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The Nick Bartlet collection, we purchased in 2004 still continues to provide interesting and uncommon items from its boxes.
This most recent discovery is a specimen of schröckingerite from the Peath Lode on the 17th Level at Geevor, Cornwall.
The find...
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Luigi Chiappino of Systematica called up a new mineral today - Albertiniite - to be added to the mineral database.
This new species recently approved and published by the IMA is quite a straight forward iron(II) sulphite, formula - Fe2+(SO3)·3H2O.
The...
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Was happy to see a nice post from Marc Allen Fleischer of the Fleischer Museum on Facebook the other day.
Mark had recently purchased and received the above Megiliggar apatite from TVM.
This is his post, "You don’t expect to find a Pegmatite in England...
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Today was our last show outing for the 2017 Season, Oxford Show is the last mineral show on the UK circuit for 2017.
To this end it was rather nice to be greeted with a Christmas tree in the foyer, certainly set the scene for a fun morning at the show...
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e-Rocks seller and well traveled field collector Tasos Tsinidis from Greece, has some wonderful minerals and stories to tell about his exploits.
He is knowledge of all things mineralogical and Greek is immense, he also is excellent at preparing and...
-
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...
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As previously mentioned yesterday's show was dedicated to the memory of Paul Lowe who had organised the show since 1993. It was great to see so many people there.
Paul's children Matt and Emma had arranged some photo tributes to Paul as well as being on...
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What a great start to Munich Show 2015 it has been.
We arrived at the Show at around 1400Hrs local time and things were already buzzing.
Almost immediately we were directed to the booth of Wendell Minerals to look three! cabinet sized fluorite specimens...
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George turned up today with a little collection of mainly Scottish Minerals.
This is some native silver from Alva Mine, Central Scotland.
8mm across - rare stuff!
The discovery of a native silver deposit in 1715 also coincided with the Jacobite rebellion...
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Andyrobertsite and calcioandyrobertsite are two fascinating mineral species present in a single very famous specimen from Tsumeb. This superb specimen was featured in the cover of the Mineralogical Record vol.30, num. 3, May-June 1999, jointly with the...
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Here is some information about an article published on the BBC website yesterday concerning a paper shortly to appear in the American Mineralogist.
Authored by Dr Robert Hazen, from the Carnegie Institution in Washington DC, and Prof Jesse Ausubel of The...
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It was down to Carsten to wrap up August 2015, and boy did he find something a bit unusual!
Brunogeierite is an insanely rare iron germanate found only (so far) in a few places, plus Tsumeb. The crystal habit is black octahedral crystals.
For a Tsumeb...
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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 over say Kaokoveld or Altyn.
I...
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Those of you who read my last Oxford Show report will remember a mention of Paul Nicholson at Waveney Minerals.
We have known Paul as a collector for well over 15 years, and more recently as an occasional show dealer in the UK. As of the last Show report...
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....and alkali mineral collectors. We have just purchased a small collection specialising in these minerals from UK collector Ben Gibson.
The collection also contains a small suite from Cornwall, plus interlopers from other places like USA, Norway, India...
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This Sunday is the Paul Lowe Memorial Oxford Show.
I am sure it will be a great show and a good opportunity to remember Paul with fellow mineral people.
These are the details;
Venue: Exeter Hall, Kidlington, North Oxford, OX5 1AB
Sunday 27th November...
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The new year continues this week with a full program of auctions from the e-Rocks sellers.
As usual a huge and diverse range covering most aspects of collecting.
This diamond listed in the latest SAL minerals auction is a good example, weighing in at 57....
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If you don't already know about it, here is a website for anyone who is interested in old mining history, especially related to the western states of the USA.
The website contains a huge and comprehensive database of mining localities, mining information...
-
The project to open a pit to extract tungsten at Hemerdon has been going for a few years, but now it has entered into production with the first concentrate being produced.
As reported by the Plymouth Herald "it represents another major milestone in the...
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Tomii Mine in Tochigi Prefecture, Honshu Island, Japan is quite well known for its quartz and amethyst clusters with crystals arranged in sprays around a central crystal.
This specimen recently posted on Facebook by Shigeki Nishimura in the Quartz group...
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George & I took a morning out from website work to visit the third, Oxford show for 2015.
The Oxford shows are run by Paul Lowe and have for the last years provided regular a venue for sellers and collectors in the UK.
A small venue and a small show...
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What a great picture of Texan collector Jim Spann up close with an amazingly good specimen of plumbogummite after pyromorphite from China.
I believe there is a general consensus that this is one of the largest/best specimens there is from this recent...
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Liroconite is just one of those minerals that attracts attention; it is rare, colourful and good specimens usually only found in old collections.
When a piece is listed on e-Rocks we usually get excited and this one is definitely no exception.
We saw...
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Yesterday George was off at a stag party so I was left in charge of setting up the new auctions beginning on the day.
One of the sub tasks required is to cross check and ensure that any new localities added to the database are cross checked online and...
