Manitoba Museum

Specimens from the new mineral gallery. The first picture is a half ton red Amethyst from Thunder Bay and a  30 cm Millerite from Thompson Manitoba.

Red River Floodway

Nice Specimen

What's hot in Tucson

Herkimer Diamond Pockets

The Tuscon Mineral Show of China (Changsha)

For more information on the show follow he link :
http://www.changsha-show.com/en/index.html#

Flickr River

Here is a link to flickr river :
http://flickrhivemind.net/flickr_hvmnd.cgi?method=GET&sorting=Interestingness&page=2&photo_type=250&noform=t&search_domain=Tags&photo_number=50&tag_mode=all&sort=Interestingness&textinput=geology,mineralogy&originput=geology,mineralogy&search_type=Tags

CRYSTALS MINERALS GEMSTONES FOSSILS ROCKS

Here is a link the there Facebook page : http://www.facebook.com/CrystalsAndMinerals

The Tanzanite Mines

 

Crystal Museum

Fine Mineral Show

Here is a link to Fine Mineral Show's facebook page :
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Fine-Mineral-Show/218146268259533

The Great Phosphophyllite

 

 

 

The Great Phosphophyllite Story
(as told by Richard Kosnar circa 1998)

"In July 1977, I received a letter (in Spanish) and snapshots of a matrix Phosphophyllite. I called my partner in La Paz and he drove to Sucre (the real capital of Bolivia according to my partner) to see the specimen. It belonged to a mining engineer named Urquidi who had worked at Unificada for many years. My partner called me several days later, but I was not at home in Boulder, primarily because I was working the Sweet Home mine in Alma that summer. My partner really didn't have a clue about the value of this crystal which was a full 13 cm. long and on matrix ! He knew it was a very dramatic specimen and that it was obviously worth a lot of money, so he told Urquidi to hold the piece until he contacted me. As it turned out, Urquidi was selling his pride and joy to raise enough money to become a full partner in a small ceramic tile factory. Still unable to reach me, my partner decided to go ahead and buy the piece on his own.

The following weekend I finally got a call from my partner in Bolivia who said, I'm flying to Denver tomorrow and I'm bringing the Phosphophyllite ! He arrived at the airport with the piece and the first thing I did when we got it to my house was to put a shortwave light on it. The bloody thing lit up like a Christmas tree ! It looked like a tic-tac-toe grid ! My partners friend in Denver had come over to see the piece and having some knowledge of mineral specimens immediately blurted out, Christ, I hope you can get your money back ! The specimen was actually 7 pieces including the matrix - crudely glued back together. I took a few snapshots of the piece the way it arrived that day with my business card in the foreground as a scale. This all took place on September 15, 1977. Needless to say, I decided to keep the specimen which I later sold to Dave Wilber in November 1978, and he put it on display at the Tucson Show in February 1979. He later sold the piece to Yampol. The Famous Phosphophyllite was mined by Urquidi in 1962. Having been the mining engineer from 1956 through 1964, Urquidi stated that the best of the Phosphophyllites came out from the early pockets found in 1957, and of course, the largest and most spectacular crystals came out in 1962, and some decent pockets were found right up until 1964, when the famous Phosphophyllite stope was closed off with a concrete bulkhead by COMIBOL to prevent any further collecting in that area of the mine. Contrary to various stories Ive heard in this country about the closure of the mine, the fact of the matter was that the temperature in the Phosphophyllite stopes had become very high and due to the fact that there was absolutely no ventilation raises in this dead-end drift, bad air i.e., poisonous gases had accumulated and had killed several miners over the years. Urquidis description of the pocket that was opened which contained the Great Phosphophyllite still burns in my memory and haunts me even to this day. He said that when he and the miners got back to the stope after the blast, the entire floor of the drift was completely covered with broken Phosphophyllite. He said that it looked as if someone had broken hundreds of glass bottles back in the stope! It literally took a few days for the miners to scoop-up all of the broken pieces and T/Ns. I once purchased a plastic bag full of gem twinned Phosphophyllite crystals ranging in size from 2 to 2.5 cm. Since 1979, a number of attempts have been made to reopen the mine. Several by me and my partner, as well as a few more mining companies from Australia, Canada and even Bolivia. The Bolivian government has been quite adamant about the fact that the mine is much too dangerous to reopen and operate, and this is in a country that puts next to no value on human life !!"

Australian Museum

 

 

 

 

Here is a link to the Australian Museum :

http://australianmuseum.net.au/event/The-Albert-Chapman-Mineral-Collection

 

Here is a link to a tribute to Albert Chapman :

http://www.mineral.org.au/news/chapman.html

David Wilber at the Milan Museum

The Best of Collectors Steve Smale

Here is a link to Best of Collectors :
 http://www.euromineral.fr/a_/b_ofc20.html

Giazotto Collection Part 1

Giazotto Collection Part 2

The Best of Collectors Gilles HAINEAULT

Here is a link Euro Mineral and Euro Gem :
http://www.euromineral.fr/a_/b_ofc30.html

The Peshawar Pakistan Market Part 1

The Peshawar Pakistan Market Part 2

Lithographie LLC

Here is a link to there bookstore :
http://www.lithographie.org/bookshop.htm
Here is a link to there facebook page :
http://www.facebook.com/lithographie?ref=stream

Saint Marie Minerals Show 2012

L. A. Natural History Museum

Here is a link to there flickr page :
http://www.flickr.com/photos/nhmla/7707392328/in/photostream/

And here is a link to there blog :
http://nhminsci.blogspot.ca/

Munich Mineral Show 2012

Photographer - Joaquim Callén

Here is a link to his website :
http://www.joaquimcallen.cat/

Photographer - Jeff Scovil

Here is a link to his mindat page :
http://www.mindat.org/user-15329.html#2_0_0_0_0_0_

Munich 2011 - European Classics

Here is a link FabreMinerals youtube page. He has a lot more videos of the show :
http://www.youtube.com/user/FabreMinerals

The New Seaman Museum

Here is a link to a discusion about the Seaman Museum, on mineral forum :
http://www.mineral-forum.com/message-board/viewtopic.php?t=1416&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0

Also here is a link to the Seaman Museum's website :
http://www.museum.mtu.edu/index.html

Apophyllite - Houston Museum

Dioptase

Silver - Houston Museum

Daoping mine

10,000 ct Ruby

Here is a link to Palagems :
http://www.palagems.com/gem_news_archive2.php

Best Amethyst Find in North America

Grandfather Mountain - Nature Museum
November 4th, 1972 the greatest amethyst cluster every found in North America was found here(Reel mine). It now resides in the Grandfather Nature Museum. John White, former curator of Minerals and Gemstones for the Smithsonian, said that the crystal is definitely the finest amethyst cluster ever discovered in North America.

Pyrite,Spain

Azurite

Flowers of the Mineral Kingdom

Here is a link to the Facebook page of flowers of the mineral kingdom. There page has some beautiful specimens :
http://www.facebook.com/FlowersOfTheMineralKingdom

Museum quality Stibnite Specimen

 

A very nice chinese Stibnite specimen.

47th Ste-Marie-aux Mines Mineral Show

For the report on this show follow this link :
http://www.crystalclassics.co.uk/news-story.php?id=92

The Weardale Giant

To read the story of how they got this amazing piece out of the mine follow this link :
http://www.ukminingventures.com/weardalegiant.htm

Nice Rutile Specimens

 

Here is a link to Trinity Minerals : http://www.trinityminerals.com/cm/cmshow.shtml

Big Red Rhodochrosite