FMF - Friends of Minerals Forum, discussion and message board

[Woody Thompson]

Tom, they still have fantastic and very large specimens of Herodsfoot Mine bournonite on display. Here are two that caught my eye. The first one is in The Vault. (I spent over 8 hours just photographing some of the minerals in the main gallery!).

[Woody Thompson]

And here's another one. I went to Herodsfoot Mine on my trip last fall. There weren't many specimens like this lying about!

[Woody Thompson]

And I took my cap off in respect to this remarkable specimen from the Virtuous Lady!

[Woody Thompson]

Here's another Cornish classic.

[Woody Thompson]

And just to prove that the NHM collection is really DEEP, this large cancrinite specimen came from just down the road here in Maine! (An occurrence of sodalite and cancrinite in a syenite rock called "litchfieldite". Virtually the entire pluton is covered by glacial sediments, so all the specimens like this are from float boulders).

[nurbo]

I was just wondering if theres been any activity on the whole lighting, decomposing specimen, burnt Amethyst front?

[nurbo]

So despite celebrity guests etc ( https://www.mineral-forum.com/message-board/viewtopic.php?t=1978 ) has anything been done regarding the decomposing specimens on public display, the abismal lighting and the mislabelled stuff? Im sorry but it kind of annoys me that a whole new thread singing the praises of this collection is started when the very relevant issues I addressed which were partially answered have subsequently been ignored.

[Jolyon Ralph]

The simple answer to your question is yes. There is no problem with lighting in the systematic collections or the vault, the two most important parts of the collections. And I noted myself a couple of years ago some problems with decomposing specimens (things such as epsomite) - but when checking recently they have indeed been cleaned and, where necessary, taken out of display.

[nurbo]

Well thats good news, shame the museum people didnt answer this when I asked back in August I guess they were too busy at mineral shows and mindat conferences and stuff.

[Jolyon Ralph]

And another thing... it irks me when people complain about mislabelling in museums. Every single museum I have visited in the world has mislabellings, some of them quite ridiculous, some of them very difficult to spot unless you're an expert on the area.

The correct way to respond is not complain on a forum, but to give the museum curators a list of possible corrections - as I have done at the Fersman Museum, the St Petersburg University Museum and others.

And I know from museums such as the NHM, that curators have to battle with internal rules about what they can and cannot change in displays, making that part of their job particularly difficult.

I try to help them with information when I can, but I understand most curators (especially in a larger museum) simply can't open up the cabinets and relabel something on the spot.

[nurbo]

it irks me when I get ignored, sure museums have protocols about relabelling stuff but I asked what was the score about the issues I first raised in February in August, I now find out via non museum staff in October that some of them have been remedied, I still have no idea if they are still selling burnt Amethyst as Citrine in the "Gift Shop"

[Jordi Fabre]

Hi Nurbo and Jolyon,

I moved your post previously located in -> https://www.mineral-forum.com/message-board/viewtopic.php?t=1978 to here because I believe they match better the hardcore of this thread.

Nurbo, please don't take it bad, I'm with you about the necessity to take care carefully of Museums specially the main ones like the Natural History Museum, but in Spanish we say "Lo perfecto es enemigo de lo bueno" which translation could be: " the perfect is enemy of the correct".
I mean: I'm sure that already are many wrong things that should be fixed in NHM, but believe me is not the worst Museum at all in order to take care of their specimens. Normally the public Museums have a lot of limitations, rules, legislation, etcetera and the worst, frequently they haven't the "complicity" of the real owner of the Museum: the State and his agents: the politicians.

Please don't forget that other really great public Museums (Philadelphia Academy for exemple) or private collections (Romero collection for example) were dispersed recently, so we don't have good times for mineral collections and probably in this times the Museums of Minerals needs a kind of global support to survive.

About the "ignorance" of the guys of the Museum about you, please accept that their lifes are not involved in Forums or social nets, so they participate when they can or when they are specially interested for the topic, but probably would be illusory pretend a complete disposition from they.

Again, I'm from your side and I understand quite well your complains, but my point is that currently all mineral Museums needs more support than ever or otherwise maybe our sons in the future don't will find any of them at its current state...

[B. Chandrasekhar]

[Gail]

Whatever.

[Gail]

You get what you get, I am there to enjoy the minerals and take photos as a keepsake of the memory. I post on here to share, good bad or what have you.
I do not have time to check settings as we are in and out of drawers and the minerals are held up to view, not for me to photo as much as for us to see them in person. I also work from thumbnail photos on my computer, I occasionally preview before hitting send but as it takes me over 2 minutes for each photo to load, not really going to delete a bunch so people won;t criticize my photographic abilities. So, sorry they don't come through clearly but as I stated above, WHATEVER.