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  • Blog entry
    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, ...
  • Blog entry
    Jason Smith, one of our many regular sellers of interesting and obscure minerals or localities, was in discussion with me the other day. He happened to mention that he had acquired a liroconite specimen from Sterling Mine, in Sussex County, New Jersey....
  • Blog entry
    Topical with some work we have been doing on locality database this newslink has been circulating the web mineral chat areas recently. The content of the article is about the intention to re-open Tsumeb again for specimen (crystal) mining and as an...
  • Blog entry
    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...
  • Blog entry
    Currently on offer in Sal's Mineral auction - see Item Reference link below. This gold nugget is from Bendigo, Victoria, Australia and weighs in at 59gr with dimensions 3.5 × 2.5 × 2 cm. In terms of size and weight of gold this is one the biggest gold...
  • Blog entry
    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...
  • Blog entry
    I know there are a few collectors of unusual pseuodomorphs out there who might be interested in this. I spotted this specimen chenevixite posted by Carsten Slotta; from the photographs you can see an array of quite well defined scorodite terminations (...
  • Blog entry
    Above is a picture from a few days ago of our last pallet of minerals to arrive for 2016. What a busy year it has been and now it is nearly over. Christmas and the holiday period are all set and there are some terrific contributions this year our...
  • Blog entry
    There are not that many UK minerals to be found with a species name beginning X. Here is one classic example recently listed on e-Rocks by Mike Brooke, Broadstone Minerals. Classic and interesting locality specimen from Wheal Maudlin, Lanlivery, Cornwall...
  • Blog entry
      The unique mineralogy of Jachymov mining district in the Czech Republic is known for many years and many new - especially uranium bearing minerals - could be described with the help of modern analytical methods. Recent analytical work has shown that...
  • Blog entry
    How the days and months seem to fly by, and now summer has passed we are into the autumn season of mineral shows. We start our outings as usual by visiting Bakewell show next week end. Arguably Bakewell (Rock Exchange) is the UK's largest show for...
  • Blog entry
    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....
  • Blog entry
    Mineralogy’s greatest curiosity was not how Dr. John Woodward (1665 - 1728, above) obtained a pallasite meteorite for his collection, decades before the meteorite was actually discovered in Siberia…. Also it was not how Britain’s first true...
  • Blog entry
    The Christmas Holidays are nearly upon us and it is time to launch "Mark & Christian's Christmas Cracker 2015". This is the 9th annual cracker auction and this year Christian Rewitzer and I have filled it with some diverse and interesting minerals....
  • Blog entry
    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...
  • Blog entry
    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...
  • Blog entry
    A feature we have added to the new e-Rocks is a simple "add Mineral photo" posting tool. We wanted to give all collaborators on the site an option to post mineral photos (without going through a collection/full upload.) We have a simple quick option...
  • Blog entry
    It is approaching the second anniversary of George joining the e-Rocks team; so after a record 24 consecutive "Employee of the Month" awards we thought it time to reward him with a nice trip to Spain. The upshot to this will be that we are going to be...
  • Blog entry
    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...
  • Blog entry
    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...
  • Blog entry
    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...
  • Blog entry
    Back in February 2003 Pezzottaite was big news at Tucson show. At the time it was a hot new discovery, still an unnamed mineral and the sort of new thing Tucson show thrives on. These were originally brought to Tucson by Madagascan mineral specialist,...
  • Blog entry
    It is already nearly a few months since we returned from our eventful trip to Alicante with the Uerpmann collection; when we returned we parked a large portion of the unseen collection in our warehouse. All this material had been wrapped and taped in...
  • Blog entry
    We get to hear anecdotal stories about Grandad's collection getting thrown in a the landfill, or even more substantively a part of the Camborne School of Mines inventory going in a skip a few years back It is alarming to see to see this is continuing to...
  • Blog entry
    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...
