Blogs
e-Rocks Listing Process Update
Effective February 14th, 2024, e-Rocks will be implementing an update to the relisting process for auction items that do not sell in an auction.
e-Rocks' listing rules and format has remained largely unchanged for over 18 years. This consistency has contributed to the high level of interest our mineral listings receive from mineral collectors worldwide. To further improve engagement, changes to the relist system have come into effect.
Thanks to your support, we have finally arrived at our new facility with our laboratory inventory.
Many thanks to Christian Bracke for your organization and support in planning the move through the Friedrich Friedrich company
Darmstadt freight forwarding and
Möbeltransportges.m.b.H We are very satisfied with you. Thanks also go to all the moving helpers!
Recently the silver arsenate mineral theuerdankite has been IMA approved (Copyright M. Groß, Lengede) It occurs in dark mm-sized crystals with native silver and iodargyrite and was found at the Theuerdank mine, St. Andreasberg, Harz, Germany. Gysinite-Ce, another sample provided by M. Groß from the Theuerdank mine, was IMA approved as well. It occurs as tiny sub-mm sized crystals of orange colour. Thanks for the contribution, M. Groß!
For the relocation of our company, that has contributed to Mineralogy and Crystallography by the description of numerous new minerals in the past, we appreciate any donation that helps us to build up the new lab. http://mineralanalytik.de/en/references-publications The most recent new minerals identified at Mineralanalytik, that have been IMA approved recently, are gysinite-(Ce) and theuerdankite. We would like to continue our work and do even better with more knowledge and better working environment.
# Extinct Minerals with Place of Discovery
We have opened a new Mobile browser version for e-Rocks - we hope you will like it.
The first thing to say is that if you don't like it you can turn it off and on by the "View Desktop Site" option posted on every page.
The mobile site is optimised for mobile and tablet device use for bidding, buying and searching the site.
Once logged in the "you" icon will show green and the site is fully open for you. The best thing to do is log in and have a look around; however here are some of the features to explore.
Madeiraite was named after the Madeira island. It's the type-locality mineral for the Automous Region of Madeira.
Hi Everyone
As you will know the Import of Goods to EU Countries and VAT Sales between EU Countries changes at 00:01 on July 1st 2021.
This will affect buying on e-Rocks in 2 areas.
1/ Buying from a VAT Registered EU Sellers in a different EU country.
From 1 July VAT charges within your purchase invoice will be accounted at the VAT rate of your country (not the seller country).
The e-Rocks invoicing system will now create invoices to reflect this new rule.
A shout-out to mobile and tablet users on e-Rocks!
A while back we created the e-Rocks Mineral Database App to provide phone users a quick and easy mineral database. The app is fast and contains tons of useful information on species, chemistry, properties and classification.
This is a nice little tool when you are at a show or otherwise away from your desktop/offline; a massive thankyou to the 1,500 or so users that are using it.
We now have new servers with much more processing, storage, security and up-to-date software.
As we said previously hopefully you will not notice anything different - a few page caches may need to rebuild etc.
Please let us know if you are seeing any problems - it really helps to fix if we know what you are seeing.
Moving forward with our modernised platform we can continue to introduce new features as promised.
This week we have some big things to do on the e-Rocks service.
We last went through this in September 2015 when we had much less traffic and data to store.
If things are going well 5 years is quite a long life-span for a system, and apart from routine uplifts in storage and processors we have done well.
However some of what we have is out of date, under capacity and due for an uplift.
Please be aware of our updated TVM Terms & Conditions before bidding or buying anything TVM offers on e-Rocks.
There is also a link showing the details below on each and every item listed.
Our Terms and Conditions - 31 December 2020
RESPONSE TIME: We will generally respond within 24hrs to questions and purchase requests, via the e-Rocks contact and invoice system.
If you contact us directly via email this will be the same, via social media this cannot be guaranteed.
Two unusual and colourful Uranium (U) minerals have been reported from Germany for the first time: Green to bluish paddlewheelite and yellow-green glassy albrechtschraufite.
The locality is Uranus Mine, Kleinrückerswalde, in the Erzgebirge Mountains in Saxony. This is only the second locality in the world after the type locality at Jachymov, Czech Republic.
The identification of the minerals has been done by PXRD & EDS.
