Toprock is a family and friend business that was started 12 years ago for the love of nature and the addictive pursuit of its hidden treasures and obvious beauty. Humbly started by myself, Nick May, it has grown much larger over time with many different discoveries of rocks , several shops and the help of the rest of the team, who have joined as they were needed/ they needed or were found...some even crawled out from under the rocks . As most rock folks would know; you don't just hire somebody in this business, you have to have exactly the right kind people to fit into it, so to get our current staff is an integral part of our rock wholesale pyramid.

So here we have it, an international bunch of folks with Toprock, all living in Valley Of A Thousand Hills, KwaZulu Natal, South Africa;, Myself, (originally from Devon, England) my sister; Ginney, (English) my lovely wife Janine (South African English), Robert (our ex barman...Scottish Rhodesian)), Denis and Woangy (Malagasy), Victor (Zimbabwean) and Themba (Zulu). Also, recently, my father, Gerald is with us just to show us that he can still show these youngsters how to work (not likely considering we often work 18 hour days and that we are not so young, but...), my mother, who makes sure that we all get fed when we are so busy. Then we have our webmaster, Jimmy who somehow or other, is semi responsible for the website set-up who still chooses to live in the city but still does most of our website structures for us who is part of us on occasion (when he behaves). We also have my old friend , Mike, who is from Phoenix, Arizona originally, but now lives in our house and office just outside of Antananarivo, Madagascar where nobody speaks English at all and where he also terrorises everybody and keeps them all entertained.

The actual rock sourcing part is/was/has also been an extremely difficult system to set up. Although we operate very efficiently,  we are operating in Africa.....the place where everything doesn't always work quite on time and things aren't always what they seem. Cross this with Mother Nature and you have to have extra 'patience DNA'  in your bones. We have strived to keep all are dealings on a plateau of everybody gaining from the operation. We are 100% fair and honest with all of the miners and guys from the bush and try our outmost to make this a viable concern for all of them. They even ask us recommended values and mining techniques, packaging methods etc and we try and make sure that all of our rocks get into us in good condition and get treated correctly from A-Z. Fairness always pays off, and we have now built up direct sources with over 500 individuals from South Africa, Madagascar, Namibia, Congo, Zimbabwe, Malawi, Botswana, Zambia, Zululand, Swaziland and the whole Southern African to central African regions. From collecting, trading, prospecting, manufacturing, doing shows, owning retail shops and, more importantly, actually liking rocks ourselves, we have built up a fairly decent sized wholesale business which is, of course, centred around our customers, many who are now good friends.

We stock, if not the largest, certainly one of the widest varieties of different types of stones that you can possibly think of. We are constantly on the look out for the new and unusual, the rare and beautiful, a variety to keep it interesting along with stocking a nice, regular amount of items that we know that you can do well with as a retail or wholesale outlet. Sometimes we get bulk lots of selected styles of stock in, but we also have regular amounts of 'One Offs' and small batches of rare items continuously coming in and out. We try our best to keep all of our customers happy and are constantly striving to perfect and improve all methods, systems and anything that can make our supply line, us and you as content as possible. This isn't always easy, as we have cyclones, wars, bush telegraph and old fashioned transport and communication systems, as well as some very sticky African customs people as a regular pathway in our business, but we get surprisingly good results all things considered. Of course, we cant offer you a truckload of bright red gemmy Rhodochrosite crystals at $10, but we do our best to get all of our goods to you at a level where you can make a good, preferably very good, living. Being in Africa, where the economy tends to be on a lower level than many other continents, we are at the source and can deliver goods to you, not only at totally competitive prices, but also a lot of goods that you simply cannot get anywhere else.

Normally, to run a wholesale business of any kind, you have to be in a city area somewhere, as that is where the population is centred. We used to be near Johannesburg, South Africa's largest city(4 million people) and have loads of people in and out of our doors, like most businesses do, but due to our love of Nature, we decided to run our business from the country and use modern technology to our advantage. If somebody had mentioned being in the computer trade many years ago, I would have laughed and said; "Me Caveman, you idiot"! But here we are.. a whole pile of rocks and a whole pile of computers; allowing us to converse and deal with folks all over the world; more satisfying for us and a direct source for you.

Have fun with our website and look forward to hearing from you.

Cheers

Nick May

Owner Toprock Gemstones & Minerals