FMF - Friends of Minerals Forum, discussion and message board

[John S. White]

I would just like to add that on May 26 I attended a local one-day show. It was very well intended which suprised me because this was a holiday weekend, Monday being our Memorial Day. There were a record number of dealers selling minerals and the quality was far better than in previous years. There were many dealers selling minerals that they had collected themselves and there were many who were selling inexpensive minerals that were more interesting for their rarity than for their beauty or exhibit potential. There were lots of visitors with hand lenses, always a reassuring sign.

I found this local show to be very encouraging.

Perhaps local shows fail when they attract top dealers who end up selling very little of their expensive things so they complain about how bad the show is. I don't know the answer, but I still hold out hope that there is a place for local shows. I have also attended a couple of them in the London (UK) area, and they were very well atteneded.

[Farlang]

Hmmm.. I am surprised.. well... you may have a good point there that internet created a market (partially) where it wasn't there before.. and that drives the audience to the local shows.. seems to be confirmed by John's observations as well..

so perhaps the topic needs a deeper analysis (since you can argue both ways)...

yes I agree local shows were in decline before internet.. and that (in my opinion) definitely had to do with a smaller audience.. urban population versus rockhounding (the traditional way for many to start collecting)..

So.. question then.. are internet sales the 21st century equivalent of rockhounding ? A mouseclick instead of hour-long hammering in one's own sweat ? Did we basically outsource the physical part ? Virtual world versus Real world.. Come to think of it... Isn't there a new (since 1 year) videogame out called "Gold-Rush" ??

Hmm food for thought... what if you'd have a video-game actually hunting/exploring/mining for minerals.. and then in the end.. you'd get shipped home what you find ? Just as videogames have a set of "hidden keys" to get extra ammo, find hidden doorways etc etc (usually there are cheat-sheets) .. one can create the game in such a way that with more perseverance and more in depth knowledge you will get to higher levels and obtain better/more rare/special specimens.. (and I am not talking about a quiz.. but a real videogame)

[John S. White]

A point that Patrick may perhaps be missing is that there still are lots of collectors who go out and hammer on rocks. There are dozens of quarries within an easy drive of where I live and many of them are accessible to collectors. When visits are arranged, there is usually a very good turn-out even if the rewards tend to be few.

The last part of Patrick's post may contain the seed of an interesting marketing ploy.
What if, for example, a dealer presented a video of his collecting experiences at a particular locality showing all the difficult and nasty elements of getting to the place, moving great volumes of rock, avoiding snakes, getting filthy dirty and sweaty, finding a seam or pocket, removing the specimens, hauling them home and cleaning and prepping them, then offering them for sale to the viewer of the video who was a "virtual" participant in the collecting experience.

Sounds like something that could be interesting.

[mmauthner]

presenting a dvd or some such thing of the actual collection and preparation of a specimen along with every specimen in a particular lot would be a novel and interesting form of documentation that has yet to be done!
nice idea, John!

[Farlang]

First point: I may very well be missing that point John (about thousands of people still rockhounding).

About the DVD .. interesting point... in fact I still have video footage, that we should post online somewhere.. of my friend Paul Geffner of their first big Georgia Amethyst find, the one that Mountain Minerals was selling last year in Tucson. Great great find. Amazing quality Amethyst.

I also think one can even go one step further.. and go interactive. It depends where, for what etc, and how expensive it is to get a mobile or satellite link.. but a webcam would be really great.. "join the expedition". If not that.. then perhaps upload a video every night on your blog.. (youtube also.. but your blog is more fun).

I know Jesse Fisher is probably out there digging at the Rogerly mine.. I will ask him, he usually returns to the mine in August.. perhaps it's worth an experiment.

I definitely believe too little is done to bring the world to the customer.. I know when we had the crystal gazers over it was one of the biggest meetings ever. Mohammad Khan (MK Gems) showed really unique footage of Pakistan's peridot "mines" (more like placing explosives on a mountain wall and run...) and the road to there..I did this to help show what was needed.. we know of US and European mines, but what do people know of these other countries.. it worked.. lots of questions on politics, society etc etc.. I think that adds (to me anyway) just as much value to a mineral as an old label...

