FMF - Friends of Minerals Forum, discussion and message board

[Jordi Fabre]

OK, this is a little bit unfair with Jim. He wrote "most favorite" in an other context and I, without his knowledge, I created this new thread using their words as a title. As I'm not English speaker I probably did wrong.

I already corrected it, now the title of this thread is "What are your favorite specimens?"

Jordi

[Jim]

Wow! All of this antagonistic and silly nitpicking over a verbal express when this is supposed to be a fun and constructive thread.

To me, I have my "most favorite" -- which is a specimen I like a little bit better than my other favorites. It is right in line with "best of the best." It makes pefect grammatical sense to me, with no redundancy.

Jordi, thanks for bringing this thread back to a constructive dialogue. How about more mineral pics and less coffee house banter!

Cheers,

[Carles Millan]

Hi!

Instead of "your favorites", perhaps we would have to say "the best of your favorites", or even "the best one of your favorites". This is not redundant and grammatically perfect, I guess (sorry, I'm a Catalan speaker, not an English one). And in addition it would make John S. White happier.

I fear encouraging people to post their favorites could end up with many people publishing here their entire collection, that is not exactly what is expected.

Jordi, think it twice!

But Jim is very right: "How about more mineral pics and less coffee house banter! "

[GneissWare]

Ok. Back on topic. Today, this is my favorite...tomorrow, who can say.

[Jim]

I should clarify that Gail has a popular thread on Mindat entitled, "What is your favorite specimen TODAY?" That clever thread rightly notes that sometimes what catches a collector's eye on any given day may change and thus a favorite mineral on Monday may be "replaced" on Wednesday. That topic is not covered here per se.

I think Jordi simply wanted to start a new thread based on a personal question I asked Carles, which was basically, "Among all of your minerals posted online, which is your favorite or favorites?"

And when posting, it would nice to hear why pieces are your favorites.

Thanks!

[Les Presmyk]

I will agree with John concerning the abuse of the term selenite, especially since it is not a recognized specie of gypsum. Carles has hit upon a good solution. Also, while I also cringe at the phrase "most favorite" it is not as bad as saying "quite honest" or "my five best". Best and honest are terms that by definition are absolute. Best is the top and you are either honest or not. Lessons from my eigth grade english teacher.

[Gail]

I have shown you my favourite cabinet sized piece and my favourite thumbnail. I break some of my collection down by size where the T/N is in a different league altogether simply based on the fact that it won't draw you across the room like my aqua will, instead it is a joyous thing to sneak up on and discover in a cabinet filled with other thumbnails.

I have to sit back and laugh a bit though gentlemen, you all must be retired like me otherwise how on earth do you find the time to sweat the small stuff?
Okay, am ducking and running as fast as I can now...

[Jim]

Thanks for the contributions here, Gail

My own posting focused on my single favorite specimen of all my favorites, but I too could make a list:

1. My favorite diamond crystal
2. My favorite quartz crystal
3. My favorite tourmaline crystal
4. etc., etc

I encourage everyone to post their singlemost favorite or their series of favorites!

Cheers,

[Carles Millan]

To GneissWare

That Sweet Home Mine rhodochrosite is really amazing. I like it a lot.

Congratulations,

[Matt_Zukowski]

Yes, to GneissWare

Very drooly specimen (sorry John, but I am looking for adjectives to indicate my lustful feelings for particular specimens, so i made one up)! I believe that Sweet Home rhodos have an almost mythic aura that people are paying crazing prices for shards. Yes they are wonderful, best of breed. But I just can't own one as yet unless they turn less fashionable. But I have to say, your Sweet Home might have made me revise this policy. I love the combo purple fluorites with the red/pink rhodos. Sparkly sulfide ups the ante a little more. Perhaps if I had that piece, I'd revise my early statement about not being able to pick a favorite.

[jimB]

This isn't my favorite, BUT, I like it!

2.5cm X 2.5cm
Schorl,
Namibia

[Joan Kureczka]

Picking a favorite is hard, but this is ALWAYS on the short list. It is not only one of the larger Hilton Mine fluorites but perhaps the only one ever found so very artfully perched on matrix... in this case a spray of Baryte. It was collected by Mick Sutcliffe, who with Lindsay Greenbank was one of the originators of the Rogerley Mine. I'd actually heard about it almost yearly for 10 years before I actually saw... and bought it. I knew immediately without anyone saying a word that was THAT specimen! Mick referred to it as "The Cuckoo's Egg" as it was the only fluorite in a pocket of mostly broken Baryte.

[Jordi Fabre]

Hi Jim, welcome to FMF!

Your Schorl looks great but if you want to display it still better, please next time use at least 600 pixels per image. This time you used an image of just 276 pixels, that's why your photo looks so small.

If you publish it again I could replace the former one by the new one...

Jordi

[jimB]

Hi Jordi,

Thank you for the welcome!

Ok I'll bite, what is a pixel?

[GneissWare]

A pixel is (sort of) a dot that makes up an image. If you click on your uploaded photo, you will see it has dimensions of 276 px X 276 px. So, it is 276 dots wide by 276 dots vertical. The fluorite by Joan is 600 px by 429 px so it is bigger, and has better resolution, so you can see more detail.

Hope that's clearer than mud.