FMF - Friends of Minerals Forum, discussion and message board

[Bob Harman]

Another older thread that I would like to resurrect and comment on.

At several recent shows, exhibitors have discussed treating their display specimens to improve their luster in the display case. They were not dealers, but exhibitors and they also apparently were not purists, open to delicately improving their exhibited specimens for the show's duration.

But they didn't oil the specimens. They dry siliconed them. Using ACE HARDWARE brand dry silicone spray, the display examples were treated with a short spray either shortly before being brought to the show or right before being put into the display cases. Not being a "for sale" specimen, nothing further about the specimens needed to be said. {Parenthetically, display and/or museum case specimens also need not disclose any type repairs}.

I must say that the method has impressed me. The silicone spray is very effective, lasting a few weeks or more. Any rock matrix is not affected, looking dry and untouched within a few minutes of spray treatment, while the crystals on the specimen have improved luster without any wet or oily look. And again I will stress that these were display specimens, not being for sale.

Specimens for sale???? Who knows!
BOB

[Gary White]

Bob -
Thanks for resurrecting this topic. The dealer dilemma is well expressed in the earlier posts. I would hope in this new era of sophisticated and pervasive mineral preparation that there might also be a new era of comprehensive disclosure by dealers (and I know many that already embrace this). I think the marketplace will ultimately decide what is acceptable to collectors when all the facts are presented. Collectors in other fields have had to individually decide acceptable levels of condition, repair, enhancement, provenance, and title for genuine but perhaps imperfect specimens. Surely there is room for some damage removal, aesthetic trimming, and basic conservation in the mineral marketplace. Other treatments such as the one you describe become more controversial but may be acceptable to some and not others. Disclosure and openness about treatments is one needed component, and raising awareness/knowledge in the collector community so they can decide what to collect is another. Thanks again for bringing up this important topic.
Gary