Blogs

Here we have yet another recently discovered mineral added to our database.

"Jinan Stone" was first collected in 2015 by Daisuke Nishio-Hamane of Tokyo University. It was referred to by this name prior to identification/classification  as Jinan is the general area where the find was made.

It has now been 3 years since George joined us at TVM and a week since joining e-Rocks ltd!

To celebrate he went off on his own this week to appraise and buy a mineral collection down in the West Country.

We received a lead about the collection a few weeks ago and as it was in George's area he went off to look-see.

The collection comprises some 500 worldwide minerals with a good mix of aesthetic and other pieces, plus some stuff to go in the shed!

We recently uncovered a specimen of botroidal marcasite and siderite from Hector Mine near Ibbenbüren in Münsterland (North-West Germany).

The specimen itself is typical of the "schalen" or shell type ore formations distributed across this area famous for both coal and metal ore mining, with an attribution date of 1921.
 

Looking forward to next Saturday when it is Bakewell time once more!

For us Bakewell show each year is a must and George and I will be making the trip again this year. We hope to see many of our UK based collector friends there and will be sharing some news about our current projects.

A highly recommended 2 day event; if you have not already been, well worth the trip, details are below (courtesy of PLMS).
 

At the beginning of last week I posted the above picture of Realgar and Native Arsenic on my Facebook page with the caption "Toxic red stuff for Monday".

Beautiful red crystals of realgar against a black and white background do look great in detail.

My strapline did provoke some interesting discussion and points of view about minerals and toxicity, with some strong feelings.

Dr Andrew Christy (Andychristyite) was quick to mention or suggest routhierite, "redder and even more toxic, with a bit of thallium and mercury"

Recently listed online by Roberto Rojas of Minerat minerals is a remarkable specimen of kröhnkite & blödite from Coronel Manuel Rodriguez Mine, Mejillones, Antofagasta, Chile.

At 25cm across the bright blue kröhnkite would be impressive in its own right, but Roberto's piece has a little sting in its tail.

About half way across a scorpion has become trapped and set in mineral surface partially obscured by a later deposition of blödite.

We came across this specimen in material from the Alex Franz collection, formerly belonging Hans-Peter Schroder and dated 1972.

The piece is a flat backed sandstone matrix covered in pyromorphite but also small octahedral crystals of galena replaced by limonite.

The pyromorphite also forming an outer layer to some of the octahedrons.

The locality although recorded is a little obscure: it is long abandoned, described as "ancient" and not many specimens seem to have surfaced on the Net.

This specimen is very typical and a good example of the paragenesis.

Dont forget as of 1st October 2017, the e-Rocks.com website will be transferring to ownership by e-Rocks Ltd.

Please refer to our previous notice, linked below.

Looking forward to our new jobs on Monday: as rock group the Who said back in 1971 in the song "Won't get fooled again".

"Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss"

Last weekend I was reading on the BBC website about the discovery of a "lost" portrait painting by Rubens of George Villiers, the 1st Duke of Buckingham (d.1628).

It turned out the painting was lost in plain view hanging and on public display in Glasgow's Pollok House stately home.

Overpainting and accumulated dirt meant it was thought to be a later copy by another artist, however forensic work and research has now enabled the work to be correctly attributed to Rubens.

Our e-Rocks database is continuously growing and flexing as our sellers add new mineral types, varieties and of course the odd thing that we think is relevant to the naming of items on the site.

Recently I was adding a group of related "new" minerals, péligotite, ottohahnite and klaprothite.

Officially IMA approved pending publication these minerals are found together, first identified in 2015 as fluorescent uranyl sulphate minerals  from Blue Lizard Mine, Red Canyon, San Juan County, Utah, USA.

Originally described by Dr Peter Elliott (et al) a mineralogy researcher from the University of Adelaide after detailed analysis of a sample given to him by the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation. Putnisite was was approved by the IMA in 2012, and named after for after Australian mineralogists Dr Andrew and Dr Christine Putnis.

Back in 2009 the late Paul Lowe was disposing of the mineral collection of the late Dr Fred Armitage.

Dr Armitage lectured in Chemistry at London Universities from the 1970s until the early 2000s. He had a huge interest in puzzles particularly polycube assemblies, which combined with chemistry was a good basis for an interest in minerals.

In this collection was a rhodochrosite specimen labelled from Wessels Mine, South Africa. The mineral was formed on a substrate of brittle, resinous concoidal material which at the time was uncertain to me.

Art Deco walnut display cabinet, circa 1930

Introduction

Hi all!
There is a new photo contest on the way, the second Mineral Photo Contest MinerElx is open for entries until 30th of November.

This year there are two categories: macro photos and micromount photos.
No age limit and every participant can submit 2 photos per category.

Winners will be presented on 4th December and the prizes will be awarded 17th december in Elche (Spain).
If winner can not came to pick up the prize, we will send it by post, that's the reason there are no excuses to not send your photos.

The other day we picked out a specimen from the Ted Smithson collection, namely a witherite labelled as from the Joycey Shaft at Langley Barony Mine near Haydon Bridge, Northumberland, UK.