-
Cornish Explorers on Facebook usually carries a series of really interesting mining and exploration photographs for Cornish localities.
One of the members, Keith Russ has just got himself a Gro Pro and a lifting drone.
Fantastic toy and some fantastic...
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Always good to see people help each other out, as promoted by e-Rocks seller Carsten Slotta (MinTreasure) today.
Joy Desor is an excellent photographer and also a seller here, took these great shots for Carsten of his specimens.
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Bernissart Show is an annual event in Hainaut region of Belgium.
The 28th show was held this weekend (29-30 August)
Here are some photos of the show and a link to the original write up posted by Belgian collector Max Tom on his excellent blog site (in...
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This discovery in the Ted Smithson Collection and a previous entry by Mike Brooke led me to look into the background of these microscopic grains of gold from Sutherland in Scotland.
The sheer amount of time - 24 hours - required to pan 100 or so flakes...
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A Sunday lay-in follows the early Saturday start at Bakewell. The show does not open until 9am. This allows the dealers to get back or recover from various excesses of the previous night.
Last night in addition to the Dealers' dinner there were at least...
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Today being "set up" day proper the show was generally a bit quieter as people got on with the final preparations before opening tomorrow.
George and I have been very busy meeting people and doing a lot of talking - a lot of talking!!
In Hall A5 George...
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In October 1881. the illustrious scientist Benjamin Silliman Jr. was at the Torrance mine, Socorro, New Mexico -
He found a new mineral, and described it as vanadiferous mimetite. Famed for his 1855 report on the fractional distillation of Pennsylvania...
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Posted on behalf of the Russell Society; here is a heads up for the upcoming offer for sale of the Norman Cogger Mineral Collection.
Norman Cogger
Norman lived in Tonbridge, Kent and was a member of the Russell Society for many years. Following his...
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Some highlights from today's photography at TV Towers
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Saturday morning, September 2014, we were up bright and early and on the road to Fernleigh, Ontario. Unless you are a mineral collector, you likely will not have heard of the it.
We were looking for a kyanite and staurolite occurrence. Actually, I was...
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Congratulations to long standing customer of e-Rocks, Andy Christy for the naming of new mineral "andychristyite" after his good self.
Andy joins an ever growing list of sellers, customers and visitors to our site to which this honour has been bestowed....
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Back in early 2004 I offered a suite of minerals from Palabora mine collected by John Gliddon when he worked there.
This specimen was part of that collection that never sold and became misplaced in our stock system.
It was discovered recently dusty and...
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Back in February 2016 we created a short blog "Pull Your Fingerite" about a BBC article (and others) covering a paper by Dr Robert Hazen, of the Carnegie Institution in Washington DC, and Prof Jesse Ausubel of The Rockefeller University, in New York...
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I found this petrified “hamburger” among the landscaping cobbles at my old house. It is a water-worn limestone rock that has a layer of fossilized creatures. We keep it on display in a McDonald’s container and bring it out for show and tell regularly....
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Here is a little spotlight on this rare pink manganese beryllium phosphate mineral.
First discovered at Viitaniemi Pegmatite in Finland and still hard to spell, this brightly coloured mineral produces fine crystallised specimens from Pakistan, (and...
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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...
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Stanhope Silver Band - Weardale Show 2017
It is time to publicise the upcoming 2018 Weardale show.
Organised by Enrico Rinaldi and held in St John Chapel in the heart of beautiful Weardale, this is the second annual show.
Last year's show brought...
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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...
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In late 2014 we started adding daily updates for closing e-Rocks auctions to Facebook.
Basically this is a selection of photos from items in closing auctions to let our Facebook fans see what is happening on the site each day.
As a consequence we have...
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In under 2 weeks it will be time for this year's Munich Show. Mineralientage München will be open from 27th - 29th October and George and I will be there from 25th October.
As usual we will be based with Christian Rewitzer in Hall A6.271.
Mineralientage...
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This old label and specimen came to light the other day when we were moving some boxes around in the TVM store room.
Mineralhaus Droop was based in Dresden and this label has an uncertain age but likely to date from later in the period of 1905 -1930s....
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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...
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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,...
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It has already been quite a month, but today we passed another milestone with this specimen of bakhchisaraitsevite.
No it isn't the most unpronounceable mineral on the site, or the longest mineral name not to use a U or O, though it might be either!
This...
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The Birmingham Auction house Fellows recently conducted an auction of some 257 lots of worked Blue John.
The group photo must almost be without precedent!
The catalogue contained just about every type of object that has ever been fashioned from Blue John...
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The mines at Merelani in Tanzania are not only already famous for the gemstones tanzanite, tsavorite, scapolite etc. but also for the superbly well crystallised sulphide minerals namely pyrite, wurtzite and of course alabandite, all coming to prominence...
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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 not looked into before.
This...
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Life at TVM isn't all about swaning off to shows, buying minerals or photographing/describing things for our weekly lists.
All this activity leads to one thing: an untidy stock room. Usually we can survive for a few months before needing to tidy up. For...
