FMF - Friends of Minerals Forum, discussion and message board

[James Catmur]

This summer I also managed a trip to the National Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh but to their stores not the main museum (which I visited last year). I then spent some time with Peter hunting down their old Spanish material in the hope that we would fine something old and interesting! I'll add some photos soon but is this really a Heuland label? Or does it just mean that the specimen came from Henry Heuland. It is a nice small Almaden specimen with some fine crystals

[ian jones]

It certainly looks like Heuland's writing, the style of individual letters looks like those on other Heuland labels. And it appears to have a typical paper "Heuland number" on the side too.

[James Catmur]

Ian

That is what we thought, so nice to see.

James

[James Catmur]

A few old Spanish specimens from the collection that might interest some collectors.

[James Catmur]

They have now put their displays on Street view. These are the minerals in the main hall (Space!), and you are standing in front of the display case. You will need to copy the whole link, not just click on it

https://goo.gl/Rt6HrG

[rweaver]

Wow I can almost remember visiting this museum back in the mid 1970's when I was stationed in Scotland with the US Navy. Nice to see it is still open.

[James Catmur]

Great

Use street view to 'walk' into the main hall. It has changed a lot and is really amazing. But there are very few minerals on display.

James

[Philippe Durand]

I have visited this Museum almost 25 years ago. I do not remember exactly what I saw, but I remember very impressive Scotland Zeolites and Cairngorm quartz; at that time I didn't know these localities.

[Gagat Minerals]

Previous year, I think at the Hayward’s Heath Mineral Show, I spoke with a very nice dealer and he told me an incredible story: one of the Scottish Museum (I'm not too sure but I think in Edinburgh) because of the lack of space, they threw away a significant number of old specimens. Of course not the best quality etc. but anyway I thought that this kind of thing could happen only in post-communist countries....

[Michael mc mullen]

See Roy Starkey's post 1st September 2011. As an enthusiastic field collector of some 50 years experience, it is regrettable that the public mineral display has no reference to the doyens of Scottish Mineralogy. Before the refurbishment Heddle, Dudgeon et al had their own gallery of minerals where the visitor could learn about the history of Scottish mineral collecting. Today the fashion seems to be about visitor numbers and cash flow so we have all the whizzbangs, lights, and virtual geology.
One would hope that there could be an area open to the public which is dedicated specifically to Scottish mineralogy........there is such a place but it is called the storeroom !

[James Catmur]

The Hunterian, in Glasgow, has kept some material on display. So it is more interesting to collectors.

It is sad that Edinburgh has moved what was on display to the store (north of the center). Not sure if they have corrected the label that says a calcite is quartz!

All that said, street view of museums is a new way to 'visit'. At least we know how little there is of interest.

[James Catmur]

Just attended a great Russell Society talk by Rachel Walcott about the work they are doing to understand and catalog the collection. Sounds like it will soon be a huge resource for people trying to understand the old collection. They need help with unknown labels and specimens.

The history and mysteries of the NMS Earth System collection.

[James Catmur]

We can also help them with localities. For example the FMF locality database suggests the specimen shown above may be from:

Mina Mari Tere, Grupo Minero Feli y sus Agrupados, Lumbrales
Comarca:  Comarca El Abadengo
Provincia:  Salamanca
Comunidad autónoma:  Castilla y León
País:  España

https://www.mineralogia.es/index.php?searchterms=lumbrales&searchauthor=-&level=search