FMF - Friends of Minerals Forum, discussion and message board

[Bob Carnein]

Hah! Considering the hyperdrive state of the mineral business, maybe Enterprise is the appropriate term. (OK, I know it's warp drive....)

[BlueCapProductions]

Peter, I truly appreciate your $.02 on the interviewees. If you look at the line-up for Episode 1, we only have one dealer. It's the same for Episode 2. Our intent is to ABSOLUTELY involve the dealers but we do not want this to de-evolve into a Mineral Dealer Panel preaching to the public. We've gone to GREAT lengths to involve a spectrum of individuals - a dealer, a collector, a curator, a show promoter and a mineral media person (it's starting to sound like the ending to The Breakfast Club). We were actually surprised at how difficult it was to put together good panels where we felt the energy would flow constructively for the good of the community. I don't expect it to get any easier moving forward.

For now, we only have three Episodes a year scheduled to record - two in Tucson and one in Denver. As you can imagine, scheduling all these people during these shows is a huge task that requires secondary and tertiary choices for each participant.

So, as we're cutting our teeth, we felt it would be easier to have these first two episodes both address the same topic. Moving forward, we want to have a variety of different topics to address at each recording which would naturally affect who we would want on the panel.

Unlike the What's Hot... series, this podcast will not be exclusively focused on the top-end dealers talking about the hottest minerals on the market. At times there may just be stories the participants share like they would during a casual dinner conversation. God knows, there are enough great stories out there and video isn't always the most efficient way to record those due to costs and post-production time.

That being said, many of the top end dealers have been in the game a long time and have a certain perspective on the collecting world that is quite valuable. Also, because of the dollars involved these days, these top end dealers really have the ability to shift the market faster than anyone else. Take exhibit cases and lighting for example. Even in the short period of time I've been involved in the mineral-collecting world (11 years), there's been a HUGE shift in what we see at the shows. That's very significant and these dealers who have made this the new standard for hi-end shows have thoughts about this that we need to hear.

But I do agree with you that everyone is worthy of sharing their voice. That's why I really want to push on these forums. I'm elated at the discussions we've already had - and the series hasn't even launched yet!!!

And, as you will hear in the podcast, we WELCOME everyone to give us feedback. Via the forum or via email. We are asking people to submit ideas on future topics directly to us for us to consider. We're hoping that this truly becomes a catalyst for deeper discussions among EVERYONE in the field.

[Tony L. Potucek]

Good day, Bryan,
You have your work cut out for you, and I encourage your taking on the task ahead of you. Like Kevin, I look at this task with a bit of a jaundiced eye, so as to speak. I believe for you to gather a true picture of the whole sphere of mineral collecting, you will really need to drill down and include discussions with the masses, all the way down to kids off the street who share a fascination for minerals and take their $5 to the local rock and gem show to make the big purchase(s). And I am not talking about the lucky few youngsters who have some well heeled backing which have been publicized prominently in the junior mineral collecting world. My jaundiced eyeball already has noticed that your first panel did not include one normal Joe/Josephine collector. Everyone on the discussion panel tends to inhabit the higher end of the financial spectrum of shows. Not much involvement there in the mineral collecting trenches--the folks who troll even the bead shows looking for a specimen to add to their collections which will not cost 10% or more of their annual salary. So, please consider carefully who will be discussing the current state of the collecting world so the entire spectrum is included. And thanks again for this enterprise (pun intended) which you have embarked upon, my friend.

[Philippe Durand]

as an average to low budget collector, I totaly agree with Tony Potucek ;
I do not recognize myself with the top collectors.

this said, I will read or watch the breakfasts with the greatest interest :)

[Mike Chontofalsky]

Tony and Philippe....I think you describe 90% plus collectors. i am too looking forward to the podcast. Any recommendations on a good app for my Android smart phone so that I can tune in?

[Ed Huskinson]

Ha Tony. You're just jealous because Pater Lemke beat you to the punch with "...museum of the unattainable." Or maybe that should be "unobtainable" ala "unobtainium". Regardless, you are right on in your thinking. I'm glad to see John Rakovan on the panel, and look forward to seeing what he has to say.
Later pard.

Ed.

[Tony L. Potucek]

[rweaver]

[Peter Lemkin]

[rweaver]

Peter, very well said about who Josie was. I was very lucky to be one of those folks she let hang out with her. I was one of her Yellow Hats on field trips and one of her drivers for many years. She was one of a kind and well- liked everywhere she went. Pete B. and John S. were also a lot like her back in the day as well. There was a very good group of mineral collectors in San Diego at one time and I learned a lot from them. I think we met a long time ago at the Collector before going up to the Himalaya Mine with Bill.

