FMF - Friends of Minerals Forum, discussion and message board

[Jesse Fisher]

As collectors of older and sometimes historic mineral localities we are often faced with the fact that exacting location information may be lacking for any of a number of possible reasons. Simply put, however, most collectors in years past seemed happy with only general location information, where-as modern collectors generally demand as precise location information as possible. This often leads to a situation where a modern dealer or collector when faced with such a situation will make a guess as to the exact mine a specimen came from. Sometimes these guesses are based on a knowledge of a particular mining region and sometimes they could just be qualified as "wishful thinking". Regardless, once a location is added to a specimen it tends to travel with the piece to new owners who, by and large, will accept it as true. Following is an example of just this.

One of the focuses of our collection is the minerals of Northern England, particularly fluorite from the North Pennines Orefield. One of the lesser-known mines there, the St Peter's Mine in East Allendale, Northumberland was the site of a find of some very attractive green fluorite during the mid 1930s. Most (if not all) of this find was acquired by the famous English collector Sir Arthur Russell and now resides along with the rest of his collection in the Natural History Museum London. The thought of finding (and acquiring) a specimen from this find represents something of a "holy grail" for local collectors. For a number of years I had been aware of a specimen such as this, and when the last collection that held it came on the market I was successful in getting it for our collection. The specimen came with labels from three previous owners, the earliest being English dealer/collector Ralph Sutcliffe. When and where he got it is not recorded, but in 1991 he sold his collection (with the specimen in question) to fellow English collector Lindsay Greenbank. In the early 2000s Lindsay began to disburse his collection and sold the specimen to American collectors Al and Sue Liebtrau. Their collection was acquired by an American dealer in late 2024, who sold it on to us. All previous collection labels identified the specimen as coming from the St Peter's Mine.

After receiving the specimen, I had a look at the Mindat page for the location and quickly found a photo posted by Rock Currier a few years back of the same piece. His caption stated that he had taken the photo in 1972 and that it was (at that time) in the Carnegie Museum of Natural History (Pittsburgh, PA) and was from the William Jefferis collection. Jefferis was a prominent collector in the eastern US during the mid to late 19th century and after his passing in 1906 his collection passed to the museum. Having some knowledge of the history of the St Peter's Mine this immediately raised a question as to the accuracy of the location attribution as workings at the mine had just begun at the time of Jefferis' death. Not much of a chance for a specimen to come out of a remote location in Northern England and make its way to a collection across the Atlantic Ocean.

I then sent off an e-mail explaining the situation to the museum and quickly received a reply from collection manager Debra Wilson that, in fact, the specimen was from the Jefferis collection and that his records stated that he acquired it in 1878 from British mineral dealer Bryce M. Wright. The given location was simply "Cumberland" which is an old county name for the region west of Weardale, which is no longer in use. It was, however, where many of the late 19th century local mineral dealers operated from, so applying a location such as that was not unusual at the time.

Regardless, it became obvious that the current given location was applied to the specimen by an unknown individual after it left the museum. The museum had no record of who it went to as it was never properly deaccessioned from their collection, so it is unlikely I will ever find out more as all subsequent owners are no longer around to ask. This could have been done by a dealer to enhance the specimen's salability by giving it a desirable location, or simply because a modern owner wanted a more specific location and settled on something likely without first checking if that were even a possibility give the specimen's history.

In the end, I guess this is just another reminder that if something looks too good to be true, then it likely is!

[James Catmur]

Jesse

This often happens as dealers try to be more precise or to add value to a specimen. I have sold specimens myself with just broad information and then seen them again with precise information. Thanks for the story

[alfredo]

A great example, Jesse, thanks to your research, of "unwarranted specificity"! Collectors (and consequently dealers) seem to feel a lot of pressure to have a mine name for each specimen. We see this for example with the endless number of phosphophyllite specimens from Bolivia attributed to the "Unificada mine", a name which doesn't even refer to a specific mine at all, but hey, it's a mine name so let's stick it on the label. The majority of these specimens were sold in Bolivia as just being from "Potosí", and the "Unificada" label was added after arrival in the northern hemisphere.

On Mindat there are (or were) a couple of managers/photo reviewers who would downgrade photos for having a vague locality, and I was in constant battle against this tendency. Demoting a photo when the uploader does not have a specific mine name to go with it just increases the pressure on people to "guess" a more precise locality, and guessing degrades the overall Mindat data quality. We must never do this. Far better to reward people for their honesty when they admit they don't know a more precise locality.