Mike Duncombe is part owner of the amazing business, Sun Spirit Gems. You may already know that he creates the shape of each personal cut gemstone for all the pieces that go into each healing creation from Sun Spirit Gems. Mike cuts, shapes, polishes, and wraps each piece for your love and enjoyment. But, what you may not know is how Mike got started on this journey. Below is a bio of his life as a little boy, and how he got interested in his passion of gemstones.
Mike's words:
"I started collecting rocks when I was 8, a friend showed me
some rocks that his dad brought him home from a business trip. I believe they were just some polished stones
that looked really cool. After bugging
my mother a bit she finally took me to a local rock shop that wasn’t too far
from where we lived.
The rock shop was called Mary’s Rock Shop owned and operated
by Mary and Larin Nalder. They were an
older couple that didn’t have any children.
After visiting a few times and seeing a spectacular collection of
crystals, minerals and just plain cool rocks that they had collected I was
definitely hooked on rock collecting!
The following summer was filled with day trips to the rock shop. As soon as my mom would leave for work I
would get up and wait for 10 a.m., that was the time that the rock shop would
open. I would usually have a sandwich in
the fridge that I would put in a bag and get on my bicycle and head to the rock
shop. These trips become daily
excursions that would last all day. When
I wasn’t home my mom knew the first place to look for me was the rock shop. After a while my mom would just stop at the
shop and pick me up because it was on a main street and there was a lot of
traffic. I look back now and think I made a nuisance of myself that first summer because I spent so much time there watching Larin cut and polish rocks. He set me up a chair that I would sit on and just watch what he was working on with amazement and dedication. When the summer was over I didn’t get to go everyday, but we had made friends and my mom would take me once a week to visit.
The next summer as soon as school was out I was there again. That second summer Larin surprised me by setting me at the cabbing machine and showing me how to make a cab. I knew he had work to do so I didn’t always ask to make one but he had me doing other things in the shop. I started cutting and spent numerous hours just looking through the lid of the saw and watched it cut. Today I still find myself staring through the windows of the saws and get lost in the cutting. He taught me how to use a viber-lap, a machine that is used to polish large flat surfaces of rock and the basics of tumbling stones. That year I got a tumbler and started polishing my own rocks.
The Christmas that year, I was 9, I got a combo cabbing and trim saw machine. I immediately went to trimming out my own stones and polishing cabs for belt buckles that my mom would take to work and sell. It wasn’t long before I had wore out the wheels and they needed to be replaced. Larin found some diamond wheels and belts and recommended that I start to use them rather than the old style carborundum grinding and sanding wheels. That same summer, Larin said that he had someone asking for him to cut rock for fireplaces. He didn’t have the time to accommodate the customer and he talked to my mom about buying an 18 inch saw and cutting the rock to this customer. Larin helped us buy a brand new 18 inch Lortone slab saw, and I went to work cutting rock for fireplaces.
This brought a whole new light to my new hobby. We needed to find specific rock for the
orders that we were getting. Larin again
was our go to guy and he told us that we could go with them on a field
trip. Unprepared as we were, we
followed Mary and Larin on our first field trip in a tent. We went to Orderville, Utah to collect
Septarian Nodules. I had now been bitten
by the rock hounding bug! We joined the
Tooele Gem and Mineral Club and met some super nice folks that help nurture my
ferocious need to know more about rocks and minerals.
A lot transpired over the next 35 years, learning how to
silver smith, cut spheres and bought more equipment and acquired more rock to
play with. I met my wonderful wife that
also has a love for the treasures that the earth has to offer and a unique
talent putting them together. Together
we combine our talents and love for the rock to make jewelry that is beautiful
and one of a kind." 
Making each jewelry piece is truly a passion for Mike and Melanie Duncombe, they believe that creating these positive and energetically healing treasures is what each person in life deserves. No person should have to deal with the difficulties that can come with life. The thing that Sun Spirit Gems brings to the world is exactly what is made from the world. You can count on the best raw material and gemstones to be used when they are creating each Sun Spirit Gems piece of jewelry. If you would like to know more, visit their website at www.sunspiritgems.com.
