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Darren
Joined: 09 Aug 2009
Posts: 91
Location: New Mexico
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Posted: Aug 14, 2009 21:59 Post subject: Less costly pieces |
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Absolutely wonderful Gail, thank you so much for the report! ( https://www.mineral-forum.com/message-board/viewtopic.php?t=657 ).
You had mentioned some of the less costly pieces that you and Jim took to the show - how about some photos of them? Also, maybe in your own gallery, you could post some photos of some of the thumbnails?
As an intro, just got on here, and hope to post some photos of local minerals myself. I am intrigued, Gail, by the lower-priced pieces you have. As a dad of 4 (gonna be 5!) I don't have a lot to spend and it would be neat to see "other" stuff. By the way, I'm "Baryte" from the Mindat mineral chat who always had to go get the baby to sleep!!!
Again, amazing what you guys have done in a few short years - you and Jim are truly an inspiration! Attached is one of the local pieces - I know you like hematite! This one is from the Iron Hill district here, and is about 12 cm across..
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Gail
Joined: 21 Feb 2008
Posts: 5839
Location: Texas, Lone Star State.
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Posted: Aug 15, 2009 09:12 Post subject: Re: Less costly pieces |
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I haven't taken close ups of the many, many under $20.00 minerals we own. And the many under $12.00 ones too.
We are slowly restocking out shelves and will make a point to photo the great minerals that were not expensive at all. I have won some on auctions that have been praised by many as great minerals, yet I paid $18.00 for so many of them.
When dealers buy collections they often get a lot of stock they can't take the time to show so they bite the bullet and put them on auctions hoping for the best.
I have found exquisite bargains there and some wonderful pieces that simply needed a good trim, which many dealers don't have the time to do. So keep an eye out for treasures!
_________________ Minerals you say? Why yes, I'll take a dozen or so... |
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Jordi Fabre
Overall coordinator of the Forum
Joined: 07 Aug 2006
Posts: 4904
Location: Barcelona
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Posted: Aug 16, 2009 03:42 Post subject: Re: Less costly pieces |
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I consider the Darren's post very interesting, so I split it from the Gail's thread ( https://www.mineral-forum.com/message-board/viewtopic.php?t=657 ) in order to keep it more coherent, and I created this new thread that I called: "Less costly pieces".
Recently Tom Moore in the Mineralogical Record and some other voices are promoting this topic. I would love to be discussed here too.
Jordi
_________________ Audaces fortuna iuvat |
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Darren
Joined: 09 Aug 2009
Posts: 91
Location: New Mexico
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Posted: Aug 17, 2009 20:28 Post subject: Re: Less costly pieces |
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Thanks for moving this here, Jordi. I'll try to get some photos of some other stuff in the collection that I did not pay much for, was a gift, or was self-collected (costing only gas $$$ and sweat!) I'll try this one (another hematite) self-collected. Posted on Mindat, but it's one of my favorites, and the first mineral I tried to photo.
https://www.mindat.org/photo-204388.html
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Gail
Joined: 21 Feb 2008
Posts: 5839
Location: Texas, Lone Star State.
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Posted: Aug 17, 2009 20:46 Post subject: Re: Less costly pieces |
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Darren, I am just thrilled you are posting on the FMF! I have enjoyed some banter with you on Mindat and it is nice to see you jumping in here too. I will compile some great photos of under $20.00 minerals we have in our collection first.
It might be a couple of days, we are very busy putting things back into cabinets at the moment.
Welcome to FMF!
Gail
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Darren
Joined: 09 Aug 2009
Posts: 91
Location: New Mexico
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Posted: Aug 17, 2009 21:03 Post subject: Re: Less costly pieces |
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Gail-
I cannot even begin to imagine what you and Jim have before you, being home again with all of those pieces to return to their homes. I have been trying to get some good photos of some of my under $20 stuff (almost all is!) I sold my collection a few years ago and have been slowly putting it back together, with 4 kids though, it's a slow process!
Luckily we have some nice locations to collect close by, and I am a micro-nut, so it ain't too bad! Also, a lot of nice stuff from Mexico comes through here, so that helps.
Cheers!
Darren
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Darren
Joined: 09 Aug 2009
Posts: 91
Location: New Mexico
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Posted: Aug 17, 2009 23:53 Post subject: Re: Less costly pieces |
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Here is another "cheap" specimen, purchased from Benny Fenn here in Las Cruces about 15 years ago. Gypsum from Naica, with individual crystals to about 2 cm, I think I paid about five dollars for it.
