch plates for testing streak are small and thin. They will have to be replaced as they get used and dirty, but I bought the kit for the picks which work very well. Picks are a great but expensive. Yes, you make/use cheaper test picks by collecting rocks of the correct hardness. But a pick gives you better control and the ability to scratch smaller samples than using a mineral chunk. Also, some minerals are harder one direction than another but a pick does not have that problem.

You have 1 job. And you failed. Wasting much of my time to figure out #8 and #9 we're in each other's spots. How do you mess up like that on a tool that's made for testing? Absolute joke of a company

Let me copy and paste:Product Features: "High quality brass pinch vises."Product Description: " * High quality brass pinch vises. * "Here's the deal- They are not BRASS. Although, likely just as functional, not what is described.

Helps a lot with mineral ID, picks are solid and built well, has instructions to order replacement tips if worn out. If this came in a soft rollable pack that I could keep in my backpack I'd buy a second kit just for the field.

I was very pleased with the pick set. Just right as a present for a budding geologist. It looks good and there’s plenty of information about measuring mineral hardness. However, I was surprised to also receive a large and very heavy (over 1kg) US Forestry Supplies catalogue. I did not want this (I’m a private customer in the UK) and feel annoyed that the shipping cost may have been so large because of this unwanted catalogue. (The pick set only weighed around 400g). I think you should also warn UK customers about the additional £31 in Customs fees.