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We got our new xray diffractometer this week. It will come with a two dimensional detector which enables out of plane bragg peak measurement. This allows ultra fast measurements or extremely low concentrations of mineral samples.
In 2018 we will offer a...
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Coming up to completion in today's Cartils minerals auction this specimen of obsidian from Douglas, Idaho, USA was designated item number 220000 in our catalogue when uploaded.
Our catalogue started back in January 2006, and has grown with some...
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A nice photograph of our home for 2 nights over the Bakewell Show weekend.
This has been our regular stop over for 14 years - now equipped with WiFi we will be online answering emails etc and hopefully adding some news from the show.
Looking forward to a...
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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 specimen.
When we were recently...
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Back in 1979 at a place called Tomahawk Creek near to Rubyvale in Central Queensland, Australia, a 2020 carat (404gr) yellow gem sapphire was discovered.
The story alleges that a local boy, on his way home from school, spotted the gem exposed in loose...
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A few weeks ago we were in the Warehouse/shed and found this specimen in a box at the back.
Purchased on a daytrip to Antwerp Show from TV Towers back in 2002.
Those were the days when I had more energy!
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So goes the advertising strapline, and my reaction to seeing this photograph of gold bars, coins, nuggets and mineral ore/specimens.
The haul of 30,000lbs, approx 1.5 tonnes was recovered from the wreck of the SS Central America from deep of off the...
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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,...
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Helga Palmer and Gordon Fielder recently unearthed this copper token dated 1788 from the Parys Mountain Copper Mining Company at West Basset in Cornwall.
By eighteenth century standards this little token had traveled a long way from home, but with a...
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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...
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Heads up for a new book entitled Minerals of Georgia, by Bob Cook and Julian Gray, edited by Jose Santamaria, is done and on its way to the printer!
Release date is February 1, 2016 and it is already listed in the University of Georgia Press catalogue...
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The other week I was experimenting with lighting and rotation using tanzanite.
I managed to take these photographs - not much dichroism seen in the "rock tack"!
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The new e-Rocks has an archive of approximately 180,000 specimens accrued over 9 years of listing.
We have now made these available to registered users of our site with further mineral and location details tied in.
Here is a rather good specimen of...
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James Tennant (1808-1881) was in his time one of the UK's most notable mineralogists and dealers in minerals, fossils and shells.
His specimens can be found in many museums around the globe, and in many notable historic collections.
In his heyday he...
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Jasun and Mandy McAvoy, AKA Mineralman999 have been recently showing off this fine and historic gem topaz crystal.
The crystal itself is a well terminated gem specimen from Murzinka, Ekaterinburg, Middle Urals, Russia and at 3.1cm x 2.7cm x 2.5cm it is...
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Now veteran e-Rocks seller Ikram Muhammad of Pakistan Minerals celebrates his birthday today.
Marking the occasion is the finale of his birthday auction, featuring this cracking specimen of beryl var vorobyevite from Afghanistan.
Vorobyevite is a...
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Organised by the Sussex Mineral & Lapidary Society www.smls.org.uk
Saturday 18th November 10.00am - 4.30pm
Clair Hall, Perrymount Road, Haywards Heath, RH16 3DN
Over 40 dealers with minerals, gems, fossils, meteorites, flints, books, &...
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A month ago we replaced our photography system from a very old but very fast and reliable bridge camera to DSLR.
We also started using LED lighting - we have a unit with 7 dimmable and programmable panels all around. This is great for flooding the image...
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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...
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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...
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Following on from reading about pit-men discovering very substantial (6m long, 3m high and 1m wide) vugs in the witherite at the Morrison Busty Colliery, I’ve uncovered another spectacular occurance of walk-in “crystal caves in coal mines.”
About 56...
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This excellent shared photo from e-Rocks seller Edward Coghlan sort of sets the mood for the day at e-Rocks.
The photo shows a group of explorers at Twll in Rhosydd Slate Mine, Wales standing in a large damp cavern with the light streaming in.
We are up...
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10 years ago in 2007 we were visited by Somerset based collector Colin Palk. Colin's specific interests were minerals from Scotland, aided and abetted by his regional work in Scotland for the BBC.
Subsequently Colin moved his collection on, it arriving...
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As it is my birthday today I thought this little bit of mineral related trivia would brighten up the day.
Early last year I was listing an aragonite (and gypsum) specimen from Tomnadashan Mine, Wester Tullich, Loch Tay, Scotland.
An intrguing...
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This week it was George's birthday but unfortunately work as usual in the TVM office.
As it happened plans were afoot to make some homemade cupcakes and sing happy birthday.
Not much chance of blowing the candle out though.
All video evidence/sound...
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Here are a group of Pentire Glaze pyromorphite crystals just sold by Mike Merry of Cornwall & Devon Minerals.
Recently collected and by no means tiny these crystals are typically 1cm tall.
Mike has done a super job with the photography and the...
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Since we launched the new e-Rocks in September 2015 we have been busy behind the scenes working on small revisions and tweaks, plus of course doing all the other work in running the show.
