FMF - Friends of Minerals Forum, discussion and message board

[alfredo]

I want to pass along a couple of labelling ideas I've come across that I think are brilliant, and I hope readers will chime in whenever they come across an idea that is worth emulating:

First, I received several specimens from the collection of German mineralogist Dr. Gunter Grundmann. He has a catalogue number attached to each specimen, and the same number recorded on the label - OK, a common practice, so far - but he also has the exact weight of each specimen, down to tenths or even hundredths of a gram, recorded on the back of each label. I think this is a stroke of genius. Specimens sometimes lose their numbers, by fading, flaking, degeneration of glue with age, ultrasonic cleaning, etc, but when they get mixed up, all one has to do to match it up with its correct label is weigh it!

Second, labels and catalogues can get lost, especially when a collector dies and the "rocks" are distributed by ignorant heirs. How many of us have "inherited" old rocks with a number glued or painted on, but no idea what it is or where it came from? I've got lots!
It's always a good idea to glue some information onto the rock itself, apart from just a catalogue number, but obviously such information can't occupy much space without detracting from aesthetics. One can always reanalyze a specimen to find out what it is, so to save space, recording the locality is more important than the identification. One can paint an abbreviation for a locality onto the base of the specimen, or write it on a 1cm piece of paper and glue it on. Often just writing the first 3 or 4 letters of a locality name is enough for an experienced collector to divine the provenance. Dr. Steve Chamberlain recommends painting over the letters with a tough colorless nail polish, which makes it resistant even to future ultrasonic cleaning.

Please, nobody ask me what percentage of my specimens I've gotten around to performing this on, so far.... the answer is embarassing. But I intend to! (Some of you probably already do these things and it's no news to you.)

[Matt_Zukowski]

For every specimen, I have a folder on my computer with a name made up of the major mineral and then locality. In this folder I keep pictures and all other stuff related to that specimen. Use of this naming convention allows me to easily find all the specimens of a particular species or from a particular locality. So for example if I have a piece of purple fluorite with sphalerite with a lost label that looks like it came from Elmwood, I can look through all the fluorite, sphalerite, and elmwood folders to find a set of pictures that match the specimen. This has made it easy to identify specimens that have lost their label.

I am also in the process of putting all my specimens in a specialized mineral collecting database that will make it easy for me to search though everything and match any identifying characteristics with an "unknown" specimen. This software prints labels in a variety of useful formats, so to come up with a new label I just have to hit the print button.

[GneissWare]

Attached is a sample of the sort of info I keep about my specimens. Some have lots of comments (several pages worth), and others less. I also track all the provenance details I can find. I can print many kinds of labels on the fly also.

Mine is in a database so I can ask for all small cabinet specimens from Sardinia that have anglesite in them, for example. If I find an invoice, I can also look up by the dealer or date or whatever would help find a previously entered specimen so I can add more info.

[Matt_Zukowski]

Bob, I didn't know your software did labels. I will contact you separately through your website so as to avoid hijacking this thread.