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  • 13 Sep, 2017
    Mark Wrigley (Admin)
    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...
  • 19 Oct, 2016
    Mark Wrigley (Admin)
    We all have them, but in the mineral world the continual exchange of specimens between collections, dealers and other collectors means that provenance and history can play an important part in the interest in a particular...
  • 30 Sep, 2016
    Mark Wrigley (Admin)
    George and I have just picked up the collection of Dr Ernst Peter Uerpmann from deepest Spain. The collection of over 3,000 pieces has been in storage since 2002 when Peter moved from Germany to Alicante on his retirement;...
  • 12 Sep, 2016
    Mark Wrigley (Admin)
    Fake mineral (and fossil) specimens have been around as long as there have been collectors and widely regarded as a big "no-no" for most people, and rightly so. Some fakes are obvious; I remember well back in 2003 at Ste...
  • 06 Sep, 2016
    Mark Wrigley (Admin)
    Frequently pointed out by kind visitors are the typos in the texts I produce - as always my thanks for the assistance with this! This time this is not a typo of fluorite but an interesting specimen of a mineral variety I had...
  • 02 Sep, 2016
    Mark Wrigley (Admin)
    In the world of minerals different localities can often be distinguished by variations in morphology and or associations; for example it is comparatively easy to determine that a dioptase specimen was collected in Tsumeb...
  • 06 Jun, 2016
    Mark Wrigley (Admin)
    For most of last week George, Frank and I have been on a European road trip. We have recently bought a very large collection and went over to check it out. Because we have been away some of our shipping has been delayed,...
  • 21 Jan, 2016
    Mark Wrigley (Admin)
    We just acquired a little stash of Peruvian silver minerals and received a nice surprise when we discovered one of the boxes was double layered with these little pill boxes underneath. Unfortunately there are no labels on...
  • 13 Jan, 2016
    Mark Wrigley (Admin)
    I spotted this specimen in the latest Sal Minerals auction. Salvator was puzzled enough by the colour and habit of the cranberry tourmaline crystals to have these analysed. The results came back as Darrellhenryite, a rare...
  • 13 Jan, 2016
    Mark Wrigley (Admin)
    Great news from Thames Valley Minerals; we have just completed the acquisition of the final suites of specimens in the Warren Taylor mineral collection. Warren (and the Taylor family) have achieved recent fame as the people...