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nurbo
Joined: 23 Sep 2008
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Location: Lancashire
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Posted: Nov 05, 2012 13:45 Post subject: Re: Munich Show (Mineralientage) 2012 |
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Great addition to this topic Jordi, My thoughts for what theyre worth are as follows.
Dealers who cherry pick through collections and only retail the best of the best often sell the rest of the collection on, often at a good price, so sure I dont own a pristine megabucks specimen that is ex famous collector/locality, but I own a lot of really good and/or interesting pieces from these same collections bought from less well known dealers for very reasonable prices. Also' I think the definition of "Best of the best" is a very relative thing, The cost of a specimen does not necessarily relate to the best or most important specimens, the judging criteria for this accolade is different for different people, One of the "Best of the best" pieces from my own collection (I recently counted the pieces in my collection, I've over 2700 specimens) is a Cinnabar from Cumbria which I collected myself, its not well crystallized, its a dusty red coating on minute brown Smithsonite in the remainder of a decomposed Sphalerite crystal on a grubby Baryte matrix, thing is, Cinnabar from this location isn't listed in any of the books, the locality itself isnt listed on Mindat and seemingly no one has ever seen another,, if I sold any of the handful of pieces I trimmed out of what I found, which all came from the same dinged up Baryte cluster it would probably fetch about $5, You can buy any number of Sweet Home Rhodochrosite's etc if you have a huge amount of money to spend, but by the looks of it if you wanted one of the Cinnabar's I mention you probably wouldn't find one at any price,, I say probably because I gave 2 samples away.one to the friend i was with when I found it, the other went off to an academic for verification purposes.
I think natruraly occuring works of art shouldn't really be compared with human made art, a piece of human art is formed from substances that could be manipulated to form any number of different completed works, that is to say, a painting could finish up looking like anything from a black spot on a white canvas to .......... (insert the name of your favourite painting) a mineral is very limited in what it can become, I read somewhere that there are over 2000 forms Calcite can take, that is a very finite thing, there is a limit to the different forms it can take, a piece of art has infinite possibilities. it is the artist's interpretation of this infinite resource of creative potential that makes the art, a mineral specimen is not an interpretation drawn from an infinite sample space, so to me anyway, minerals and the creative arts are mutually exclusive.fields, which is not to say that a mineral specimen cant be a work of art, in my opinion that is down to the precise arrangement of the finite forms a mineral can take. I know of course that, for example Agate's, kind of undernine what Im saying, in fact any amorphous mineral could form art in the definition I have given, but I think irrespective of that, the point still stands.
Finally on the subject of specimen price's ....., I know if I go to certain websites or dealers at a show i will pay a vast premium for the privilege (?) of buying from that particular dealer. I also know If a specimen belonged to a famous collector or was featured on the front of an influential piece of minerological literature I will pay a huge premium. I don't know if that's a good thing or not, to me its confusing, I know that in the vast majority of cases I can get something similar or even sometimes better elsewhere for an awful lot less. money. I think this is also a question of the personalities of the collectors, I get the most pleasure in my pursuit of this wonderful hobby we all share, by hunting down a bargain, by trawling through ebay and endless websites hunting for that sleeper, or from going into the hills with a couple of close friends and spending the day hitting rocks with hammers, as they say "Each to his own"
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valere
Joined: 10 Feb 2011
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Location: Belgium
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Jordi Fabre
Overall coordinator of the Forum
Joined: 07 Aug 2006
Posts: 4900
Location: Barcelona
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Posted: Mar 15, 2013 07:03 Post subject: Re: Munich Show (Mineralientage) 2012 |
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Valere,
FMF has also a copyright (you can see it at the bottom of each page), so theoretically nobody can use it without permission... |
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Pierre Joubert
Joined: 09 Mar 2012
Posts: 1605
Location: Western Cape
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Posted: Mar 15, 2013 07:47 Post subject: Re: Munich Show (Mineralientage) 2012 |
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nurbo wrote: | Great addition to this topic Jordi, My thoughts for what theyre worth are as follows.
Dealers who cherry pick through collections and only retail the best of the best often sell the rest of the collection on, often at a good price, so sure I dont own a pristine megabucks specimen that is ex famous collector/locality, but I own a lot of really good and/or interesting pieces from these same collections bought from less well known dealers for very reasonable prices. Also' I think the definition of "Best of the best" is a very relative thing, The cost of a specimen does not necessarily relate to the best or most important specimens, the judging criteria for this accolade is different for different people, One of the "Best of the best" pieces from my own collection (I recently counted the pieces in my collection, I've over 2700 specimens) is a Cinnabar from Cumbria which I collected myself, its not well crystallized, its a dusty red coating on minute brown Smithsonite in the remainder of a decomposed Sphalerite crystal on a grubby Baryte matrix, thing is, Cinnabar from this location isn't listed in any of the books, the locality itself isnt listed on Mindat and seemingly no one has ever seen another,, if I sold any of the handful of pieces I trimmed out of what I found, which all came from the same dinged up Baryte cluster it would probably fetch about $5, You can buy any number of Sweet Home Rhodochrosite's etc if you have a huge amount of money to spend, but by the looks of it if you wanted one of the Cinnabar's I mention you probably wouldn't find one at any price,, I say probably because I gave 2 samples away.one to the friend i was with when I found it, the other went off to an academic for verification purposes.
I think natruraly occuring works of art shouldn't really be compared with human made art, a piece of human art is formed from substances that could be manipulated to form any number of different completed works, that is to say, a painting could finish up looking like anything from a black spot on a white canvas to .......... (insert the name of your favourite painting) a mineral is very limited in what it can become, I read somewhere that there are over 2000 forms Calcite can take, that is a very finite thing, there is a limit to the different forms it can take, a piece of art has infinite possibilities. it is the artist's interpretation of this infinite resource of creative potential that makes the art, a mineral specimen is not an interpretation drawn from an infinite sample space, so to me anyway, minerals and the creative arts are mutually exclusive.fields, which is not to say that a mineral specimen cant be a work of art, in my opinion that is down to the precise arrangement of the finite forms a mineral can take. I know of course that, for example Agate's, kind of undernine what Im saying, in fact any amorphous mineral could form art in the definition I have given, but I think irrespective of that, the point still stands.
Finally on the subject of specimen price's ....., I know if I go to certain websites or dealers at a show i will pay a vast premium for the privilege (?) of buying from that particular dealer. I also know If a specimen belonged to a famous collector or was featured on the front of an influential piece of minerological literature I will pay a huge premium. I don't know if that's a good thing or not, to me its confusing, I know that in the vast majority of cases I can get something similar or even sometimes better elsewhere for an awful lot less. money. I think this is also a question of the personalities of the collectors, I get the most pleasure in my pursuit of this wonderful hobby we all share, by hunting down a bargain, by trawling through ebay and endless websites hunting for that sleeper, or from going into the hills with a couple of close friends and spending the day hitting rocks with hammers, as they say "Each to his own"
db |
I pretty much agree with what you say Nurbo. I often look at prices of some specimens on Internet, and think, wow! I can start a whole collection of really good specimens with that amount of money (it is not always what a specimen is worth, but what the poor sucker out there is prepaired to pay for it); and as you also mentioned, some specimens have huge personal value due to different reasons. _________________ Pierre Joubert
'The tree of silence bears the fruit of peace. ' |
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