Montana Gems of Philipsburg

I love getting my hands dirty and it was so worth it even if it was 30 degrees outside.I bought the $45 bag to search and I did find sapphires, quartz and agate.I really enjoyed the store and the experience I had was amazing of panning for treasures. The shop itself has so my different items to buy and the jewelry is so fabulous.

Had a lot of fun, staff was great. In hindsight probably would do the normal bag and not the seeded one. We had a great time but it took a bit to learn how to spot the sapphires.

Great messy experience for kids of all ages and their parents too! Various rock bags and price ranges to meet all needs/wants. We loved the water trough and found lots of fun gems, stones, fossils and shark teeth! Plus the kids get to take home a geode to crack open. I guess it is bath night again. Must do while in town!

We loved this place! I did a lot of research and had originally planned to go to the gem place across the street. I am so happy I did the research!

Montana Gems is a 'mom and pop' operation. They offer virgin gravel to search through and a variety of gravels with different things to find. Perfect family fun and just as pefect for any group! We will be ordering gravel to have fun with at home! The family and employees are wonderful!

We had a blast searching for sapphires...we started with one bag and had so much fun we went back into the store and got another bag! The owners are super kind and attentive. Their dog was adorable! The bags are a great price. Definitely a place to go!

Really cool place! Beautiful jewelry. I recommend checking it out. Go panning for saffires and other cool things. Staff are friendly and welcoming.

Thank you Montana Gems for making our experience great! Born and raised in Montana but this is the first time taking my kids and the grandmas to mine for Sapphires. My 16 year old bought his own bag and ended up with over 8 karats worth of Sapphires. He chose to get two cut and will make jewelry out of them. Thank you for your friendly atmosphere and also great staff!

We had so much fun at Montana Gems this summer and found many beautiful sapphires in a variety of colors. We decided to have several cut and polished and Anna made a custom cuff bracelet for me that I just love! We plan to take family and friends to Montana Gems soon.

Buy a $20 bag of dirt and rocks and spend 30+ minutes mining for sapphire! We ended up buying a second bag and staying for an hour or so. We all had a great time. The customer service is fantastic, and the employees all seem to genuinely enjoy doing what they do.

We had SO much fun! The staff were all extremely friendly and helpful and patient with my chatterbox children 😀. We found some really cool rocks and sapphires and the kids had the best time panning. Highly recommend and will definitely do again!

This was the highlight of our day. We just had so much fun. Thank you to all the great folks at Montana gems. Such a great bunch of people. Friendly, helpful, and knowledgeable. You guys really made our day. 🙂

I ordered a necklace for my girlfriend for her birthday, and she had some issues with it. I reached out to the company and they responded immediately, going above and beyond in a way that exceeded my highest expectations. Beautiful jewelry, EXCEPTIONAL customer service. 6 stars out of 5!

Great experience! The owners were fantastic and very nice! I highly recommend going here with your kids! Had alot of fun!

I had absolutely no intention of pawing around through mounds of wet rock. That lasted five minutes. What great fun. Even for someone who considers rocks and pebbles to be a nuisance found in your shoes. The staff are super. The owner is a gem, get it? Gem? ;-D
This is a great experience and one you should not miss.

Made a stop in Phillipsburg on the way home and decided to pan for gems without rock loving kids. We had an amazing time, great entertainment.

Did the river bag with sapphires. Spent about 2 hours here looking for Sapphires. I had a lot of fun and found several. The employees were all nice and fun to talk to. The instructions were pretty good.
If you like spending a lot of time looking through rocks like I do, the river bag is the one for you. If you want to find some cool stuff from around the world they have a loaded bag. There's also smaller bags if you have less time or kids.

Was just there last week (sept 3) everyone was so nice! We got 6 bags of dirt to go through at home. Also bought a unique sapphire band to replace my old ring and one for my husband. I love it everyone has asked where I got it from and I tell them Montana Gems! We found at least 30 sapphires between 2 bags and still have the rest to go through. My kids loved going there we will be back!

I took my young adult daughter here because she loves this sort of stuff. She got a bag that had some sapphires in it. She happily went through it for hours. Montana Gems of Philipsburg has a great set-up. You go into the street-level store first and choose the type of bag you want to go through. They have some great loaded bags for kids. Once you buy your bag, you take it outside and downstairs to the screening area. The workers there show you what to do and what you're looking for. They have all the supplies you need. When you are done, they go through what is left just to make sure you didn't accidently leave anything good behind. There are plenty of tables to sit at. Some are in the sun, and some are in the shade. When the weather is hot, they have misters that cool things off nicely. One of the misters was a little vigorous, so we moved to the other end of the table so we wouldn't be drenched. Just so you are prepared, be aware that your clothes will most likely get a little dirty, depending on the type of bag you get. It's just dirt and clay, though. It'll wash out. When you are done, you take your treasures back up to the store where they will evaluate your gems. You can choose to have some fired to bring the colors out more. They tell you the cost, then you can decide. It's quite reasonably priced. They also tell you which ones can be cut, and you can choose to have that done, or just take the gems home as they are. If you get them cut, they ship them to you in 3-6 months.
My daughter had a great time here, and she's already planning her next visit.

Gotta agree with most posts for this place. Super helpful, high integrity, they want you to be happy and walk away with lots of sapphires. Well, not exactly, they will tell you which sapphires you found will with stand heat treating and which ones won’t. They will offer you to have them heat treated and they do have a very good rate for that. No need to shop around. It does take 3 months once the heat treating place has enough to do the process. So you won’t walk out with those but you will walk out with the rest. I ended up with 6 to heat treat and 8 to not. Those are lovely too and I plan to incorporate them into jewelry as well. I’ve heard bad stories about the place across the street but no personal experience so I can’t dis them but I’d recommend Montana Gems for sure. I also bought a gorgeous ring there with local Montana stones.

So much fun we went back for a second day! What an awesome fun way to spend the day, we found several very nice gems and will be back. The young men that helped check our slag for missed gems were awesome and so much fun to chat with while searching for gems. The owners are wonderful and we will be back to mine more and get our gems cut.