John is right.. in a way you're creating a pedigree and that can be made in many different ways.. not just by previous owners...

[Farlang]

By the way if anyone would ever love to brainstorm about ways to help sell .. or present.. etc.. I am not in the mineral business (other than collecting) I'd be more than happy to share my thoughts..

[Farlang]

Ok I am replying to myself here.. but just found a few minutes. John.. I am not sure if you meant this but...

typically the top pieces are few and far between, in high demand and gone before you can put your hands on them...

OK I know that for the really high end pieces, dealers have their favorite clients.. so.. there;s nothing to gain there.. but.. self found specimens.. usually it's a bit different.

What if you created some kind of interactivity (and again no not a quiz).. with the video.. or webcam etc.. and then for the most active participants (not the best, it's not about scoring but about participation) ones offer them the best specimens for sale first.. or a lottery among that group who can buy...

Disadvantage is that you sort of create a closed off group.. then again.. the group would consist of ppl with most time on their hands which are... the kids..

well you can always do something of a scaled system.. anyway just a rough thought.. then again.. you can probabkly come up with a million of such ideas on one evening.. I wonder why.. nothing of the kind actually happens ?

Jordi ? Is it too much work.. and good stuff sells anyway ?

Then again.. good stuff + branding = 10-20 % higher price.. + reputation.. so.. and it's not the top stuff one is worried about but the mediocre stuff that comes in quantities..

I am just always so surprised why so little is being done with this medium.. still 10 years later.

OK back to work

[Jordi Fabre]

Well, is my opinion that the work is the real trouble. People who know my life they can testify how hard I work, and just to do the things that I already do, so consider new features it exceeds me. An other trouble is that every minor thing ordered to an external informatics company becomes really expensive. We recently tried to order a very small banner (25 Kb) to a informatics' design company supplying to they everything: photos, text and the concept, and unfortunately the price was really high so we preferred to prepare it ourselves = more work.

Anyway, we are working to prepare in this Forum one area where the people can propose for a while his specimens to be traded with other people without any cost for nobody. It will be just a free tool for all visitors of this Forum.
It is not so easy to prepare, it means that it could take time to offer it. Hopefully we arrive to fix it and publish it soon.

Jordi

[MARION Claude]

LES INQUIETUDES D’UN MINERALOGISTE

Mes inquiétudes de minéralogiste concernent l'évolution du marché des minéraux.

Certains ne présentent plus un échantillon en mettant en valeur son gisement, ses caractères et en insistant sur ceux qui lui sont particuliers mais insistent uniquement sur le premier acquéreur et tous ceux qui ont suivi. De la même façon que l’on parle en musique du « Ring-CHEREAU/BOULEZ » en oubliant que le compositeur a été WAGNER, on finit par désigner un échantillon comme le « minéral X de la collection Y » en oubliant de mentionner son gisement et ses particularités.

Les minéraux de couleur vive et encore plus les échantillons gemme sont privilégiés. Ce choix semble exclure des collections les minéraux de couleur sombre, surtout les minéraux noirs, soit la plupart des sulfures, des oxydes et des silicates

Les "rock-doctors" ne se contentent plus de recoller les divers morceaux d'un cristal cassé par la nature mais collent ce cristal recomposé sur un morceau de gangue de manière à créer un échantillon esthétique.

Les faux se multiplient au point d'avoir des sites sur Internet qui leur sont consacrés.

Les publications consacrées aux « collections de classe mondiale » imposent les critères de sélection d’un petit nombre de collectionneurs ou de collectionneurs-échangeurs et/ou de collectionneurs-marchands. Le critère premier est l’esthétisme. Au nom de cet esthétisme , les défauts d’un échantillon sont masqués ; les rock-doctors restaurent ou reconstituent les échantillons. Il s’ensuit une espèce de classification des échantillons, qui tend vers une nomenclature de records type Guinness Book. Cette classification sert surtout à établir une cote marchande, qui culmine pour les ikons (ikon=échantillon-record auquel on doit comparer tous les autres échantillons qui lui sont évidemment inférieurs). Comme on compare les échantillons minéralogiques aux œuvres d’art, notamment à la peinture, les zélateurs de ce dogme devraient se souvenir de la vogue et des cotes de la « peinture académique » à la fin du XIXème siècle alors que les impressionnistes étaient méprisés ; au XXème siècle les cotes de ces deux styles se sont inversées, les goûts ayant changés.
Cette classification artificielle néglige les échantillons qui sont décrits et photographiés dans les livres consacrés aux gisements. Certains de ces échantillons sont équivalents ou supérieurs aux ikons.

