FMF - Friends of Minerals Forum, discussion and message board

[Maxilos]

Hi,

I'm going to London with my school. We're with 13 persons and we were alowed to choose where we wanted to go. I of course said National Historical/Geological Museum London. It looks promising. The minerals look great, the Japanese Stibnite in particular.

I hope you've got more of those nice pictures!

Kind regards

Mark

[nurbo]

Hi again,
More pics. Maxilos if you can go do, but avoid weekends if you can, the lines of people waiting to enter are very long at the weekends and it can take an hour or so to get in to the museum.

[Jesse Fisher]

Just a quick tip to anyone trying to photograph minerals that are behind glass - if your camera is set on autofocus, it will almost invariably focus on the glass and rarely on the objects behind it. For best results, use a camera that can be switched to a manual focus mode. Also, if you are using a flash, try to shoot at an oblique angle to the glass to avoid getting reflections of the flash in the image.

[Darren]

Gotta love those Barytes!!! And the fluorite on quartz - wow! Thanks, Jesse!!! I remember reading a review of the museum a few years ago that was not very nice! Kind of cool to see it, thanks.

Darren

[nurbo]

hi
I took these on my old mobile, so manual focus is out of the question, Id like to think they are adequate to whet the appetite of potential visitors though. I did discover that you get slightly better photos if you press the phone camera lense onto the glass rather than taking them from a distance. Next time I go Ill take my proper camera.
I emailed the gift shop to complain about the whole burnt Amethyst thing and they have now sent me 2 emails, apologising and saying they will look into it and keep me informed. This I find very impressive, they got in touch pretty much straight away and I believe they will do something about it. I think it devalues their biggest potential selling point for minerals, that being an NHM label, I was looking for a specimen to buy at the museum, but the gift shop had nothing of any interest for me, They must have hundreds of pieces gathering dust that could be sold off to raise funds to improve the collection, Im surprised they dont have an online shop for deaccessioned pieces carrying the NHM label, I for one would buy stuff.
Some more pics .........

[Jordi Fabre]

[ian jones]

Nurbo - DSC00255.JPG "with wad". Wad is an indeterminate manganese ore, usually a mixture of pyrolusite and romanechite.

Darren - The not very nice review that you recall is of the then new mineral gallery in what was the Geological Museum, now incorporated into the Natural History Museum. It is the display that Jesse mentions above, and is a disaster! The quality of the specimens is something else though, they are superb.

Anyone visiting London should see both galleries, bring a torch for the new gallery though!

[Alan.Hart]

Ah I see many old friends here. Yes Jordi, we do have some images, but we are now embarking on a more structured programme of image digitisation. Some of our best material will go to our photo studio, some will be more 'automated' through pushing through a lighting/camera set-up to basically 'capture' the specimen for databases.

I often thought of perhaps uploading some images on a regular basis for people to see the collection - not sure what our IPR and digital asset department will think however - again something that might not be thought of as having to consider but National Museums funded out of the public purse do!

The 'shop' has contacted me, and I shall have a meeting with them with regard to disclosure of treatments so thats a good way forward i will even suggest some stocking options as well.

As many of you have seen our 'new diamond' is in place, we even had some queueing down the gallery outside the Vault which was good to see.

And below, a little image to enjoy!

[Elise]

[Jesse Fisher]

One of the great treasures housed at the NHM London is the Sir Arthur Russell collection. During the early to mid 20th century Russell assembled one of the finest and most thorough collections of British minerals ever gathered together. It is said that he almost spent the family into poverty in doing so, but upon his death in 1964, the collection was willed in it's entirety to the museum. Unfortunately for the visiting public, much of it is not on display and advance arrangements must be made to see it. Fortunately, Alan and Mike have been quite accommodating on my repeated visits over the past few years while researching English fluorite localities. Below are a few photos of some of my favorite Northern English fluorites fro the collection. In deference to Ian Jones, I'll try to get some Cornish fluorites posted soon - unless he wants to!

[Jordi Fabre]

Just a quick note confirming all that Jesse said, specially the amazing quality of the whole Russell collection and also add that the NHM owns another fabulous treasure: the Henry Ludlam collection.

[Jesse Fisher]

Yes, the Ludlam collection is older and less well-known than Russell's but contains some important specimens, such as this matlockite (the coin is 2.5 cm).

[Alan.Hart]

Hi again, yes the Ludlam collection contains some incredible specimens. We have now moved the 17,500 specimens of the Collection into the Russell room where Austin Woodbridge has spent the last 4 years re-housing and pulling together all the associated information. I remember when Mike and I first saw this matlockite - we werespeechless - we even had it x-rayed to ensure ID as at first we had a niggling feeling that it may possibly be an odd 'baryte'. we have some original letters from Ludlam to the miners who first discovered these specimens and as you can read, Henry Ludlam was very keen to get what he could(!).

Interestingly one of our best proustite specimens that is now in the Mineral collection was purchased by Ludlam for £200 from Stevens Sales Rooms in the Strand, after which he promptly donated it to us (then of course the BM). Amazing.

[nurbo]

Thanks Ian, Ive never come across wad before,
This thread seems to have taken on a life of its own now, so I will bow out with my badly taken phoio's in the hope that better pictures than I managed with my phone will be posted over the coming weeks.
I love the Russell Chalcocite Alan and thanks for posting the Fluorites Jesse, they are pretty stunning too. The Bolts Burn elongated cube is really weird,

[Woody Thompson]

I finally had my first visit to the Natural History Museum this past October. The breadth and quality of the mineral gallery met and exceeded my expectations! Thanks to Mike Rumsey for a backstage tour and the chance to see some remarkable Cornish specimens in the Russell collection. It was a great help in some collection research that I'm doing. Will post a few photos here.