FMF - Friends of Minerals Forum, discussion and message board

[Jordi Fabre]

The cover of this month of the German magazine Lapis is a stupendous English Liroconite from Jim & Gail Spann's collection (sorry Gail, that is what it says ;-)

Therefore I use this happy coincidence to remind members that Lapis is a very good mineralogical journal and a highly recommended monthly European magazine. Its website is: https://www.lapis.de

[Gail]

I only heard about this last evening when Jeff Scovil called to tell me.
He didn't know his photo of our piece was going to be on the cover either, but was pleasantly surprised when he got his edition yesterday.
I couldn't be more thrilled as this is one of my top ten favourites.

I first learned about Liroconite on a thread on Mindat when asked what everyone would love in their collection, Jolyon Ralph...the webmaster and owner of Mindat wrote: Liroconite.
This had me researching for days on end about this wonderful mineral.

Jolyon has told me that he had seen ours before we bought it and thought it a beauty.
He wasn't surprised it ended up in our collection as I had shown such a keen interest in finding one to my liking, in particular. Jim was just as pleased when we saw it and added it to our collection.

I have no problems with Jim's name being first, I love him....there is no competition between us. He is always saying Gail and Jim, for me it is Jim and Gail. Either way, it is US.

Thanks for showing this Jordi, now I think I will get off the computer and go look at our new "cover piece".

Cheers to all !!!

[John S. White]

Just to underscore what Jordi has written, there are two excellent German publications for mineral collectors, Lapis ( https://www.lapis.de ) and Mineralienwelt ( https://www.mineralien-welt.de/ ). Of course, both are in the German language. Lapis also started the series extraLapis, which are individual books devoted to such topics as Smaragd (emerald), Gold, Bergkristall (rock crystal), Fluorit, Kristall Alpin (minerals of the Alpine clefts), etc. These are also in German and are not to be confused with the English series published by Lapis International ( https://www.lithographie.org/ ) where similar topics are used but the contents are usually totally different.

[stumpy]

Is there any history on this particular specimen?

[Gail]

All we have in our catalogue is this :Schlichter, Ernest; Shier coll.
We bought it from Dave Bunk in 2008.
I always wish there was more information on the minerals we add to our collection. We have many collectors visit, and that is when the fun begins with "I used to own that piece" and we put a sticky on the glass in front of the mineral with their name so we can add the information later. We find out more from collectors, in general, than dealers.

[Jesse Fisher]

Getting off on a tangent here, I really find it unfortunate just how little information on the history of many specimens gets preserved. For old and classic specimens, to me, this sort of information is just "value added" to the specimen itself. This loss happens, I suspect, for a number of reasons. Some collectors are only concerned with acquiring pretty rocks and make little effort to preserve such information because it is of little interest to them. Some dealers, likewise, do not seem to regard a specimen's history as particularly valuable. I know of a few dealers that specialize in turning over old collections who seem to purposely obfuscate the histories of what they get, perhaps thinking this will protect their sources from discovery by other competing dealers. Whatever the reason, as someone interested in collecting "classic" localities, I find this unfortunate and annoying. I'm sure some dealers also find it annoying when I purchase a specimen and then pester them for all sorts of additional details.

[Tobi]

Gail, this is really a thrilling specimen of - as Rob Lavinsky called it - "one of the Holy Grails of mineral collecting". How large are the crystals of that mineralogical treasure?

And John, you're right, both are excellent sources of information for the serious collector. I read Lapis a few times and was a long-time reader of MineralienWelt, and both deserve their good reputation. And the extraLapis series includes 35 titles by now; 3 are out of stock but the others can still be ordered. They include, to mention some more, such topics as Tourmaline, Garnet, Topaz, Calcite, Corundum, Beryl or Feldspar, also interesting geographical topics such as Madagascar, Elba Island, "Roof of the World" (Pakistan/Afghanistan), China or Russia.

[Gail]

[Gail]

Jeff Scovil is here, photographing some of our newest acquisitions, and he brought us a copy of the magazine. Since we SO love this piece it is a joy to see it on the cover.
Jeff is translating some of the publication for us and we really need to add these to our growing library of Mineral books and magazines.

[Tobi]

Congratulations to have him at your home and doing both the photographing and the translation. Does he speak German?

[Gail]