FMF - Friends of Minerals Forum, discussion and message board

[Gail]

U.K.!!!
Then all others....

[Joan Kureczka]

Well, it would probably be in this order:

Northern England
California
Afghanistan/Pakistan

Russia
Burma

After that, it goes all over because much of the focus for me is tourmaline and fluorite, wherever they may come from.

[Tobi]

Jordi (and all others),

when i started this topic i had no specific intention on whether this should be a poll vote or just an open discussion, so i'm amenable for any kind of negotiation ;-)

We can keep this an open discussion and we can also make a poll with a final result out of it. I can take care and evaluate the results, no problem. The problem is that not everybody has a ranking or a list of countries; some only collect special species regardless of origin, while others only concentrate on one country. So if we make a poll, maybe we should agree about a procedure. My idea is: Everybody names at least one country (at most 10) and we count how often each country is listed. So Gail's vote would e.g. be the U.K., Peter Megaw's would be Mexico (counting only once and not ten times ;-)) and Alfredo's would be Japan and Bolivia. But what to do with Joan's vote? Counting "Northern England" as U..K, California as U.S., Afghanistan/Pakistan as one point for each one?! It's not easy to decide and to make a poll here.

And we finally have to decide whether the home country counts or not. If we cancel Germany on my and Roger's vote, i suppose he wouldn't be happy because he describes German minerals as essential for his collection. And what if Andreas Gerstenberg (who only collects German minerals) gives a vote, shall we ignore him? ;-)

So there are many open questions. If we really want to make a poll, we should agree before about the points i mentioned. I posted this open for all in this thread because i think everyone should have a chance to say if he considers a poll worthwhile or not.

Best regards to all so far and thanks for an animated discussion on an unnecessary topic ;-)

[Joan Kureczka]

Polls assume a sort of value judgement that, as Tobias's post points out, isn't appropriate or valuable in many cases due to the many ways in which people collect. So it's probably worth just keeping this as an interesting discussion.

[Jean Sendero]

Hey,

Mexico, what else? Mexico 9 more times.

Cheers

Jean

[chris]

Hi Tobias,

[Tobi]

Hi Chris, not to count the home country wasn't my idea (see beginning of this thread) and i'm also against that procedure.

[Jason]

It's next to impossible for anyplace to beat out Tsumeb, so namibia is my choice.

[Greg Toomey]

1. Pakistan
2. Afghanistan
3. Brazil
4. China
5. USA ( Arizona, California, Colorado, Tennessee )
6. Nambia
7. Morocco
8. Mexico
9. Germany
10. France

I don't collect countries, but the minerals I am attracted to seem to come from these places. My collection's origins seem to be heavily represented by these countries and states.

Greg

[Jordi Fabre]

[Andreas Gerstenberg]

Hi,

1.) Germany (surprise, surprise...)
2.) Great Britain
3.) Czech Rep
4.) Russia
5.) USA

Cheers
Andreas

[James Catmur]

Back from my summar vacation so let me add some thoughts. I used to collect anything I liked regardless of the country they were from but have now decided to collect only minerals from

Spain
England
Portugal
Scotland
Wales

No real order there but items from the first two are easier to obtain than material from the last two countries. Everything from any other country is now slowly being exchanged or removed from my collection

James

[DanovskiM]

1. Mexico
2. Namibia
3. Morocco
4. Russia
5. France
6. Brazil
7. Spain
8. China
9. USA
10. Bulgaria

Greetings
Martin

[Roger Warin]

When you have decades of collections, interest in a region changes over time. This is because mineralogy is a function of the economic or geopolitical activity of the moment.
When I was young, the Congo (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo) was generous to us Belgians.
Then there was also Switzerland, France, Germany, Morocco and the legendary Brazil and Madagascar.
Then came the USA (Pala, Elmwood).
Asia appeared thanks to the war in Afghanistan.
Then Pakistan, India and finally China, extraordinary.
More recently, Central Africa.
There are two important drivers of discovery: industry and gemstone hunting.
In fact, the collection brings together the various eras that punctuate history.

[Forrestblyth]

England.,,,,, Its about the only thing left we do well lol