Analytical investigations of the germanite and renierite associated secondary minerals have lead to the discoveries of many unique minerals eg. otjisumeite, bartelkeite, stottite from the Tsumeb Mine, Otavi Highlands, Namibia in the past decades.
There are still many undescribed Germanium (Ge), Gallium (Ga) bearing secondary minerals present in this assemblage, that lack size or other parameters for further structural work, but the main focus of this article are new Cadmium (Cd) bearing minerals, that are already known from other localities.
It has been very quiet on the blog front for a while, there has been a reason for this which will be explained at a later stage; but we are back with some great news (for a change).
e-Rocks seller Jason Smith, better known as Bucket of Holes Minerals, has had a mineral named after him!
Back in early April the announcement slipped out onto Facebook, that the new structure type phosphate mineral; Mn2+4ZnAl(PO4)4(OH)(H2O)7•3.5H2O is going to be named Jasonsmithite.
Hi Everyone,
As the coronavirus outbreak continues to affect all our communities and day to day life wherever you live, we want to share our latest thoughts on how we are trying to adapt to this new reality.
As you will have seen, and after discussion with our sellers, e-Rocks intends to carry on as near normal as possible.
Circumstances, especially by country are different and also changing day by day. So we intend to keep this page active/updates as necessary.
Several months ago we could confirm tavagnascoite from the famous Bastnäs mines, well known for rich pink cerite specimens partially covered by haleniusite-La (first recognized by the e-rocks dealer nothernminerals) and also from the Sadisdorf region, Germany (Münchner Mineralien Lithothek e.V.).
Now another significant find was made in cavities of an altered bismuthinite specimen from the Esmoraca district, Bolivia (Germania mine is very likely the exact locality). This material is very fresh and rich and is as good or even better than material from the type locality.
In October 1881. the illustrious scientist Benjamin Silliman Jr. was at the Torrance mine, Socorro, New Mexico -
Merry Christmas to all! The mineral baubles decorating the above tree are all from the same unusual American mine. The Christmas of 1902 was a corker for George B. Chittenden of Gila County, below (that's a contented smirk he's got) -
Analysis of a sample from the Moschellandsberg mainly consisting of malachite, calomel and minor eglestonite provided the evidence of a
new mercury arsenate from this locality: Chursinite.
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As we have passed Thanksgiving and now moving into the Christmas festive period, you might want to indulge yourself in a box of chocolates to go along with the celebrations?
If so you might be interested in this listing from Norbert Stotzel starting today.
On the morning of the fifth of August 1898, a large rock entered the atmosphere over Maine, USA. Traveling at around 50 times faster than Concorde, it plunged from frictionless space into ever thickening layers of air. Atmospheric ram pressure began sharply braking the descent at around 50 miles above the ground, with the energy being dissipated by heating the air ahead white hot, and ablating the surface of the stone.
We are having quite a golden time for new mineral species additions to e-Rocks.
This short blog features news from from Jason Smith and Volker Betz regarding two new phosphate minerals from Foote Mine in North Carolina, USA. Apologies for the pun in the title.
The new minerals aniyunwiyaite and fanfaniite were discovered in a boulder in the dumps: when samples were analysed one proved to be triclinic, but with similar chemistry to kingsmountite.
In the current YourSystemmaticCollection (YSC) auction closing tonight, as well as the usual range of rare minerals there is another mineral first seen here on e-Rocks.
George was talking with Roberto Bracco of YSC at Munich and told us to look out for the mineral bonacinaite; Roberto was involved in the analysis and publication.
In November 1777 French botanist Joseph Dombey, above, set sail for Peru and Chile, as part of the joint Spanish-French Ruiz & Pavón Expedition. The arduous eleven year botanical exploration provided a wealth of plant specimens, an international incident known as the "Dombey Affair," and two minerals previously unknown to science.
Today (23rd October) we notched up item #680000 into our specimen database, completing another 10,000 increment to the catalogue.
The honoured rock is a specimen of Cleusonite from Fibbia, Ticino in Switzerland. The specimen was listed by Soenke Stolze of Nothern Minerals.
We covered the latest 10,000 step in 60 days averaging 167 minerals per day, as predicted a little faster than during the previous count.
Our daily sales rate in the same period has been ticking along at 140 sales per day.
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It is Munich time again and I am sure you will have noticed a number of "Munich" themed auctions here on e-Rocks.
As usual there is a great choice of minerals coming up and more to come over the next week or so, there is also a full programme of auctions running during the show.