FMF - Friends of Minerals Forum, discussion and message board

[Jason]

my best self-collected....the old mudball JXR..old pics..all the pocket clay (white and brown)is cleaned off and the whole crystal bed is clear needle quartz druze..need to update my pics..can you say "aesthetic"

[Jordi Fabre]

[Turbo]

My favorite self collected specimen is this little 6 cm shard with a microcrystalline druse. I found it amongst the rocks used to fill a drainage ditch, but could never determine whether it was from the fill stone or from native Delaware rocks that were disturbed in the construction of the ditch.

I think the main reason self-collected specimens are so special is that they are discovered on their own terms and not through someone else. It is the difference between experiencing a battlefield from a tour bus and actually walking through it.

[vic rzonca]

A great topic-the fever of the find. This prehnite was found in a brecciated pocket along a north-south fault in the trapps of the Holyoke range, late one November afternoon. Several tens of pounds came out of the rather large pocket

[Jordi Fabre]

Wonderful Vic, congratulations!
We will see this material in Tucson?

[Scott LaBorde]

Those finds are awesome. Thank you Tomasz for providing those videos which were very entertaining. The thrill of extracting specimens from a pocket is indescribable. Thanks to all of you for sharing your specimens and stories.

Scott

[Jason]

Nice find Turbo..nobody ever checks the lowly old drainage ditch and look what can come out..and vic..very nice..did you by chance have the camera with you when you were extracting the pocket..would love to see that!!! good finds guys

[vic rzonca]

[Pete Modreski]

Been meaning to comment, Harjo, those Leckbach emeralds on matrix are wonderful. And, Scott, great amethyst. Enjoyed all the others too. I'm still waiting to have time to finish looking at the calcite collecting videos--but, very neat, great job of documenting this.

[bugrock]

Hello,

On the topic of self collected minerals here are two crystals of the element that makes the Keweenaw
Region of Michigan famous, copper. Must confess I had the help of a local guide in securing
these two specimens.

The first two images show a twinned crude but large copper crystal. It comes form a prehnite vein
discovered some time ago, a vertical vein in basalt. Considerable material has been removed from
this Keweenaw County location but most copper is locked very tightly in the prehnite. Those who have
tried to extract material using HF tell me the copper can be freed but this treatment results in severe pitting of the
crystal surface. Fortunately the specimen illustrated popped out of the matrix as the vein was being
attacked with hammers and pry bars, it is about as "clean" as one might expect from this deposit.
Unfortunately one ding on the surface.


The second copper xl is much smaller. The images were taken through a dissecting microscope
photo port with digital camera. This crystal was found on breaking rocks on the Madison Mine poor
rock pile, Keweenaw Co, Michigan. The rock has disseminated copper, again in prehnite, mostly
amorphous as typically occurs but one crystal revealed itself on a broken surface.

Presently these Keweenaw locations are under a thick blanket of snow. One can only dream of what might be revealed in the New Year.

Wish all who participate in and view this forum the best of the New Year!

[Luiz Menezes]

My most important field collection experience was in 2002, when I self-collected a specimen containing the best kosnarite crystals ever found.

On August 2002 I bought a light yellowish-green montebrasite crystal, 12 x 10 cm, partially coated with micro colorless crystals; my supplier was very disappointed because he tried to leach away those crystals (that he thought were worthless micro wardites) to get a nice clean yellow montebrasite specimen, but I was lucky that kosnarite has a strong bond between Zr and P so the crystals survived first oxalic acid and later even hydrochloric acid!

I had the material soon identified as kosnarite (but not on time for the Denver show) and when I returned from Denver another supplier had bought, from the same mine, a lot of cleavelandite clusters with eosphorite and zanazziite/greifensteinite crystals, and also a rich coating of kosnarite crystals up to 2 mm across; I bought the lot, identified the other associated minerals (ushkovite, jahnsite-(CaMnMg), apatite and micro bipyramidal quartz crystals) and brought the material to Munich, with great commercial success, because not any of the species collectors neither any dealer of rare species had kosnarites.

After returning to Brazil I convinced my supplier to bring me to the mine, a small pegmatite on the Jenipapo district, Itinga, Minas Gerais; Jacques Cassedanne went there with me and we had planned to write an article together about this mine, but the rainy season had already started and the conditions underground were dangerous so the mine was not been run and we could not go underground; so we looked on the dumps for eventual kosnarites or associated material the could have been thrown away, without success, but then I saw 4 piles of rocks that were being used as a support for a sheet of steel screen, under which the miners (“garimpeiros”) were burning wood at lunch time to heat their cans of food; all rocks on the 4 piles were black, completely coated by carbon, but I could see that one was more irregular, I lifted it and saw that it was coated with cleavelandite crystals and also rhombohedral crystals that I right away identified as kosnarites, up to 5 mm across.

I brought the specimen back to Belo Horizonte, removed the carbon, trimmed it and it became one of the big hits of the 2003 Tucson show; that black carbonized rock provided me a big revenue. It was a great collecting day!

[jimB]

Hi Luis, That is a great story. Moral ? When looking, look everywhere . I love it.

[Steve Foster]

Wow, some very nice specimens in this thread. I definately feel the amateur in my collecting. But hey, I am getting there and always excited to see and find new things.

Since I am also in the Rock Hound catagory and so far 90% of all specimens I have were collected by me, allow me to add my two favorites.

[javmex2]

Hello, one of my best hobbies is to collect minerals, search sites and abandoned mines, one of my best pieces may find it thanks to some friends who invited me to a ranch, where there are small outcrops of quartz, an excellent place are good examples. but hard to find.

[Scott LaBorde]

javmex2,

That is an awesome specimen. I would be very proud of it too. The sceptered amethyst growth is beautiful.