Crystal manufacturers

[Steve Harrison]

At 05:40 PM 12/30/98 +0000, E. V. Sandy Blaize wrote:
>        Here is my list (so far):
[snip]

Ya somehow left out one of the most famous crystal makers ever: JAN
Crystals! Not to mention International Crystal Manufacturing (although they
might be considered a "johnny-come-lately" since they started in what...
1955??).

And there was another one located in Torrance, California in a small
shopping center near Lomita Blvd. and Crenshaw; they later moved to Alondra
Blvd. (I think) in Hawthorne near the May Co. shopping center. I used to
beg my dad and/or mom to take me there (was only 5 miles from home) so I
could get still another novice band rock for my Johnson Adventurer or
DX-40... Can't remember their name, though. Anyone else remember them? I
think they might have been Jet Crystals. The place in Torrance was a single
room in a small shopping center and looked just like a rock collector's
place (lapidary) with table-mounted wet saws and grinding wheels.

And I think there was still another one in Gardena. I remember going to
Henry Radio in Anaheim in 1970, asking about their stock of crystals, and
the counter guy brought out a shoe box full of FT-243 rocks, most of them
brand-new and made by some guy who ground them in his garage in Anaheim
itself.

73, Steve Ko0U/1

P.S. Rumor has it that the reason there were so many crystal companies in
the Kansas City area was because of large quartz deposits in Missouri. I
dunno how true this is but I've heard it more than once from Kansas and
Missouri natives. A former co-worker in the KC area once showed me his list
of over a dozen active crystal companies in the Kansas City area alone as
of 1982 plus another dozen defuncts! Olathe, Kansas, where we were, was
home to three of them.

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