About Us

Mainestone Jewelry was founded in 1990 by me, Ron Gelinas and my wife Cindy, which was located in our house. The name for the store was chosen because I wanted everyone to know that our focus is on providing the highest quality and variety of Maine Tourmaline including all the other gems that Maine produces. I began cutting cabochons from the Maine Gems that I found while exploring the many mines in Maine. While supplying the stones to other jewelers, some in return would teach me setting and fabrication. We would participate in a few retail shows each year. Eventually I converted an area of our house in which to sell my jewelry. Our clients were local and our advertising was word of mouth.

In 1998, it was time to expand to a retail site. A vacancy next to Up Front and Pleasant Gourmet in downtown Farmington became available. We agreed that both businesses would compliment each other. The space was small and the right size for our inventory and client base at the time. Our customers followed us there bringing their friends and families. Over the next six years our inventory and customers increased, but the space to display our jewelry and gifts did not.

In February 2004, on our return trip from the Tucson Gem Show, my wife and I were trying to figure out how we were going to display the unique jewelry and unusual stones that we had just purchased. On the answering machine when we got home was our answer. A fantastic location near the corner of Broadway and Main Street, in the brick building we had always wanted to rent, had just become available. Were we still interested? We jumped at the chance. It had a rich history as a retail site, and had previously been a pet store, the Homestead Bakery, and Flood Shoe Store in the early 1900’s. It took two months of hard work, first gutting the interior to expose the original brick walls and rebuilding others along with updating and renovating everything else. It was well worth it. We now have a beautiful space in which to display our fine jewelry, unique gifts, and a studio area where our customers can watch us work.

Our commitment to our customers and their needs has stayed the same as when we started out; to present the highest quality of creative jewelry set with Maine Tourmaline and other gemstones, provide our customers with honest and exceptional service, and to treat everyone who walks in our door not as a customer but as one of our friends.

Our store offers a variety of gifts such as amethyst or selenite candleholders, deer antler cribbage boards, and Maine Tourmaline paperweights. Specimens, minerals, and fossils from Maine and around the world delight both adults and kids. We welcome students from the grade schools and University of Maine at Farmington (UMF), who want to add to their mineral collection or enlist our help with school projects, sharing with them the unique geology of Maine and its abundance of minerals, gems, and fossils.

For the avid collector, we have museum quality specimens of Maine Tourmaline in matrix with its associated minerals from the mines of Mount Mica and Newry. These mines are no longer open for collecting and therefore high quality specimens are scarce.