FMF - Friends of Minerals Forum, discussion and message board

[bugrock]

Hello,

Very interesting to see nice minerals come to light in the way you have
discovered them ( https://www.mineral-forum.com/message-board/viewtopic.php?p=5269#5269 )
I have only been interested in minerals for a few years.
Am also a Lepidopterist (butterflies/moths). The parallels between these
interests have interested me for some time. In your case it is the significance
of collections ignored.

Consider if a family inherits a collection of stamps or coins or classic cars (rarely
the family is unaware of the autos), there are likely shops or contacts (if the family
lives in community of some size) that can consult regarding the collection once
found in the basement/garage.

But what about grandpa's rocks/butterfly cabinets/cases?

I believe others have written of lost specimens. "What ever happened to
those truckloads of Mexican xyz; what happened to all those butterflies collected
before that tropical forest was cut in xyz?

I am exaggerating a bit but it appears many have dumped grandpa's collection in the
garbage or taken it to the flea market.

I do not live in a region rich in minerals but others who live in the northern portion of my
state (MIchigan) watch announcements of local auctions and if "copper" is mentioned, they are there. Even in historical mining regions there is lack of knowledge of old specimens by many.

Don't let grandpa [whoever] throw out that collecton!!

George Balogh

[Jordi Fabre]

Very interesting topic!. That's why I separate the post of bugrock from the previous thread ( https://www.mineral-forum.com/message-board/viewtopic.php?p=5269#5269 ) creating this new thread : "The significance of collections ignored"

Jordi

[James Catmur]

This is a subject we all think about from time to time.

I remember hearing about a family that dumped the collection in a skip (dumpster for Amercians) while clearing grandpa's house so as to sell the cabinets! I could never find out what was in it and it was too late to check the skip. And then there was the museum in Madrid that left boxes of minerals on the door step so that they could be moved - and when they came back to move them the trash truck had taken them (was that really true Jordi?)

My high school had a collection that was litterally falling apart in the basement, left to it by a former student. In the end it was passed to another school, but I suspect that much of it had deteriorated badly.

I suspect that many of us hope we might get a call before this happens and can help save the collection. But I suspect often the skip/dumpster beat us to it

James

[Jordi Fabre]

>And then there was the museum in Madrid that left boxes of minerals on the door step so that they could be moved - and when they came back to move them the trash truck had taken them (was that really true Jordi?)

Unfortunately it is still worst James, the Museum just threw them away because they needed room...
Not one of the two major Museums of minerals of Madrid (Escuela de Minas and IGME) but an other one. Really sad.

Jordi

[chris]

Hi Jordi,

It also happened in France. Some collections ended up as garbage and were threw away as raw materials. What a loss...

In about the same way, in La Mûre, Isère, France the muck from the coal mine (containing blood red sphalerite crystals) was throw away on the other side of the main road of the plateau. That is were houses were built some years later.

So if you are collector and know some folks around, you can try to dig a bit in the garden and who knows you might be able to discover "world class" specimens...

Christophe

[Gail]

On a slightly different point, Bill Pinch told me he sold his collection in 1987 but it has never been displayed. 22 years have gone by and yet they are still in storage. That, in my opinion, is as good as ignored.

[Ed Huskinson]

Ooooohhhhhhh!!! A black hole.

Good point Gail!

I have heard some people refer to this as "The collection went into a black hole and has never seen the light of day since."

It's always better when people and institutions share with others by displaying the things that are under their stewardship. Like you and Jim do!!!

Do you guys have any primary malachite?

Just curious.

Ed

[Gail]

Yes Ed, we do. Funny enough this came up in conversation a few days ago. Not sure how it got started.

[Singingstone48]

As a contact member of Houston's rock and mineral club, I get emails about collections that need to be disposed of. At least we as a club can offer options to those who are left to sort out the "stuff". Since Texas is more rich in collectible fossils and cutting material than minerals, that's what we see most often. We also get a lot of lapidary equipment looking for a home. We offer to auction the collections at our club, with 50% going to the person who brought it to us.
My personal collection got a jump start at just this kind of auction in NJ in 1963. I had just joined the Trailside Gem and Mineral Club and they advertised the sale of specimens from a deceased collector. I still have some of those specimens!