  • Blog entry
    This really "unique" specimen of fluorite from Cavnic, Romania sold on e-Rocks a few hours ago for €805 (c$900). Not only is the specimen pretty exceptional but also I believe it holds the site record for bidding extension. As the bidding rules go, an...
  • Blog entry
    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...
  • Blog entry
    I was recently offered this "Elementary Collection of 100 Minerals Fossils & Shells". The collection was originally supplied by Bryce M Wright, then of 90 Gt Russell Street, London. The mahogany box with two trays is in fantastic condition with...
  • Blog entry
    I spotted this wonderful photo of cuprorivaite posted by Joy Desor in a recent auction. Of course cuprorivaite has nothing to do with wulfenite apart from its tetragonal crystals with flattened tabular habit as shown. Chemically it has a formula CaCu[...
  • Blog entry
      After a short break we welcome back e-Rocks dealer – Jaroslaw Skupiewski, from Poland. Under the banner Geo-Trader Minerals Jaroslaw has been establishing himself as an European show dealer for the last 12 years, but he has also been busy online...
  • Blog entry
    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...
  • Blog entry
    Steverustite is a secondary mineral of copper and lead with an interesting and rarely occuring (in nature) thiosulphate anion (S2O3) within its structure. Named after UK mineralogist and collector Steve Rust the mineral was first discovered at the...
  • Blog entry
    Recently reported the Michigan Tech website - Two leading Michigan universities have joined up to preserve a historic mineral collection. The University of Michigan Collection, including the collection of Douglass Houghton will be located and displayed...
  • Blog entry
    Hedyphane is seldom seen from Tsumeb, but here it is formed out in small flat hexagonal crystals with white faces resting on a bed of pale green calcio-duftite. There are more excellent photographs and a specimen currently listed on e-Rocks by Christian...
  • Blog entry
    Well not really, but as things have quietened down a bit in the week since launch it seemed a good opportunity to display a few minerals myself. The barite samples are placed in a new feature page for single item listings - Open Market. Open Market can...
  • Blog entry
    It hardly seems a week since Bakewell show last Saturday, where does the time go! We had a great time and despite the intention of not picking up too much stuff, it would be rude not to take part in the now ritual hunt for interesting and unusual things...
  • Blog entry
    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...
  • Blog entry
    Story covered by BBC local news for Derbyshire. I am not sure if this is the same "discovery" made a few years back or something new. Certainly it looks a good deposit of usable Blue John, brilliant news for the Blue John fraternity and crafts people....
  • Blog entry
    Apart from EDS analysis at a charge of 15€/sample, we now offer our e-rocks customers, who buy more than ten specimens per month, five analysis for free per year. For more information have a look at: http://www.mineralanalytik.de/en/energydispersive-...
  • Blog entry
    As I posted yesterday's blog covering Roger's venture into Scottish gold panning I decided to share it into the excellent Facebook group Collectors of British Minerals - also known as COBM. I am sure I have mentioned this before; COBM is an excellent...
  • Blog entry
    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...
  • Blog entry
    We didn't quite get to 50000 uploaded items during the first year of the "new" e-Rocks website, but we were very close! Here we are 3 days later and courtesy of Volker Betz with a whitlockite specimen from Tip Top Mine, South Dakota, USA we crossed the...
  • Blog entry
    If you’ve tried to hunt for minerals using a metal detector, you are familiar with the challenges. Especially if you are looking for, say, silver at an abandoned mine where all of the structures have been leveled to the ground. Trash is everywhere. Old...
  • Blog entry
    US collector Breck P Kent recently showed of his wonderful specimen of calcite from Stank Mine in the (then Lancashire) part of iron mining area of Cumbria, North West England. Stank Mine is famous for its scalenohedral calcite, often with characteristic...
  • Blog entry
    George flagged a mineral listing to me last night, an example of kämmererite from Mont Haïto in Togo. Very rarely do we have to add a new country to our geographical database, but until now we had seen nothing listed from this smaller country in Africa....
