FMF - Friends of Minerals Forum, discussion and message board

[Ed Huskinson]

Ha Tony. You're just jealous because Pater Lemke beat you to the punch with "...museum of the unattainable." Or maybe that should be "unobtainable" ala "unobtainium". Regardless, you are right on in your thinking. I'm glad to see John Rakovan on the panel, and look forward to seeing what he has to say.
Later pard.

Ed.

[Tony L. Potucek]

[rweaver]

[Peter Lemkin]

[rweaver]

Peter, very well said about who Josie was. I was very lucky to be one of those folks she let hang out with her. I was one of her Yellow Hats on field trips and one of her drivers for many years. She was one of a kind and well- liked everywhere she went. Pete B. and John S. were also a lot like her back in the day as well. There was a very good group of mineral collectors in San Diego at one time and I learned a lot from them. I think we met a long time ago at the Collector before going up to the Himalaya Mine with Bill.

[Jesse Fisher]

Not that I want to necessarily beat an already injured horse to death, but I think the use of the term "industry" to describe the mineral collecting hobby suggests a potential bias built in to the discussion, which a few have already commented on. A hobby is an activity that people engage in for pleasure, without regard to whether it will make a monetary profit or not. An industry implies activity aimed at making a profit. While I think the vast majority of people involved in mineral collecting do so on a hobby basis, there is certainly an industry that has grown up in recent years geared to servicing the growth of affluent collectors entering the hobby. Not that there is necessarily something wrong with this, but it has had the effect of creating a class-like stratification in the mineral collecting community, which I think was not nearly so obvious back when I first acquired the collecting disease about 30 years ago.

To reuse Peter's phrase (and I hope he has trade-marked it), I think the major mineral shows have truly become "museums of the unattainable" for the many collectors who can not afford thousands of dollars for a half-decent specimen, along with the time and expense involved with attending these shows. Many of these folks now content themselves with buying and selling on the internet. Does this "industry" serve this segment of the community? What about the folks who spend countless hours (and perhaps a fair amount of money) trying to dig their own treasures? What about the people who spend countless hours creating those wonderfully detailed photos of micro-minerals we see on Mindat? What about the folks who spend countless hours researching scientific and historical topics to produce the books and journals that at least some of us fill our libraries with? What about the kid who has a nascent interest in science and nature? The list goes on...

But to get to the point, business will always be business, but I just hope this discussion will be about more than the mechanics of buying and selling expensive minerals to the relatively few folks in the collecting community that can afford them.

[BlueCapProductions]

Breakfast With Minerals: Episode 1 is now live!!

Check it out here:

https://bwm.fireside.fm/01

[Gail]

Jesse. Huh?

Our interview focuses on the positive and the future, not lamenting over the victimhood of of people who wish things were like they used to be.
We actually don’t blame anyone for the way things are. We are interested in keeping the hobby alive and well. One has the option to not listen to this broadcast but we hope people, with a desire for stimulating conversation, will.

[Peter Lemkin]

[Peter Lemkin]

Well, the podcast covered a lot of ground. Some thoughts on some of that ground. Yes, it is true that education in the basic sciences ain't what it used to be. A lot of times when mineral-naive persons come to my place and see my collection they think I carved them ;-). When I tell them they are all naturally formed and especially when I point to those I have found myself, they exclaim that they never saw a rock like that just sitting on the ground. Yes, education in the geosciences would be nice. So would be more museums. Sad to hear that some are closing for financial reasons. I know of some opening up in old mining areas in Colorado. Many of the old mining towns have long had fabulous local collections from miners or miner/collectors who died and gave their collections to the town...but only recently are they putting the money into displaying them. I had the privilege to go through some boxes of such a donation at a famous CO mining town to pull out what I thought were the best specimens to display. I was blown away by what was in those boxes! We all 'naturally' respond to lovely xx, but many can't see much in them - and maybe part of it is not knowing just the basics of how crystals form, atomic structure, geology etc. I'm always blown away by having beautiful macroscopic manifestations of atomic structure and atomic bonding. They are also just plain beautiful, but I think much more so if one knows what is actually going on on the atomic level and how they formed.

More generally, I think many in contemporary society - especially the young - are not tuned into Nature and the Natural, but are more engaged in the razzle and dazzle of their smartphones and social media etc. along with a society increasingly getting away from things and thoughts Natural. I'm biased. I'm trained as a scientist and one in the Environmental Sciences at that.

Not too much discussed, but touched upon was the increase in prices. While it is true that at most shows one can still find reasonably priced specimens, at the premier shows the prices dazzle as much as the xx - and this is quite a change from the past. So, I have been in the habit of not only going to the premier shows, but 'secondary' smaller / local shows. However, many - not all - of these have slowly turned into more of beads, healing crystals, and non-mineral things I never understood being sold at mineral shows. Here in the Czech Republic many of the mineral shows have really gone downhill for the most part, sadly. One that is not advertised to the public, but only to the mineralogical community still holds its own for me. The Munich Show is spectacular, but so are the prices of so many of the specimens. There is nothing wrong with that....premium specimens deserve premium prices - but I question HOW MUCH they have increased. It is certainly way way way above the rate of inflation. And any show that wants to stay in business, I think, needs to have a range of prices - and that would mean some mid-level and even some below-mid-level priced dealers [but still of quality specimens - if not top-shelf].