Finalement je pense que l’esprit de recherche scientifique qui anciennement animait les collectionneurs a tendance à se perdre. Les minéraux deviennent comme toute chose l’objet d’une brocante.

Alors il devient rafraîchissant de fréquenter un site Internet comme celui de Jordi FABRE. Les échantillons ont un gisement, leur caractères particuliers sont décrits, les photos représentent bien l’échantillon. A une époque où le marché s’emballe, le site de Jordi présente des spécimens de toute taille, des espèces courantes, des espèces rares, et notamment pour mon plaisir de « beaux » petits échantillons en cristaux caractéristiques..

Claude MARION
Maître-Assistant honoraire de l'E. N. S. des Mines de Paris
PS. Ce texte a été écrit avant que je ne lise le thème « Very little mineralogy in mineral collecting today » dans le forum. J’approuve fortement cette phrase de John S. WHITE.

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Translated from French (without to many mistakes I hope) by a sulfide collector:

WORRIES OF A MINERALOGIST

My worries as a mineralogist regard the evolution of the mineral market. Some no longer display a sample in showing the location to advantage, its specificities and insisting on its particularities but only highlight who owned it first and whose who followed. In the same way, when we talk about « Ring-CHEREAU/BOULEZ » in music we tend to forget that the original composer was WAGNER, we end up designating a sample as "the mineral X from collection Y" in forgetting to mention its location and its particularities.

Strong colored minerals and even more, gem samples, are the references. This choice excludes from the collections dark minerals especially black minerals such as most of the sulfides, oxides and silicates.

"Rock-doctors" no longer only glue back pieces of crystal broken by nature but glue this reconstructed crystal on a matrix to create an aesthetic sample.

Forged increase so much that websites are specialized in that matter.

Publications specialized in "world class collections" enforce criterions of selection of only a small number of collectors or of collector-traders and/or collector-dealers. The first criterion is aesthetic. In its name, defects are masked/hidden ; rock-doctors reheal or reconstruct samples. As a result a samples' classification tending toward a Guinness Book records' nomenclature. This classification is mainly used to establish a market value culminating for the ikons (ikon = reference-sample to which all other samples have to be compared and which are of course lower in quality). As we compare mineralogical samples to art, especially paintings, the dogmatic zealous should remember the rise of the "academic panting" value at the end of 19th century while impressionists were despised; in the 20th century, quotation of those styles just reversed, tastes had changed.
This artificial classification neglects samples described and photographed in the books devoted to locations. Some of these samples are equivalent or better than the ikons.

To finish I think that the scientifics' state of mind which prevailed among collectors tends to fade away. Minerals are becoming "brocante" objects.

So it is becoming refreshing to visit a web site such as Jordi FABRE's. Samples have a location, specificities are described, photographs fit with the sample. At a time where the market speeds up, Jordi's website displays specimens of all sizes, from usual to rarer species, and for my pleasure "beautiful" little samples with characteristic crystals...

Claude MARION
Maître-Assistant honoraire de l'E. N. S. des Mines de Paris
Professor-assistant National School of Mine, Paris

PS. This text was written before reading the theme « Very little mineralogy in mineral collecting today » in the forum. I strongly agree with this sentence of John S. WHITE.

[chris]

Entièrement d'accord.

Jordi est une personne courtoise, sympathique & très professionelle. Heureusement qu'il existe des vendeurs comme lui proposant des minéraux originaux et qui ne sont pas vendus à des prix exhorbitants sous prétexte qu'ils proviennent de la collection de telle personne.

Un autre point est la difficulté de plus en plus grande pour les collectionneurs débutants pour trouver de petites pièces sympas et pas trop cher. Lorsque je compare le prix moyen d'une pièce aujourd'hui à celui d'il y a 15 ans, cela me fais parfois peur...

