About Us

For the past 20 years, from our home base in Miami, Florida, we have been going around the world to find unique, hand-crafted stone carvings. The items you see on our site are created by expert craftsmen and master carvers who have devoted their lives to the art of selecting and carving gemstones. Most of our carvings are from expert master carvers in China. The gemstones used are of the highest quality from all over the world. Most of them were mined over 50 years ago, before the best quality stones had started becoming scarce or obsolete.

We are glad to be able to say that our carvings are hand-picked by us from the factories who make the best carvings in the world. Now, you can hand-pick the ones that you like from us. In-other-words, you are truly getting the “Best of the Best of the Best.”

Our Good Fortune

We were very, very fortunate to have heard about a stone-carving factory in remote China and then to visit it many times. We ended up becoming friends with the visionary Chinese man who started the factory, and his son. We are still in contact with them, especially the son who is carrying on the legacy.

A big percentage of the carvings in our collection came from this factory in China and were carved there from around 1970 to 2010. The carvings are almost all one-of-a-kind and will never be duplicated. The carvings were designed and then carved by master carvers who have since either retired or passed on. These days, there are hardly any new people taking the places of these master carvers. Plus, the supply of grade-A materials and stones that were selected to be used in each individual carving are almost all depleted now or too hard to find and mine. The carvings are truly unique and magnificent. You will appreciate the carver’s detailed workmanship and nature’s ageless work in making the stone-minerals used in the carvings.

The raw stones were painstakingly collected from all over the world and transported to the factory in China. Then with all their experience and skill, the expert carvers would first select a piece of raw stone and look at it, test it and decide what they could make from it according to the density, color and texture of the stone. Then they would start cutting into the stone to make sure it was of highest quality and color. That procedure could take weeks.

Then came the time to start the carving. Back then, most of the carving was done by hand, not machines like it is today. After they carefully roughed out their idea of what to carve, they intricately finished the details of the carving. It is truly amazing to see the emotions conveyed on some of the animal’s faces. It is hard to believe that those emotions and expressions can be conveyed in a piece of stone. Then came the polishing which is often overlooked when admiring a carving.

This factory, with their vision and hard work, is truly a legacy of stone-carvings that was passed on to all of us to see and admire and enjoy.

We were lucky to have frequently talked with the original owners of the factory. Below is a story, as it was told to us, about the factory and its origin.

The following story was passed on to us by the son of the man who started the factory.
My father told me about a recent conversation he had in Chinese with an old customer. The customer said to my father, “You have produced fabulous gemstones and carvings, but some of your ex-workers claimed that they did the work, not you. Is that true?”

My father said, “Well, I started to carve gemstones 50 years ago. I could have become a world class grand-master carver by now if I had chosen, but I decided to pass down the glory to tens of thousands of local farmers who we trained to become gemstone carvers. It was not skill that brought these rocks alive, it was wisdom and devotion.”
The customer saluted and bowed.

We, here at Master Stone Carvings, are truly grateful for all the special work done by the visionaries, factories and carvers throughout the world, but mainly in China. Now, all of us can enjoy and appreciate the results that they created and we now have.

It is hard for us here at Master Stone Carvings to let go of some of these carvings that we have had and admired for many years. Almost all of them have become our favorites.

Master Stone Carvings
305-266-3980 in Miami, Florida