Today we have just upgraded the site to unleash a whole lot of new...
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It is time to announce the latest 10,000 minerals have been added to the e-Rocks database, this time it is an all American honour - or should I say honor?
Michael Cline of Uravan Minerals (USA) brought up item 660000 earlier today with his listing of a...
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We have been referring to e-Rocks as a website, this is true but actually it is 5 websites, each with its own job and connections to other websites and media outside.
The picture shows our internal structure and how everything is wired together so that...
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This old time specimen from Baia Sprie, Romania is quite rare and unusual.
It comprises myriad sheaves of clear baryte arranged in fern-like stacks. Within the body of the individual crystals there are vivid red inclusions of realgar, and forming a...
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Venus’ rolling uplands in 1982, with Venera 13 in foreground. Well below the sublimation altitude
The North Pennines region of England is blessed with mineral riches. During the 18 & 19th centuries, vast quantities of lead, silver and zinc were...
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Here we are enjoying a fairly non mineralogical week away in Harlech, Wales.
This seagull apparently comes with the rental, certainly knows when the meal times are, and if not on time will tap at the window.
As seagulls go, he is very placid.
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Sharyginite was listed as a new mineral, approved pending publication in the June 2017 Mineralogical Magazine.
The formula is Ca3TiFe2O8 it was first identified in material collected from Caspar Quarry, Bellerberg, Eifel, Germany.
Probably unsurprising ...
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This project is all about new finds which were confirmed by XRD and other methods.
It will be updated from time to time.
The download of the file for December 2017 is available here:
http://mineralanalytik.de/images/REMBILDER/mineralreport3.pdf
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During the last week in February we made contact with Nottinghamshire based collector Alan Peckover; he was looking for a buyer for his collection of minerals.
After some discussion and a visit to see the collection a sale was agreed, and pick up date...
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Weishanite is a very rare gold-silver amalgam, which had two localities. Recent investigations of a unknown metallic hexagonal phase on an old sample hosting verified magnolite showed that this is Weishanite in beautiful hexagonal crystals.
I have not...
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The Italian town of Larderello was created to exploit the mineral riches of boraciferous fumaroles. Its chemical production was soon eclipsed by geothermal power generation. The minerals found around the area (33 in total) include six rare borates,...
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Here is an interesting ovoid form embedded in obisidian from Coso Range, Inyo County, California.
But what is inside?
Answer - cristobalite tridymite & fayalite (brown crystals)
Happy Easter
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Burn's Night comes along every year and is mostly a Scottish based celebration of the poet Robbie Burns, so I try to get some "haggis neeps and tatties" in my diet during this time.
It also serves to remind us that another e-Rocks anniversary is coming...
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George and I are back from our Christmas road trip into Germany via Belgium and France.
What we didn't pick up in minerals we certainly made up for with adventure and festive fun.
Normal service with email replies etc will return from today, after a bit...
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In 1985 I had acquired some palladium metal, as a by-product of some illicit platinum reclamation I was undertaking. I made the above quarter-ounce "nugget" with it, drilled to be worn as a pendant.
Natural Pd specimens below, from the type locality, ...
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Today we saw our e-Rocks User registration count reach 7500; this means that barring the odd D.Duck and K.Kong we are connected to 7500 mineral collectors worldwide.
Great news if you are prospective seller, re-assuring if you have not already signed...
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Marc Allen Fleischer owner of the Fleischer Museum has been showing of this interesting specimen from Tsumeb.
One of the main directions of the Fleischer collection is "Rough and Cut" where a mineral is displayed side by side as natural mineral with a...
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Or maybe a better question "What did Monty Python ever do for us?" - well they gave us the wonderful quote "What did the Romans..." to introduce any article about Roman civilisation or technology!
Seller Baltasar Sanchez from Spain has been kind enough...
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It has already been a week since Oxford show and we are heavily into our pre-Christmas preparations.
Last week we had a visit from Ed Loye, who stopped by to take a look at the TV Towers operation. We have known Ed since both his and our early days, and...
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New book announced - Genesis & Classifying Agates & Jaspers: A New Theory, By
Marco Campos-Venuti
In English
As described,
Cracked one of the greatest mysteries of the geology!
A Guide for the collector.
A Bible for a geologist.
This book shows...
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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...
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In the office this morning I worked out some interesting e-Rocks facts for the last year.
In 2016 we have run 1555 auctions with 59,373 listings added to the site. We have sold 49,161 items.
Also in 2016 we have served 629,183 visitors with 6.45M pages...
Blog entryThe Nick Bartlet collection, we purchased in 2004 still continues to provide interesting and uncommon items from its boxes. This most recent discovery is a specimen of schröckingerite from the Peath Lode on the 17th Level at Geevor, Cornwall. The find...
Blog entryLuigi Chiappino of Systematica called up a new mineral today - Albertiniite - to be added to the mineral database. This new species recently approved and published by the IMA is quite a straight forward iron(II) sulphite, formula - Fe2+(SO3)·3H2O. The...