Certains commerçants vendent à prix d'or mais se pleignent aussi qu'ils n'arrivent pas à vendre. En poursuivant ainsi, il ne restera bientôt plus que de très riches collectionneurs dans le milieu de la minéralogie, les débutants s'enfuyant en lisant l'étiquette de prix.

C'est bien dommage.

In English :

I agree with Claude

Jordi is a kind, sympathetic and very professional person. We (as mineral collectors) are lucky to still find people like him offering original minerals which are not sold at skyrocketing prices just because they were previously owned by a great collector.

Another point is the difficulty for rockies to find nice little specimens at reasonable prices. When I compare the price of a specimen today with the price it was sold 15 years ago, I'm just baffled...

Some dealers (in France) sell gold priced specimens but complain at the same time that they don't sell enough to make a living. If they keep going this way, only very rich collectors will remain, rockies fleeing away at first sight of the price label.

This is sad

[MARION Claude]

Mille mercis à Chris d'avoir traduit . je suis fainéant et préfère les subtilités des mots français.
Vous avez parfaitement complété une de mes inquiétudes : le prix atteint par les minéraux et le pouvoir d'achat d'un jeune. Il suffit d'avoir fréquenté les bourses de minéraux ces 20 dernières années pour s'apercevoir que la population des visiteurs vieillit. Je proclamais jusqu'au début des années 2000 qu'avec moins de 100 franc français on pouvait acheter de bons échantillons; depuis 2002 le même type d'échantillon est à moins de 100 euros, soit en 2ans une augmentation de près de 70% !
Claude MARION

[Carles Curto]

I believe Marion (and John) have partially reason. Most of the mineralogical forums never distinguish between two theoretic extremes (usually too much distant): collecting and science. But about this, I would denote a boundary mark I look as important: the market is the market, with its own laws, habitually far of all that mineralogy represents as a theme of study. In any case the market is only the market, not mineralogy.
In any case is true that the expansion of “high class” collecting originated, from value judgements often very subjective, a ranking of “top pieces”, but the question is not exactly this. It is obvious that mineralogy as science seems in process of extinction (too much frequently this extinction even seems supported for institutions and governments themselves) and from most of the ambits it is perceived more as an “utility” than as a real science. Plus, too much often, the spreading and the level of very much of published academic works is very poor and, in this sense, popular magazines that apart the impressing photography often have a higher level and quality on mineralogical texts and contents.
In any case and personally I have the impression that the supposed predomination of “fashion” aspects on mineralogy is specially noted by the special “visibility” and tangibility of this sector of collecting that mask the existence and the activity of a lot (a lot, I repeat) of collectors that, with patience and dedication, consolidated or are consolidating collections that are fantastic treasures of mineralogical information.
Perceptibly, lacks a point of encounter between the two extreme, that it could perfectly be in museums because as institutions they conserve and curate mineralogical heritage but, at the same time, they try to explain to the people the different aspects lied to mineralogy. In this sense, museum collections don’t precise essentially top pieces (although some institutions seem construct acquisition policies only or essentially from this point of view) but simply (and cheaper!) and good specimen usually are enough to explain notable aspects on minerals and mineralogy (crystallography, geography, history...) and attract all kind of public to mineralogy.
Will continue...

[Farlang]

How about black, grey and silver colored Bulgarian minerals :-) I have a Galena that is deformed due to layers moving (I forgot the right term for it right now..) so it looks like silver almost. I have hoppered (open) galena crystals etc .. pretty cool collection.. but noone cares about these ok.. but I know one day.. it'll be one of the better collections of Bulgaria. Amethyst twins on calcite and water/inclusions as well as .. I actually forgot.. it;s all crated and still in storage (after my move to europe).. still I had a great friend who was dealing in the best from there.. now.. I am not buying anything (the website and all) but he;s still a great friend. And.. it's just fun to have an interesting collection even if a crystal here and there is damaged.. ohh pyrite cubes in chalcopyrite nodule.. funny.. strange things but nothing trophy.. Oh and finally Veracruz lookalike Amethyst.. really many mistake it for Veracruz.. and that from Bulgaria.

[Farlang]

Algthough still packed in boxes and stored... I actually did have some Madan material next to a great great rhodo :-) funny..

[chris]

Small world Farlang, very small world :-)