Sorry the photo is not too good!
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Gypsum, Naica, Chihuahua, Mexico. Crystals to about 2 cm. |
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Carles Millan
Site Admin
Joined: 05 May 2007
Posts: 1474
Location: Catalonia
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Posted: Aug 19, 2009 03:54 Post subject: Re: Less costly pieces |
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Hi!
This Braubach, Germany pyromorphite cost only 39 euro cents. Back in 1963...
But the price adjusted for inflation to today's value would be about 12 euros or $17, which is not a great amount of money, I think. Don't ask me where the shop is because it was closed more than 40 years ago. Sorry!
For more details about this specimen (size and so on) please go to https://www.mineral-forum.com/message-board/viewtopic.php?p=6544#6544
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Ed Huskinson
Joined: 15 Apr 2009
Posts: 318
Location: Kingman, Arizona
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Posted: Aug 19, 2009 08:57 Post subject: Re: Less costly pieces |
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I love to play this game Carles. It is one of the few areas where old-timers have the edge. One year at Tucson, (2002, Minerals of Africa) I put in a case of Tsumeb minerals and used the original labels with prices. People were stunned and amazed. I'd walk up to the case, and someone would be standing there shaking their head. "You paid twelve bucks for that piece?!!?". "Yeah, well, that was then. This is now.".
Assessment time for the BLM is almost over, and I should have some time after noon on September 1st, and will be able to post a few of my less costly pieces. It'll be fun.
As an observation, based on the assumption that YOU were the one who purchased the Braubach pyromorphite, it shows that even then, more than 40 years ago, you had a good eye. Keep 'em coming.
Thanks,
Ed
_________________ La respuesta está en las rocas!! Estudiadlas!!
Ed |
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Carles Millan
Site Admin
Joined: 05 May 2007
Posts: 1474
Location: Catalonia
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Posted: Aug 19, 2009 09:17 Post subject: Re: Less costly pieces |
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To Ed Huskinson
Hi Ed!
Yes, it will be fun. Please, post your cheap old specimens as soon as you can. I'll also try to do it with some of the mine.
>As an observation, based on the assumption that YOU were the one who purchased the Braubach pyromorphite, it shows that even then, more than 40 years ago, you had a good eye.
Then I was just 15 y/o and when purchasing the pyro had the chance of getting the advice of the shop owner, Jordi Figueras, who, as far as I know, fortunately is still alive and collecting minerals.
_________________ Al carrer Duran i Bas, si no hi vas no t'hi duran |
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John S. White
Site Admin
Joined: 04 Sep 2006
Posts: 1295
Location: Stewartstown, Pennsylvania, USA
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Posted: Aug 20, 2009 07:13 Post subject: Re: Less costly pieces |
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This one, although it cost me more than $20, might qualify for this discussion on two counts. I would have to say that it is probably my "most" favorite piece and it was also not very expensive. I bought it for $55 at the Munich Show in 1999 from a Chinese dealer who obviously did not appreciate its excellence. It is 9.8 cm across, and a photo of it appeared in the German magazine Lapis. The locality is the Shangbao mine, Leiyang, Hunan, China.
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_________________ John S. White
aka Rondinaire |
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alfredo
Site Admin
Joined: 30 Jan 2008
Posts: 981
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Posted: Aug 20, 2009 07:59 Post subject: Re: Less costly pieces |
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My favorite pieces have unusual origins: This is from a small miniature (or large thumbnail) of fumarolic hematite crystals, with several steep pyramidal wulfenite crystals (up to 2mm long) sprinkled between the hematites. I picked it up in Tucson for $35.
Considering that wulfenite is normally a secondary mineral in the oxide zone of ore deposits, at first I didn't want to believe that this was wulfenite, but it is. Deposited from traces of heavy metals present in volcanic gases. (Who says only human beings cause pollution? Nature itself pollutes too!) This specimen is from Argentina, but wulfenite has been found in fumaroles at volcanos in Japan and Russia too.
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fumarolic wulfenite on hematite |
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Joan Kureczka
Joined: 29 Jan 2009
Posts: 63
Location: San Francisco
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Posted: Aug 20, 2009 08:00 Post subject: Re: Less costly pieces |
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Some very nice pieces. This points out the value of not only looking for sleepers, but of buying things when they are new and plentiful. Even many of those pieces that weren't exactly inexpensive when they first showed up on the market -- the Sweet Home Rhodos, being case in point -- are today significantly more costly than they were then.