  • Blog entry
    Belgian collector Jean Dehaye has recently been showing pictures of his recently collected specimen from Beez, Naumur, Belgium. A little over 2cm across comprising a hollow fossil cast with calcified internal ribs covered with micro honey coloured...
  • Blog entry
    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...
  • Blog entry
    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....
  • Blog entry
    A big day for Carsten Slotta and Mintreasure.com with the first exposure of his new website online. Please visit the new site via links below, Carsten will be adding to the fixed price pages shortly and of course all his weekly auctions will appear there...
  • Blog entry
    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...
  • Blog entry
        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...
  • Blog entry
    Searching for radioactive minerals is a piece of cake compared to metal detecting. If you get a signal, you’ve got a target. None of this business of uncovering nails or shotgun casings, or the end of your steel-toed boot. Still, using a mid-century...
  • Blog entry
    # Extinct Minerals with Place of Discovery Mineral evolution is a recent hypothesis that provides historical context to mineralogy. It postulates that mineralogy on planets and moons becomes increasingly complex as a result of changes in the physical,...
  • Blog entry
      Flicking through the auctions yesterday I spotted a specimen of Mineevite-(Y) - always inquisitive to see the composition of these more obscure minerals I looked at the mineral data. I was even more curious to discover that in the formula, was the...
  • Blog entry
    Recently e-Rocks enabled the sale of a very rare mineral - Ramazzoite. The specimen above, measuring 1 × 2.5 × 1.2 cm, sold by Ligurian Minerals for £681. Found so far only at the type locality, Mount Ramazzo Mine, Genoa, Italy, the specimen is part of...
  • Blog entry
    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...
  • Blog entry
    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...
  • Blog entry
    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....
  • Blog entry
    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...
  • Blog entry
    A bit of a surprise showed up today when going through some Madagascan specimens for auction. Packed away in thumbnail box labelled "Tourmaline Rubellite - Ambalamatsara" was this super little specimen of scheelite from Baia Sprie - Romania. These much...
  • Blog entry
    We are really pleased to announce the arrival of David Eicher's book The New Cosmos coming out in November. David is the editor in chief of the Astronomy magazine and has been associated with e-Rocks as both a buyer and seller almost since we...
  • Blog entry
    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...
  • Blog entry
    Every alpine collector's dream (and most other people too) is to find the perfect pocket. Austrian Strahler Peter Eberhard has been busy on the Alps at Habachtal. Earlier this month Peter was investigating a previously worked opening high up in the...
  • Blog entry
    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...
  • Blog entry
    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...
  • Blog entry
    One more yellow sphalerite, this one from Spain, 18+ct "Markoh-i-noor" cut, best choice to boost the dispersion! Sphalerite Cut & Photo by Egor Gavrilenko
  • Blog entry
    The day before we went to Munich the nice man from UPS turned up on my doorstep with quite a large box. As it happened, the Sunday before I was out dog walking and pocket pinging on messenger learning all about a little discovery up in Weardale. A new...
  • Blog entry
    Mineral photography continues to be well written up in many places, and no doubt will get a few mentions here from time to time; we do have one or two expert photographers selling and contributing to our pages. Personally we have photographing minerals...
  • Blog entry
    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...
  • Blog entry
    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...
  • Blog entry
    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...
  • Blog entry
    Nearly 3 years ago now, we checked out and invested in "spin" technology for capturing 360 degree presentation of minerals. The concept is simple, you set your mineral centre on a turntable and then control the movement of the turntable with your camera...
  • Blog entry
    In terms of desirability, the specimens collected by NASA in ‘69 would be hard to beat. Their superb provenance is excellently documented. They are holotypes of three minerals new to science, and brave men risked their lives to collect them. There were...
  • Blog entry
    Within Peter Uerpmann's collection of European minerals we came across quite a large comparatively heavy specimen (110g) of slaggy matrix filled with bright metallic octahedrons of silver to 1mm stacked in pagoda-like parallel groups, labelled from ...