[Les Presmyk]

The stories of lost or dumped collections abound, no matter which country or state. So, instead of the horror stories about the ones that got away, I am going to relate a couple of stories about ones that were saved.

The first came to me as a result of an email. A lady in Clarkdale, Arizona (the smelter town for the mines at Jerome) asked me if I would be interested in seeing some minerals and included a picture of an azurite. Immediately, visions of great Jerome specimens went flooding through my brain, since they are so tough to find. We made arrangements to meet. Turns out the pieces belonged to her neighbor, an elderly gentleman whose wife had passed away. The specimens came down through her family, from her great- grandfather who owned a business in Bisbee, Arizona around 1900 to 1904. He acquired the specimens while there and carried them with him through the great San Francisco earthquake, after moving there in 1904. Originally, the husband was going to just put them out at a yard sale for a dollar or two apiece. The neighbor was an antique dealer and while not knowing minerals, thought they might be worth more. As it turned out, probably a 300 times more than he would have gotten at his yard sale.

The second was a group of specimens rescued years ago by members of the Mineralogical Society of Arizona. The club president got a call from a family in Bisbee that there grandfather had died and they were getting ready to throw out his pile of rocks but if someone from the MSA wanted to come down and get them, they had two days to do so. Fortunately, several members were available to go to Bisbee and saved a number of fine azurites and malachites from going to the dump.

I don't know what the solution is. Unfortunately, humans do not have a great track record of preserving these items, whether they are butterflies, shells or minerals. We were just in the Everglades and there is a description of what collectors of land snails would do to enhance the value of their collections. First, after finding a new collecting area, they would do their best to collect every snail shell possible, and then set the area on fire to destroy any remaining shells. What a shame but that is no different than mineral collectors who completely clean out a locality and then bury it or collapse the mine workings so no one else can collect there.

[Gail]

Well said Les. This is why I think Museums are important, they at least give people the idea that rocks might be worth saving.

[Les Presmyk]

Thank you Gail. Museums are certainly one part of the answer but there are as many horror stories of museums and institutions throwing away their collections when funding and priorities change or just even a curator change, as there are with private collections.

I believe the internet provides a great opportunity for people to access and recognize minerals and other natural history collections do have value and do have places they can go. I just located the collection of a long-time acquaintance I hope to someday bring to the light of day. Fortunately, his widow has preserved the collection, at least based on a preliminary conversation, and in the near future I will go see what condition it is in.

[Gail]

I meant museums from the point of view that people actually will "see" a mineral there and understand that it is significant enough not to throw out. Hopefully!

[Les Presmyk]

I understand but there have always been museums. Although there are more people who visit museums than all of the professional sporting events in this country (I see that as encouraging, don't you?), this is something a person still has to make a conscious effort to do. Don't you think the internet provides better access for folks?

[Tracy]

Les, your "factoid" would carry more weight if we knew that more people go to science museums than sporting events. Still more if we knew that more people go to mineral galleries in science musuems than to sporting events. There are art museums, cultural museums, history museums, sports museums, etc...plenty that have nothing to do with minerals.

Gail's argument that pople see things in museums and understand that they important has to be put in context. What if the musuem someone visits has a mediocre mineral collection, and the individual never gets to visit the Smithsonian? Then a skewed impression of quality/importance might be formed. There's also the matter of musuems that never display their minerals and ultimately throw them away - what message does THAT send? And we are back full-circle.

The Internet no doubt is a great opportunity to view minerals from around the world, though again some context is needed. One could see so many picture of specimens already (personal or museum) that one ends up with no way of determining which pieces are more "important" than other more "ordinary" ones. I think we need to tread cautiously when discussing something for which "value" and "importance" are relative and ever-changing terms.

Jordi, is a new topic emerging from this dicussion? There are lots of branches forming from the original thread.

More to comment on but I've stirred the pot enough for now. Back to my day job.

- Tracy