FMF - Friends of Minerals Forum, discussion and message board

[Alex Kaminski]

I am trying to figure out what kinda stuff I have. But I dont hve any tools what so ever to help me. What kinda things should I buy to help give you guys a good idea of what I have ?

[Pete Richards]

Go to your local library or a used book store, or look on the web, and try to obtain a copy of Sinkankas' book Mineralogy (or in some editions Mineralogy for Amateurs). It is an excellent introduction to minerals and their study. Among other things, it will tell you how to test for hardness (which you already have learned something about) and what easily available materials are useful for assembling a hardness testing kit. It also describes 300 common minerals, and I am almost certain that every one you have will be in there. And much, much more!

As one of the revered (and now dead) amateur mineralogists used to say at the end of all of his columns, "Get a good mineral book and read it!"

I think you should be thinking about how you can figure out what you have, not how you can help us figure out what you have. The book mentioned above would be a great place to start.

[Mark Ost]

Another very good guide is the Simon and Schuster's "Guide to Rocks and Minerals". This is one of the best field guides in my opinion for the new collector. It has very complete information on physical properties of minerals, clear explanation of tests and very good illustrations. For an amateur guide it is quite good and easily available. The book has a blue cover so you should have no trouble recognizing it. Take your time and read it through and concentrate on applying what you read to your collection. The basics will take you a surprising ways down the road and even experts constantly rely on what they learned during their early years.

I predict you will find this very satisfying working it out. That is half the fun. You will get better as you go and will acquire real knowledge in the process.

[Dale Hallmark]

I have the Smithsonian Handbook of Rocks and Minerals. I consider it a pretty darn good book. I like that it has nice images and contains many common rocks as well as the minerals.

The one drawback it has ...I am 60 so the print is a little too small :-)

Dale

[Pete Richards]

[Mark Ost]

Ah that explains a lot about your profile picture Pete. You thought that was the cat in your hands! I was wondering about the curious expression.

[Pete Richards]

[Vitaliy]

[cascaillou]

Hereafter are the most basic tools:

I would suggest to first buy a digital scale with 0.01g accuracy (useful for measuring specific gravity of stones weighing at least 3g). If you want to get seriously involved into minerals identification, then better get a quality scale (Tanita is good brand for instance, they make a 0.01g pocket scale called 1579D).

For hardness testing:
-your finger nail (hardness about 2.5)
-a flat blade of pure copper (hardness about 3)
-window glass (hardness 5 to 6)
-also get a flat polished piece of rock crystal quartz (hardness 7)

Now if you want to proceed to more accurate hardness testing, then just get all the minerals of the Mohs scale from hardness 1 to hardness 9.
For calcite, fluorite, apatite, feldspar and quartz, I would suggest to buy those in the form of flat polished pieces (rather than rough chunks), because it's easier to get a neat scratch on those materials when these are polished.
For topaz, a colorless crystal will do just fine (and it's cheap), and for corundum just buy a piece of synthetic sapphire (cheap).

for streak test: rough (i.e not enameled) white porcelain (you can buy a streak plate from a geology shop, or you can simply use the non-enameled back side of a porcelain plate or cup)

For transparent to translucent stones which aren't imbedded in matrix, one could also consider a Iittle bit of optical testing: polariscope and conoscope.
You can buy these from a gemological tools supplier or you can build things yourself:
a polariscope can easily be built from two pieces of linear polarizing filter (bought from ebay or recovered from a broken led screen), or if you have both a smartphone and polarizing sunglasses you could just temporarily combine these into a polariscope. And if you have a jeweller triplet loupe you could use it as a conoscope.

So as you can see the only thing there's no way aroung buying is the scale. Well, you also need a good mineral reference data book, of course.