[Jordi Fabre]

Great Podcast discussion, I enjoyed a lot, and great oppinions here too. When I can find time I will try to add some thoughts.

[Peter Lemkin]

Ah, yes....another interesting part of the discussion I forgot to react to here....about mining companies not caring about specimens. Long been true...long been true. I spend a lot of time up in the Telluride-Ouray mining area - and there are many stories and photos to prove them of miners who'd stop for moment to show fellow workers the most amazing and HUGE crystals or crystal clusters, and then throw them into the ore car or crusher. Luckily some were smart enough or had enough esthetic appreciation to put them in the 'lunchbox'. In other places mining foremen would sometimes ask miners to give them any interesting and unusual XX. We have lost most of the great XX ever mined and continue to do so. The big mining companies and those who make the decisions in them are 1] totally unaware of the beauty and even value of XX 2] don't want to make waves or slow down production, even for a few minutes or hours 3] are focused on the one or few mineral/metal products their mine produces and the hell with the other strange pockets with them in great xx or other minerals associated with them. I hope more can be convinced to find a way to meet the mineral-mad folks like us half way. It is in their interest too - even it they don't realize it. As a strange and rather macabre tale along these lines. I imagine most of you collectors know of the famous Czech location called Pribram [actually there are many mines, but collectively known by that name]. Some fantastic mineral specimens have come out of there. There is one guy who comes to shows and sells bits of what I once went to his home to see the full extent of. During the communist period here, political prisoners were sent into this [and other] mines to do hard labor. He was a guard and would give them small 'privileges' if they brought him interesting xx...and thus amassed tons of interesting materials mildly unethically. Oddly, he seems to believe he will live forever, as at the rate he is selling at shows, he'd have to live to be 1000 to sell half of what he has.

[Bob Carnein]

I listened to half of this and thought it was very interesting. I kind of wonder, though, where it goes from here. The talk was wide ranging, touching on a lot of issues that we have all thought about. Will future talks be a bit more organized, in terms of topics? If not, I probably will skip listening--there are only so many hours in the day.

With regard to astronomical prices, I worry that the same thing will happen to minerals at some point in the future that happened to antiques a decade ago. Except for the extremely rare items that most collectors can't afford, the bottom fell out of that market and hasn't yet recovered (although there are signs of life). It seems to me that some antiques dealers spent much of their time selling to wealthy buyers while ignoring or not cultivating the future collectors, who wanted to see things and learn. Could this happen to the mineral world?

I don't think mineral collectors should think of their collection as an "investment", because most of them probably will be disappointed at some time in the future, especially if they expect to sell the collection to a dealer. Although the best advice has always been to buy the best you can afford, that doesn't mean an unsophisticated but wealthy collector (there seem to be a lot of those out there) will recoup the costs when it comes time to sell. My advice to collectors would be to learn everything you can and then buy (or dig) what you find most interesting. My advice to dealers is that they focus more of their attention on the mid-range but sophisticated collectors who may become the connoisseurs of the future.

[James Catmur]

It is always interesting to see how fashion affects the price of things.

I have a house that is full of old brown furniture dating from the 17th to 19th century. We had it valued about 20 years ago for insurance purposes and it was worth a good sum. After my wife died in 2016 I had to have it valued for probate and was told that it is basically worth 1/10th of what it was insured for! Fashion is now for small, light colored furniture and large, brown furniture is worth almost nothing. Looking at prices at auction since then things we had valued at £1000 20 years ago now go for £100, so that looks about right!

So our collections are basically a reflection of the current fashion. If that changes then they will change in value. I have the space for my collection (when we married and bought this house one of the criteria was that it had to have a 'rock room' that could house my collection. A number of times we did not move as there was no 'rock room'). Many people will not have the space required and I am sure we will see fashion change. So the future will not just depend on new people but also on fashion.

My grandfather built the world's largest collection of printer ephemera (The John Johnson Collection, in Oxford). It was gifted to a museum, as that was his wish. At the moment it is valued by the museum (although it has been moved to the basement and the room it was in is now a far more fashionable cafe) but who knows what the future will bring.

[Peter Lemkin]

PI for one have never seen or felt my mineral collection as an 'investment' or even as a financial asset. I has worth and that worth has obviously increased greatly over the years with the asymptotic rise in mineral prices. But, I collected them and purchased/traded them because i love and cherish them. I could never sell them when alive. They have intrinsic value as beautiful manifestations of Nature, atomic structure, crystalline structure, geology and geological processes, time, etc. All of these elements were created in the inner cores of older stars and spread through space by the explosion [supanovae] of stars in their death throws; then drifted as www.spam.og dust and eventually were consolidated into proto-stellar systems and then into planets - and specifically this one Gaia [Earth]. That to me is their only real value - along with their beauty, mystery, and what they can tell about atomic, chemical and geological processes. Of course, they also have monetary value - I am not naive, but what always has bothered me is when persons see them first [or only] for their financial value or worst their 'investment' value - and minimize or ignore their intrinsic value as Natural objects of beauty and awe. If the 'bottom drops out' of the mineral market, as a collector, it will be wonderful - of course it would be devastating to those who make a living selling them. Hopefully, the astronomical prices of many items will come down and remain stable - I think that would benefit all in the long run and ensure a lasting legacy of sellers and buyers. I somehow can't imagine that interest in mineral specimens and collecting could ever really drop drastically, due to their intrinsic value and beauty. Rise or Fall in external value, the value to me of my collection remains the same......