FMF - Friends of Minerals Forum, discussion and message board

[Gail]

Tracy, you are a delight. Don't worry, you haven't said a darn thing that is offensive at all.
This site is a little more civilized than some others and I think that people like to hear other people's opinions, otherwise why bother to come on here? I am going to try on this one, let's hope my attached photo takes?
Best regards, Gail

[Tracy]

It took just fine Gail. The tourmaline, and the label, are gorgeous. Thanks for sharing! And thanks to you and Bob for the kind words.

Now, if any of you ever want to give an amateur a mineralogical tour of the Smithsonian collection - I don't get to D.C. often, but... :-)

[Gail]

Tracy, You bet! I am going to be inviting folks every time I go to a museum from now on. We can have great times talking rocks, gemstones and minerals. I love it!

And, if all is right with the world, dinner and a cosmopolitan after! woo hoo.

[Tony L. Potucek]

Having read the comments from Gail, Tracy and Bob, et. al., I found common ground in of them. I view myself as the current curator of the specimens I own. Some day, as I move towards fossilization, with vivianite occupying the center structure of my bones, these specimens in my collection today will be in someone else's collection in the future. I keep all information that I know with certainty with the specimen, including labels for the next owner.

Like Doc Petrov, I make annotations on old labels that are in error unless it is just too historically significant (example would be a label such as the Cumenge label of a Morenci azurite I exhibited at Tucson this year in the Morenci case. I would never touch a label like that even if it was incorrect, but I would make sure a note was attached to it without damaging it).

Like Gail, it was an honor for me to put a number of specimens in the special cases this year at Tucson, and the labels provided will stay with the piece upon deaccessioning from my collection.

Rock on....

[Les Presmyk]

I find it interesting that some of you put so much faith in the oldest label a specimen has. If anyone owns a New Mexico fluorite from Catron County purchased from Dick Jones, you will know of what I speak. The original label purposely had the wrong locality on it because Dick did not want anyone to know where he was collecting these specimens. We see that more than it should because someone wants to protect their secret locality from other dealers or a miner wanted to protect their job.

I keep all of the labels with my specimens because that is part of the history of the piece. Do they add monetary value? I don't think so but they certainly add interest and the history of the specimen is important to me. Years ago, I spent a lot of time helping Jean Bandy sort through boxes of minerals packed by her husband, Mark, in preparation for her tremendous donation to the L.A. County Museum of Natural History. A number of the specimens had Mark's locality information down to coordinates within the mine. I took that as an example of how specimens should be properly labeled, namely with all of the information (correct, of course) one knows and then whatever the subsequent owners do with it is their business.

Everyone deals with history in their own way. I feel it is an integral part of each specimen in our collection. Given a choice of two similar specimens, I will go with the history every time. But, that may be that as a specialty collector, the history is more important. To each his own, I guess.

[mmauthner]

Just coming back to this after a fine weekend camping in Joshua Tree Park...and wistfully looking at a few mines I was not allowed to crawl into...

Gail, the kind of labels you are talking about (special exhibit label...and more importantly, special exhibit catalogs) are very important to tracing the history of a piece and evaluating its (historical, not monetary) importance. Even if better material is found later, information like this still records the esteem such a piece was held in at the time. A case in point, albeit not mineralogical...take an aluminum (aluminium, for those across the pond :-) ) fork...nothing special today, is it? However, now add to it all that this fork is from the Napoleonic era and it immediately has so much more significance (the metal was so rare at the time that Napoleon valued aluminum so much that his royal guests had to do with mere gold and silver utensils).

Les, yes, I am very aware of the "Catron Co." fluorite story...and that the proper locality has been renamed several times...all these variations help date a specimen from that locality. I think more often than not (and I may have to be corrected here) the real locality is eventually revealed (vis Chinese localities in the past two decades)...the rest become known as the "Lost Lemon Mine" or some such lore.

Tracy, no worries. Wouldn't it be a boring world if we all thought exactly the same?

Cheers all, and have a great week!
Mark