  • Blog entry
    I was visiting an e-Rocks customer the other day, and was awestruck by his collection of radio-active artefacts. Many things have changed over the years as learning and science have made our lives safer, but looking back some of these are just incredible...
  • Blog entry
    Art Deco walnut display cabinet, circa 1930    Introduction Most people in tuned into the news will be aware of the media splash behind the launch of the new Apple iphone X (and 8) the other day. It has been widely publicised that the X phone...
  • Blog entry
      George and I were on the road early today to visit the 2017 Sussex Mineral & Lapidary Society Show (SMLS) at Haywards Heath. This was the first time we have been to the show since 2010; e-Rocker Trevor Devon also Treasurer of the SMLS...
  • Blog entry
      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...
  • Blog entry
    Friday 24th August saw the addition of item #670000 to our listing database, marking another 10,000 specimens uploaded. This time the specimen was provided by TVM Auctions, a specimen of Strengite & Phosphosiderite from Bull Moose Mine in South...
  • Blog entry
    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...
  • Blog entry
    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...
  • Blog entry
    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...
  • Blog entry
    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 ...
  • Blog entry
    When water freezes, it forms the mineral ice. The most beautiful specimens soon melt, so e-Rocks has never sold any. Don’t be dismayed by the prospect of an article on ice though, just wade through a next bit about snowflakes, then the post livens up...
  • Blog entry
    This amazing specimen of dolomite was collected today from the mines at Trepca in Kosovo. Well known for its excellent common sulphide and carbonate crystallisation, I have never seen on like this before!
  • Blog entry
    When starting offering analytical service I got in contact with some passionate mineral collectors. This allowed me too examine some minerals, I did not hold in my hands before. As you can see in my current auction, I can offer paxite, mgriite and...
  • Blog entry
    For those of you who check out my personal timeline on Facebook you will already be aware that I keep this fed with a steady stream of mineral photographs and sometimes (not so) witty captions! I just do this for a bit of entertainment and interaction as...
  • Blog entry
    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...
  • Blog entry
    The other day I was checking through some minerals from last year's fluorite find at Shannapheasteen in the Irish Republic. Within the base of some quartz crystals were some small 2mm clear to white flat crystals. These were isolated and well dispersed...
  • Blog entry
    Today was the 4th in the 2015 series of Oxford Shows. A fair early autumn day, and a short drive for me meant a nice morning out. This time the show was more modestly attended with a few of the usual dealers not present, through holiday etc. Still good...
  • Blog entry
    A feature of the new website is the ability of our Database and your catalogue to hold and display items by Provenance. Behind the scenes we provide a whole inventory system that connects minerals to people, collectors, historic dealers and institutions...
  • Blog entry
    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 Marie the open air Romanian guys...
  • Blog entry
    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
  • Blog entry
    As it is 31st December no auctions will be closing today on e-Rocks, however the holiday program continues tomorrow with the first auctions in 2016. Many thanks to all our customers, sellers and buyers for all your contributions and our success in 2015...
  • Blog entry
    Back in 2009 after Munich show I did a flit back to the Czech Republic to pick up a big consignment of Dalnegorsk minerals - some 40 flats. They are still going strong, here is a galena and manganoan calcite combination that came out this week.
  • Blog entry
    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....
  • Blog entry
    I collected the fluorite specimen above back in April 1996. I remember it well from the events of the day before! In those days I used to travel up from the South of England for weekend mooching trips in and around Weardale, usually arriving at the...
  • Blog entry
    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...
  • Blog entry
    13th & 14th August 2016 is a date for all UK based collectors to add to your diaries.... ........there is a new show being added to the UK mineral show circuit. Derbyshire based Don Edwards in conjunction with Tennants Auctioneers are launching the...
  • Blog entry
    Along with everything else that is going on we have been doing some background work on some phosphate minerals spurred on by a request by seller Modris Baum (LMB Minerals) and something he had discovered on a Brazilian hureaulite specimen. Modris has...