Blog entryWas happy to see a nice post from Marc Allen Fleischer of the Fleischer Museum on Facebook the other day. Mark had recently purchased and received the above Megiliggar apatite from TVM. This is his post, "You don’t expect to find a Pegmatite in England...
Blog entryToday was our last show outing for the 2017 Season, Oxford Show is the last mineral show on the UK circuit for 2017. To this end it was rather nice to be greeted with a Christmas tree in the foyer, certainly set the scene for a fun morning at the show...
Blog entrye-Rocks seller and well traveled field collector Tasos Tsinidis from Greece, has some wonderful minerals and stories to tell about his exploits. He is knowledge of all things mineralogical and Greek is immense, he also is excellent at preparing and...
Blog entryGeorge 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...
Blog entryAs previously mentioned yesterday's show was dedicated to the memory of Paul Lowe who had organised the show since 1993. It was great to see so many people there. Paul's children Matt and Emma had arranged some photo tributes to Paul as well as being on...
Blog entryWhat a great start to Munich Show 2015 it has been. We arrived at the Show at around 1400Hrs local time and things were already buzzing. Almost immediately we were directed to the booth of Wendell Minerals to look three! cabinet sized fluorite specimens...
Blog entryGeorge turned up today with a little collection of mainly Scottish Minerals. This is some native silver from Alva Mine, Central Scotland. 8mm across - rare stuff! The discovery of a native silver deposit in 1715 also coincided with the Jacobite rebellion...
Blog entryAndyrobertsite and calcioandyrobertsite are two fascinating mineral species present in a single very famous specimen from Tsumeb. This superb specimen was featured in the cover of the Mineralogical Record vol.30, num. 3, May-June 1999, jointly with the...
Blog entryHere is some information about an article published on the BBC website yesterday concerning a paper shortly to appear in the American Mineralogist. Authored by Dr Robert Hazen, from the Carnegie Institution in Washington DC, and Prof Jesse Ausubel of The...
Blog entryIt was down to Carsten to wrap up August 2015, and boy did he find something a bit unusual! Brunogeierite is an insanely rare iron germanate found only (so far) in a few places, plus Tsumeb. The crystal habit is black octahedral crystals. For a Tsumeb...
Blog entryIn 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 over say Kaokoveld or Altyn. I...
Blog entryThose of you who read my last Oxford Show report will remember a mention of Paul Nicholson at Waveney Minerals. We have known Paul as a collector for well over 15 years, and more recently as an occasional show dealer in the UK. As of the last Show report...
Blog entry....and alkali mineral collectors. We have just purchased a small collection specialising in these minerals from UK collector Ben Gibson. The collection also contains a small suite from Cornwall, plus interlopers from other places like USA, Norway, India...
Blog entryThis Sunday is the Paul Lowe Memorial Oxford Show. I am sure it will be a great show and a good opportunity to remember Paul with fellow mineral people. These are the details; Venue: Exeter Hall, Kidlington, North Oxford, OX5 1AB Sunday 27th November...
Blog entryThe new year continues this week with a full program of auctions from the e-Rocks sellers. As usual a huge and diverse range covering most aspects of collecting. This diamond listed in the latest SAL minerals auction is a good example, weighing in at 57....
Blog entryIf you don't already know about it, here is a website for anyone who is interested in old mining history, especially related to the western states of the USA. The website contains a huge and comprehensive database of mining localities, mining information...
Blog entryThe project to open a pit to extract tungsten at Hemerdon has been going for a few years, but now it has entered into production with the first concentrate being produced. As reported by the Plymouth Herald "it represents another major milestone in the...
Blog entryTomii Mine in Tochigi Prefecture, Honshu Island, Japan is quite well known for its quartz and amethyst clusters with crystals arranged in sprays around a central crystal. This specimen recently posted on Facebook by Shigeki Nishimura in the Quartz group...
Blog entryGeorge & I took a morning out from website work to visit the third, Oxford show for 2015. The Oxford shows are run by Paul Lowe and have for the last years provided regular a venue for sellers and collectors in the UK. A small venue and a small show...
Blog entryWhat a great picture of Texan collector Jim Spann up close with an amazingly good specimen of plumbogummite after pyromorphite from China. I believe there is a general consensus that this is one of the largest/best specimens there is from this recent...
Blog entryLiroconite is just one of those minerals that attracts attention; it is rare, colourful and good specimens usually only found in old collections. When a piece is listed on e-Rocks we usually get excited and this one is definitely no exception. We saw...
Blog entryYesterday George was off at a stag party so I was left in charge of setting up the new auctions beginning on the day. One of the sub tasks required is to cross check and ensure that any new localities added to the database are cross checked online and...
Blog entryCornish Explorers on Facebook usually carries a series of really interesting mining and exploration photographs for Cornish localities. One of the members, Keith Russ has just got himself a Gro Pro and a lifting drone. Fantastic toy and some fantastic...