It is the first time we have seen anything from this locality so I though it worth checking out.

Langley Barony is very well documented and was operational as a lead mine from 1873 to 1893, with around 41,000 tons of lead ore lifted.

The mine site is derelict and still quite well preserved though there has been talk of reclaiming the tips for processing their baryte content.

On 1st October 2017 there will be some changes to the e-Rocks.com business plus the Terms & Conditions.

The e-Rocks.com business will be transferring from our current Thames Valley Minerals ownership to a new company registered in the UK, e-Rocks Ltd.

There will be no changes to any of our existing Terms & Conditions or the way e-Rocks auctions or marketplace functions.

All liabilities/agreements/acceptance of our T&CS will be transferred to the new ownership, and new T&Cs will be published to reflect this.

Sometimes even the most clearly labelled specimen will have you scratching your head in trying to find out what it is or where it is really from!

Working with old collections and labels it is possible to encounter changes in mineral names via reclassification, odd names or variety names, mispelling or just illegible/faded handwriting.

The same goes for localities where changes in country or regional boundaries can be as hard to decipher as an abbreviation that only means something to the creator.

If you encounter both together things can become really arduous.

George uncovered this photogenic little millerite specimen last week and the picture caused quite a stir on Facebook over the weekend.

Labelled as being from the Windsor Colliery, Abertridwr near Caerphilly, Wales it displays a very pretty array of divergent millerite needles stemming from a single galena crystal with a "diamond" quartz crystal set to one side.

The display is almost too good to believe, but is definitely "au naturel".

At this time on Thursday 3rd September 2015 we were busy finishing the change over from the old e-Rocks site to the new.

Later that evening the first sold specimen, CMM220188 Pentagonite from India hit the order table.

Since that time another 103380 orders have followed and another 110544 items have been added to our database.

It has been a very busy and enjoyable few years with many adventures along the way.

I would like to offer a personal and public thank you to all users of e-Rocks for your support and use of our pages over this time.

Hi All,

We have fixed the problem with accessing e-Rocks yesterday.

The rescheduled end times for yesterday's auctions are now updated.

Note, these auctions will close across today and tomorrow along with the programme listings with altered times.

Please refer to the full auction schedule to see the corrected list.

Thanks,

Mark & George

Out for a run last night and listening to the radio, in particular an excerpt about Greek mythology being discussed by Stephen Fry.

Not my usual digest but it has been one of those weeks!

Anyway the piece was about Dionysus the Ancient Greek god of wine, renamed by the Romans to Bacchus.

Dionysus had an interesting start to life, after his conception by Zeus his mother was tricked by Zeus's jealous wife into looking at his godly form, and consequently burst into flames. Zeus took the unborn foetus and zipped it into his thigh until his birth.

Traditionally July and August are slower months for us; with both sellers and collectors away on holiday etc.

This year we have been moving like an express train with the e-Rocks sellers adding 10000 new items in the 65 days from June 26th through to August 30th.

We started off at the end of June at 600000 and on the 30th August crossed the line with BGM610000, an unseasonal average of 154 new items per day.

Corresponding items sold for July/August was 9232 and that is a lot of shipping!

A little "smoke gets in your eyes" moment today as we said goodbye to Chris Mavris who has been helping us for the last 9 months.

Behind the scenes at e-Rocks Chris has been diligently working away at some "special" projects for us which we will be getting set up on the website in the coming months.

Thank you Chris and see you again soon we hope!

Late in July George & I had the good fortune to travel up to Weardale to attend the Weardale Mineral Show in St Johns Chapel.

We had a fantastic time and a big thumbs up must go to Enrico Rinaldi for doing all the organisation and staging of the event.

Apart from catching up on all the news in the dale, it was particularly great to see the display of fluorite specimens put on by the National Museum of Wales.

It was great to catch up with Tom Cotterell and learn about their display.

Having just been away for a fine week's stay at the village of Belstone, near Okehampton on Dartmoor, it was a neat coincidence that an auction selection coming through is from Belstone Consols Mine.

Whilst staying in Belstone I had already checked into the localities and the mining history of the place.

Belstone is set on a sill beneath the main climb up onto Dartmoor and it is on this sill that mining took place, predominantly for copper and other metal ores.

Until I researched it I would never have thought vanadinite likely to occur at Ilfeld in Harz, Germany.

The specimen we discovered is a manganite matrix with tiny pockets of braunite, and with one solitary yellow (part) crystal within.

Being solitary and measuring c.5mm we can hardly call the specimen rich, but certainly rare!

Checking out references online the picture you can see is one of only two photos online, the other you can see via the Mineralienatlas link below.

It is always interesting when a seller messages me because a mineral isn't listed on our main database.

Jason Boyd Smith, AKA Bucket of Holes made such a request for the mineral "Schmidite" yesterday.

Sure enough it was not listed with us, and further investigation warranted schmidite to be added as new mineral - approved, awaiting publication from the IMA.

The mineral itself is a hydrated phosphate mineral with zinc iron and manganese, similar to schoonerite and wilhelmgümbelite.