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Darren
Joined: 09 Aug 2009
Posts: 91
Location: New Mexico
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Posted: Aug 20, 2009 08:28 Post subject: Re: Less costly pieces |
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Great stuff, thanks all. Gotta say, John, that quartz is just stunning! And Alfredo, the wulfenite is remarkable. I will photograph some more of my stuff this afternoon and put them up. This should be a fun thread, I think.
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Jordi Fabre
Overall coordinator of the Forum
Joined: 07 Aug 2006
Posts: 4904
Location: Barcelona
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Posted: Aug 20, 2009 08:30 Post subject: Re: Less costly pieces |
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Unbelievable Alfredo!
Someone told me about these Wulfenites but is the first time I see them.
Is from volcano Payún Matru, Mendoza?
Jordi
_________________ Audaces fortuna iuvat |
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alfredo
Site Admin
Joined: 30 Jan 2008
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Posted: Aug 20, 2009 08:35 Post subject: Re: Less costly pieces |
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Yes, Jordi, that's probably right. There are dozens of volcanic vents in the Payun area, and I don't think anyone knows exactly which one the specimens come from, except the finder, but that's the right district.
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Jim
Joined: 09 Apr 2008
Posts: 185
Location: Dallas
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Posted: Aug 20, 2009 10:04 Post subject: Re: Less costly pieces |
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Excellent quartz, John! I love the species, although finding truly unusual and aesthetic examples seems more difficult than many people may believe.
Cheers,
_________________ Jim
MAD about crystals |
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Darren
Joined: 09 Aug 2009
Posts: 91
Location: New Mexico
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Posted: Sep 20, 2009 13:46 Post subject: Re: Less costly pieces |
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Well, I'm fainlly getting a chance to photograph more stuff! So this is the first one for today - there will be more to follow. This is a Fluorite ps. Calcite from the Elena Mine, West Camp, Santa Eulalia, Chihuahua, Mexico. I bought it about 2 months ago locally for about 8 dollars. Longest dimension is about 14 cm.
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Ed Huskinson
Joined: 15 Apr 2009
Posts: 318
Location: Kingman, Arizona
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Posted: Sep 20, 2009 19:30 Post subject: Re: Less costly pieces |
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Nice Iron Hill hematite Darren! Man, it looks like one of the British hematites. I collected at Iron Hill myself while attending school at UTEP.
The title for this string (less costly pieces) caused me to go to my fluorite suite and unearth this specimen. It has an interesting story, which I wrote (in February of 1984) on the back of the Collector's Stope label that came with the piece. I'm hoping Marty remembers it, inasmuch as he is the first guy I can remember who had the idea of putting together an exhibit of inexpensive pieces way back in 1983.
Dana Dixon, local Denverite collector and geologist, told me that someone up there (MAD? I'm not sure who) had put in a case of inexpensive minerals that he said is pretty impressive. Sorry I was not able to see it, and I'm hoping that Gail posts a photo in her Denver Report.
So here are some pictures of a Monarch Mine fluorite, octahedral, displaying a stoss side to the crystals. Figure this'll be a blast from the past for Jim McGlasson and Marty Zinn as well.
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Monarch Mine, AZ Fluorite, 92mm long. Large octahedron is 24 mm on edge. |
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Monarch Mine, AZ Flourite, 35 mm wide. Purchased from Jim McGlasson in 1983 and 1984 (see the note on the back of his blue label). |
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Jim McGlasson's contact data in 1983-1984. |
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Notes on the back of Jim's Collector's Stope label. I figure that Marty was just so busy with the show and all that he simply didn't have the time to go to Jim's and pick it up. No big deal, and Woo Hoo for me, eh? |
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_________________ La respuesta está en las rocas!! Estudiadlas!!
Ed |
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Darren
Joined: 09 Aug 2009
Posts: 91
Location: New Mexico
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Posted: Sep 20, 2009 21:13 Post subject: Re: Less costly pieces |
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Thanks Ed, that's really cool! I am finding that I am starting to become more interested in the history behind minerals and their collection, probably has to do with my job, but it has made me realize I have been missing a LOT of really interesting history.
This Los Lamentos wulfenite was a pleasant surprise I picked up at Pebble Pups here in Las Cruces about ten years ago. Don Moore, who owned the shop, let me look through some stuff he still had packed away - stuff he picked up in Tucson 20 years before. I found this piece for $10 and was happy to get it. I traded it a few years ago ... and just got it back. It's about 4 cm across.
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