Blog entryAlways good to see people help each other out, as promoted by e-Rocks seller Carsten Slotta (MinTreasure) today. Joy Desor is an excellent photographer and also a seller here, took these great shots for Carsten of his specimens.
Blog entryBernissart Show is an annual event in Hainaut region of Belgium. The 28th show was held this weekend (29-30 August) Here are some photos of the show and a link to the original write up posted by Belgian collector Max Tom on his excellent blog site (in...
Blog entryThis discovery in the Ted Smithson Collection and a previous entry by Mike Brooke led me to look into the background of these microscopic grains of gold from Sutherland in Scotland. The sheer amount of time - 24 hours - required to pan 100 or so flakes...
Blog entryA Sunday lay-in follows the early Saturday start at Bakewell. The show does not open until 9am. This allows the dealers to get back or recover from various excesses of the previous night. Last night in addition to the Dealers' dinner there were at least...
Blog entryToday being "set up" day proper the show was generally a bit quieter as people got on with the final preparations before opening tomorrow. George and I have been very busy meeting people and doing a lot of talking - a lot of talking!! In Hall A5 George...
Blog entryIn October 1881. the illustrious scientist Benjamin Silliman Jr. was at the Torrance mine, Socorro, New Mexico - He found a new mineral, and described it as vanadiferous mimetite. Famed for his 1855 report on the fractional distillation of Pennsylvania...
Blog entryPosted on behalf of the Russell Society; here is a heads up for the upcoming offer for sale of the Norman Cogger Mineral Collection. Norman Cogger Norman lived in Tonbridge, Kent and was a member of the Russell Society for many years. Following his...
Blog entrySome highlights from today's photography at TV Towers
Blog entrySaturday morning, September 2014, we were up bright and early and on the road to Fernleigh, Ontario. Unless you are a mineral collector, you likely will not have heard of the it. We were looking for a kyanite and staurolite occurrence. Actually, I was...
Blog entryCongratulations to long standing customer of e-Rocks, Andy Christy for the naming of new mineral "andychristyite" after his good self. Andy joins an ever growing list of sellers, customers and visitors to our site to which this honour has been bestowed....
Blog entryBack in early 2004 I offered a suite of minerals from Palabora mine collected by John Gliddon when he worked there. This specimen was part of that collection that never sold and became misplaced in our stock system. It was discovered recently dusty and...
Blog entryBack in February 2016 we created a short blog "Pull Your Fingerite" about a BBC article (and others) covering a paper by Dr Robert Hazen, of the Carnegie Institution in Washington DC, and Prof Jesse Ausubel of The Rockefeller University, in New York...
Blog entryI found this petrified “hamburger” among the landscaping cobbles at my old house. It is a water-worn limestone rock that has a layer of fossilized creatures. We keep it on display in a McDonald’s container and bring it out for show and tell regularly....
Blog entryHere is a little spotlight on this rare pink manganese beryllium phosphate mineral. First discovered at Viitaniemi Pegmatite in Finland and still hard to spell, this brightly coloured mineral produces fine crystallised specimens from Pakistan, (and...
Blog entryHi 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...
Blog entryStanhope Silver Band - Weardale Show 2017 It is time to publicise the upcoming 2018 Weardale show. Organised by Enrico Rinaldi and held in St John Chapel in the heart of beautiful Weardale, this is the second annual show. Last year's show brought...
Blog entrySometimes 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...
Blog entryIn late 2014 we started adding daily updates for closing e-Rocks auctions to Facebook. Basically this is a selection of photos from items in closing auctions to let our Facebook fans see what is happening on the site each day. As a consequence we have...
Blog entryIn under 2 weeks it will be time for this year's Munich Show. Mineralientage München will be open from 27th - 29th October and George and I will be there from 25th October. As usual we will be based with Christian Rewitzer in Hall A6.271. Mineralientage...
Blog entryThis old label and specimen came to light the other day when we were moving some boxes around in the TVM store room. Mineralhaus Droop was based in Dresden and this label has an uncertain age but likely to date from later in the period of 1905 -1930s....
Blog entryA 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...
Blog entryOur 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,...
Blog entryIt has already been quite a month, but today we passed another milestone with this specimen of bakhchisaraitsevite. No it isn't the most unpronounceable mineral on the site, or the longest mineral name not to use a U or O, though it might be either! This...
Blog entryThe Birmingham Auction house Fellows recently conducted an auction of some 257 lots of worked Blue John. The group photo must almost be without precedent! The catalogue contained just about every type of object that has ever been fashioned from Blue John...
Blog entryThe mines at Merelani in Tanzania are not only already famous for the gemstones tanzanite, tsavorite, scapolite etc. but also for the superbly well crystallised sulphide minerals namely pyrite, wurtzite and of course alabandite, all coming to prominence...
Blog entryFrequently 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 not looked into before. This...
Blog entryLife at TVM isn't all about swaning off to shows, buying minerals or photographing/describing things for our weekly lists. All this activity leads to one thing: an untidy stock room. Usually we can survive for a few months before needing to tidy up. For...