[Jesse Fisher]

Not that I want to necessarily beat an already injured horse to death, but I think the use of the term "industry" to describe the mineral collecting hobby suggests a potential bias built in to the discussion, which a few have already commented on. A hobby is an activity that people engage in for pleasure, without regard to whether it will make a monetary profit or not. An industry implies activity aimed at making a profit. While I think the vast majority of people involved in mineral collecting do so on a hobby basis, there is certainly an industry that has grown up in recent years geared to servicing the growth of affluent collectors entering the hobby. Not that there is necessarily something wrong with this, but it has had the effect of creating a class-like stratification in the mineral collecting community, which I think was not nearly so obvious back when I first acquired the collecting disease about 30 years ago.

To reuse Peter's phrase (and I hope he has trade-marked it), I think the major mineral shows have truly become "museums of the unattainable" for the many collectors who can not afford thousands of dollars for a half-decent specimen, along with the time and expense involved with attending these shows. Many of these folks now content themselves with buying and selling on the internet. Does this "industry" serve this segment of the community? What about the folks who spend countless hours (and perhaps a fair amount of money) trying to dig their own treasures? What about the people who spend countless hours creating those wonderfully detailed photos of micro-minerals we see on Mindat? What about the folks who spend countless hours researching scientific and historical topics to produce the books and journals that at least some of us fill our libraries with? What about the kid who has a nascent interest in science and nature? The list goes on...

But to get to the point, business will always be business, but I just hope this discussion will be about more than the mechanics of buying and selling expensive minerals to the relatively few folks in the collecting community that can afford them.

[BlueCapProductions]

Breakfast With Minerals: Episode 1 is now live!!

Check it out here:

https://bwm.fireside.fm/01

[Gail]

Jesse. Huh?

Our interview focuses on the positive and the future, not lamenting over the victimhood of of people who wish things were like they used to be.
We actually don’t blame anyone for the way things are. We are interested in keeping the hobby alive and well. One has the option to not listen to this broadcast but we hope people, with a desire for stimulating conversation, will.

[Peter Lemkin]

[Peter Lemkin]

Well, the podcast covered a lot of ground. Some thoughts on some of that ground. Yes, it is true that education in the basic sciences ain't what it used to be. A lot of times when mineral-naive persons come to my place and see my collection they think I carved them ;-). When I tell them they are all naturally formed and especially when I point to those I have found myself, they exclaim that they never saw a rock like that just sitting on the ground. Yes, education in the geosciences would be nice. So would be more museums. Sad to hear that some are closing for financial reasons. I know of some opening up in old mining areas in Colorado. Many of the old mining towns have long had fabulous local collections from miners or miner/collectors who died and gave their collections to the town...but only recently are they putting the money into displaying them. I had the privilege to go through some boxes of such a donation at a famous CO mining town to pull out what I thought were the best specimens to display. I was blown away by what was in those boxes! We all 'naturally' respond to lovely xx, but many can't see much in them - and maybe part of it is not knowing just the basics of how crystals form, atomic structure, geology etc. I'm always blown away by having beautiful macroscopic manifestations of atomic structure and atomic bonding. They are also just plain beautiful, but I think much more so if one knows what is actually going on on the atomic level and how they formed.

More generally, I think many in contemporary society - especially the young - are not tuned into Nature and the Natural, but are more engaged in the razzle and dazzle of their smartphones and social media etc. along with a society increasingly getting away from things and thoughts Natural. I'm biased. I'm trained as a scientist and one in the Environmental Sciences at that.

Not too much discussed, but touched upon was the increase in prices. While it is true that at most shows one can still find reasonably priced specimens, at the premier shows the prices dazzle as much as the xx - and this is quite a change from the past. So, I have been in the habit of not only going to the premier shows, but 'secondary' smaller / local shows. However, many - not all - of these have slowly turned into more of beads, healing crystals, and non-mineral things I never understood being sold at mineral shows. Here in the Czech Republic many of the mineral shows have really gone downhill for the most part, sadly. One that is not advertised to the public, but only to the mineralogical community still holds its own for me. The Munich Show is spectacular, but so are the prices of so many of the specimens. There is nothing wrong with that....premium specimens deserve premium prices - but I question HOW MUCH they have increased. It is certainly way way way above the rate of inflation. And any show that wants to stay in business, I think, needs to have a range of prices - and that would mean some mid-level and even some below-mid-level priced dealers [but still of quality specimens - if not top-shelf].