Blog entryWe got our new xray diffractometer this week. It will come with a two dimensional detector which enables out of plane bragg peak measurement. This allows ultra fast measurements or extremely low concentrations of mineral samples. In 2018 we will offer a...
Blog entryComing up to completion in today's Cartils minerals auction this specimen of obsidian from Douglas, Idaho, USA was designated item number 220000 in our catalogue when uploaded. Our catalogue started back in January 2006, and has grown with some...
Blog entryA nice photograph of our home for 2 nights over the Bakewell Show weekend. This has been our regular stop over for 14 years - now equipped with WiFi we will be online answering emails etc and hopefully adding some news from the show. Looking forward to a...
Blog entryWe 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 specimen. When we were recently...
Blog entryBack in 1979 at a place called Tomahawk Creek near to Rubyvale in Central Queensland, Australia, a 2020 carat (404gr) yellow gem sapphire was discovered. The story alleges that a local boy, on his way home from school, spotted the gem exposed in loose...
Blog entryA few weeks ago we were in the Warehouse/shed and found this specimen in a box at the back. Purchased on a daytrip to Antwerp Show from TV Towers back in 2002. Those were the days when I had more energy!
Blog entrySo goes the advertising strapline, and my reaction to seeing this photograph of gold bars, coins, nuggets and mineral ore/specimens. The haul of 30,000lbs, approx 1.5 tonnes was recovered from the wreck of the SS Central America from deep of off the...
Blog entrySeveral 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,...
Blog entryHelga Palmer and Gordon Fielder recently unearthed this copper token dated 1788 from the Parys Mountain Copper Mining Company at West Basset in Cornwall. By eighteenth century standards this little token had traveled a long way from home, but with a...
Blog entryToday (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...
Blog entryHeads up for a new book entitled Minerals of Georgia, by Bob Cook and Julian Gray, edited by Jose Santamaria, is done and on its way to the printer! Release date is February 1, 2016 and it is already listed in the University of Georgia Press catalogue...
Blog entryThe other week I was experimenting with lighting and rotation using tanzanite. I managed to take these photographs - not much dichroism seen in the "rock tack"!
Blog entryThe new e-Rocks has an archive of approximately 180,000 specimens accrued over 9 years of listing. We have now made these available to registered users of our site with further mineral and location details tied in. Here is a rather good specimen of...
Blog entryJames Tennant (1808-1881) was in his time one of the UK's most notable mineralogists and dealers in minerals, fossils and shells. His specimens can be found in many museums around the globe, and in many notable historic collections. In his heyday he...
Blog entryJasun and Mandy McAvoy, AKA Mineralman999 have been recently showing off this fine and historic gem topaz crystal. The crystal itself is a well terminated gem specimen from Murzinka, Ekaterinburg, Middle Urals, Russia and at 3.1cm x 2.7cm x 2.5cm it is...
Blog entryNow veteran e-Rocks seller Ikram Muhammad of Pakistan Minerals celebrates his birthday today. Marking the occasion is the finale of his birthday auction, featuring this cracking specimen of beryl var vorobyevite from Afghanistan. Vorobyevite is a...
Blog entryOrganised by the Sussex Mineral & Lapidary Society www.smls.org.uk Saturday 18th November 10.00am - 4.30pm Clair Hall, Perrymount Road, Haywards Heath, RH16 3DN Over 40 dealers with minerals, gems, fossils, meteorites, flints, books, &...
Blog entryA month ago we replaced our photography system from a very old but very fast and reliable bridge camera to DSLR. We also started using LED lighting - we have a unit with 7 dimmable and programmable panels all around. This is great for flooding the image...
Blog entryUntil 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...
Blog entryIn 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...
Blog entryFollowing on from reading about pit-men discovering very substantial (6m long, 3m high and 1m wide) vugs in the witherite at the Morrison Busty Colliery, I’ve uncovered another spectacular occurance of walk-in “crystal caves in coal mines.” About 56...
Blog entryThis excellent shared photo from e-Rocks seller Edward Coghlan sort of sets the mood for the day at e-Rocks. The photo shows a group of explorers at Twll in Rhosydd Slate Mine, Wales standing in a large damp cavern with the light streaming in. We are up...
Blog entry10 years ago in 2007 we were visited by Somerset based collector Colin Palk. Colin's specific interests were minerals from Scotland, aided and abetted by his regional work in Scotland for the BBC. Subsequently Colin moved his collection on, it arriving...
Blog entryAs it is my birthday today I thought this little bit of mineral related trivia would brighten up the day. Early last year I was listing an aragonite (and gypsum) specimen from Tomnadashan Mine, Wester Tullich, Loch Tay, Scotland. An intrguing...
Blog entryThis week it was George's birthday but unfortunately work as usual in the TVM office. As it happened plans were afoot to make some homemade cupcakes and sing happy birthday. Not much chance of blowing the candle out though. All video evidence/sound...
Blog entryHere are a group of Pentire Glaze pyromorphite crystals just sold by Mike Merry of Cornwall & Devon Minerals. Recently collected and by no means tiny these crystals are typically 1cm tall. Mike has done a super job with the photography and the...
Blog entrySince we launched the new e-Rocks in September 2015 we have been busy behind the scenes working on small revisions and tweaks, plus of course doing all the other work in running the show. Today we have just upgraded the site to unleash a whole lot of new...
Blog entryIt is time to announce the latest 10,000 minerals have been added to the e-Rocks database, this time it is an all American honour - or should I say honor? Michael Cline of Uravan Minerals (USA) brought up item 660000 earlier today with his listing of a...
Blog entryWe have been referring to e-Rocks as a website, this is true but actually it is 5 websites, each with its own job and connections to other websites and media outside. The picture shows our internal structure and how everything is wired together so that...
Blog entryThis old time specimen from Baia Sprie, Romania is quite rare and unusual. It comprises myriad sheaves of clear baryte arranged in fern-like stacks. Within the body of the individual crystals there are vivid red inclusions of realgar, and forming a...
Blog entryVenus’ rolling uplands in 1982, with Venera 13 in foreground. Well below the sublimation altitude The North Pennines region of England is blessed with mineral riches. During the 18 & 19th centuries, vast quantities of lead, silver and zinc were...
Blog entryHere we are enjoying a fairly non mineralogical week away in Harlech, Wales. This seagull apparently comes with the rental, certainly knows when the meal times are, and if not on time will tap at the window. As seagulls go, he is very placid.
Blog entrySharyginite was listed as a new mineral, approved pending publication in the June 2017 Mineralogical Magazine. The formula is Ca3TiFe2O8 it was first identified in material collected from Caspar Quarry, Bellerberg, Eifel, Germany. Probably unsurprising ...
Blog entryThis project is all about new finds which were confirmed by XRD and other methods. It will be updated from time to time. The download of the file for December 2017 is available here: http://mineralanalytik.de/images/REMBILDER/mineralreport3.pdf
Blog entryDuring the last week in February we made contact with Nottinghamshire based collector Alan Peckover; he was looking for a buyer for his collection of minerals. After some discussion and a visit to see the collection a sale was agreed, and pick up date...
Blog entryWeishanite is a very rare gold-silver amalgam, which had two localities. Recent investigations of a unknown metallic hexagonal phase on an old sample hosting verified magnolite showed that this is Weishanite in beautiful hexagonal crystals. I have not...
Blog entryThe Italian town of Larderello was created to exploit the mineral riches of boraciferous fumaroles. Its chemical production was soon eclipsed by geothermal power generation. The minerals found around the area (33 in total) include six rare borates,...
Blog entryHere is an interesting ovoid form embedded in obisidian from Coso Range, Inyo County, California. But what is inside? Answer - cristobalite tridymite & fayalite (brown crystals) Happy Easter
Blog entryBurn's Night comes along every year and is mostly a Scottish based celebration of the poet Robbie Burns, so I try to get some "haggis neeps and tatties" in my diet during this time. It also serves to remind us that another e-Rocks anniversary is coming...
Blog entryGeorge and I are back from our Christmas road trip into Germany via Belgium and France. What we didn't pick up in minerals we certainly made up for with adventure and festive fun. Normal service with email replies etc will return from today, after a bit...
Blog entryIn 1985 I had acquired some palladium metal, as a by-product of some illicit platinum reclamation I was undertaking. I made the above quarter-ounce "nugget" with it, drilled to be worn as a pendant. Natural Pd specimens below, from the type locality, ...
Blog entryToday we saw our e-Rocks User registration count reach 7500; this means that barring the odd D.Duck and K.Kong we are connected to 7500 mineral collectors worldwide. Great news if you are prospective seller, re-assuring if you have not already signed...
Blog entryMarc Allen Fleischer owner of the Fleischer Museum has been showing of this interesting specimen from Tsumeb. One of the main directions of the Fleischer collection is "Rough and Cut" where a mineral is displayed side by side as natural mineral with a...
Blog entryOr maybe a better question "What did Monty Python ever do for us?" - well they gave us the wonderful quote "What did the Romans..." to introduce any article about Roman civilisation or technology! Seller Baltasar Sanchez from Spain has been kind enough...
Blog entryIt has already been a week since Oxford show and we are heavily into our pre-Christmas preparations. Last week we had a visit from Ed Loye, who stopped by to take a look at the TV Towers operation. We have known Ed since both his and our early days, and...
Blog entryNew book announced - Genesis & Classifying Agates & Jaspers: A New Theory, By Marco Campos-Venuti In English As described, Cracked one of the greatest mysteries of the geology! A Guide for the collector. A Bible for a geologist. This book shows...
Blog entryLate 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...
Blog entryIn the office this morning I worked out some interesting e-Rocks facts for the last year. In 2016 we have run 1555 auctions with 59,373 listings added to the site. We have sold 49,161 items. Also in 2016 we have served 629,183 visitors with 6.45M pages...