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Last Thursday we had a visit from Aamir Khan our good friend and supplier of all things from Pakistan/Afghanistan.
Aamir is based in the UK and Pakistan and spends his equally between the 2 places.
As usual he arrived with all kinds of minerals from his...
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Recently I have been enjoying the micro photos of Yaiba Sakaguchi from Wakayama, Japan posted on Facebook.
Yaiba has kindly let me share some of these on e-Rocks. I am sure you will agree these shine a new perspective on the minerals/localities.
Well...
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Yesterday our friend Aamir Shah came calling as he has been doing since 2007.
We first met Aamir in the car park at Bakewell Show in October 2006 and ever since he has been a regular visitor to TV Towers 3 or 4 times a year.
Aamir spends 2-3 months in...
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Calamaite is the third natural Ti dominant sulfate mineral known yet. Russian scientists recognized this phase, occuring as filigrane colourless sprays, while doing some analytical investigations in a matrix of coquimbite / römerite. Type locality is...
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A little self indulgence here; not only is liroconite one of the "holy grail" UK minerals, it is one of my favourites!
This specimen listed by Carsten is small but exhibits excellent crystals, and is beautifully photographed!
Check out the other photos...
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As Facebook does, this fantastic specimen photo posted by Val Collins in May 2012 appeared in my timeline today.
Not many of these specimens of cerussite with pyromorphite from Daoping Mine appeared, this must be one of the best examples.
Thanks to...
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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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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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A large block of native iron and weighing approx 20 tonnes. It was brought to the Naturhistoriska riksmuseet in Stockholm Sweden in 1870 by boat and horse-drawn carriage from Greenland's West Coast by Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld to a large fanfare.
Naturally...
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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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On 12th August 2005 we relocated family and business to what we affectionately call Thames Valley Towers in Twyford, Reading.
I thought it would be fun to reproduce and share our original posting covering the event, funny how 10 years later though not...
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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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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...
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Our man of action George (and partner Sam) have had a busy few months getting themselves organised for a house move.
Today finally it is the big day and everything is set to move into the new place.
Of course we are all happy; with new house comes a...
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We came across this this specimen of bright pine green chalcosiderite with goethite in a box yesterday.
Very dirty, but with its label in the box. The specimen has cleaned and trimmed well to reveal its interest.
Chalcosiderite was first noted as coming...
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As promised I took some pictures of the displays within the Mine to Mine Exhibition. If you are at Munich it is really worth going to see this.
This is not all the cases, or all the minerals within the cases shown, but hopefully gives and appreciation of...
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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 tourmaline member only known...
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Terlingua 1936
The Terlingua quicksilver district is a narrow, east-west area about 20 miles long, in the southern part of the Big Bend region of southwestern Texas. The cinnabar deposit was discovered by Comanche Native Americans, who used it for war-...
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Last month we blogged about the acquisition of an important Wheal Maudlin "Horsetooth" siderite specimen from an unspecified lot of minerals at an auction in North Yorkshire.
Siderite - Wheal Maudlin, Lanlivery, Cornwall
The provenance of the piece has...
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Jill Brunner's listing in her current Kalahari Classics Auction for a calcite and pyrite specimen from NChwanning takes the mineral additions on e-Rocks to #640000, or 140,000 items added since in October 2015.
Jill was the lucky "winner" of this...
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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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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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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...
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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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A very early start from TV Towers, to Heathrow and onto the short flight to Munich.
Really it is a very easy journey and a good time for George and I to catch up on business and plan for the next few days.
The view of mountains of Bavaria as we came into...
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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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Not well known for its mineral collecting Albania seldom figures as a source in many collections or available minerals.
In 9 years of e-Rocks we have only ever seen 2 specimens and localities.
The current specimen is a newly "discovered" combination of...
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Wishing all our visitors, sellers and buyers a very Happy New Year and great things from 2017.
Thinking things over this morning I had a sobering thought; there are now 357 days left before Christmas 2017 and the next planned "dark day" with no auctions...
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Introduction:
A few months ago I came across the mineral aldridegeite in the IMA list of minerals whilst doing some research. This sulphate mineral is a member of the develline group first discovered and only found at Broken Hill, New South Wales,...
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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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In November 1777 French botanist Joseph Dombey, above, set sail for Peru and Chile, as part of the joint Spanish-French Ruiz & Pavón Expedition. The arduous eleven year botanical exploration provided a wealth of plant specimens, an international...
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In the depths of Peter Uerpmann's collection we came across a block of massive crystalline halite - rock salt.
The locality is given as Asse II, probably picked up during his time as a worker in the German Nuclear industry.
Asse (Shaft) II is situated...
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Of course earthquakes are not funny, but this report on Facebook did make me laugh....thanks to my Facebook friend Matt Houston for the report.
Matt Houston - "Just had an earth quake here. 9.43"
Other - "That's a very strong earthquake - Do you think we...
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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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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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Germanium (Ge) & gallium (Ga) are elements which are essential in our todays life.
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In the semiconductor industry Ga is used for InGaAs diodes, which have a very good sensitivity in...
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We are having quite a golden time for new mineral species additions to e-Rocks.
This short blog features news from from Jason Smith and Volker Betz regarding two new phosphate minerals from Foote Mine in North Carolina, USA. Apologies for the pun in the...
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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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Ever had a discussion along the lines of "I have this old specimen, but it has no labels so I am not sure of where or what it is?"
Most of us have and the mystery sometimes never gets solved, we have quite a pile here, which sometimes has a happy ending...
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It is January 1st 2018 and welcome back to a new year of minerals and other things going on, on e-Rocks.
I promised Carsten last week to make sure there was a "liroconite alert" in place for his auction closing tonight. A fitting start to the New Year...
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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...
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Mining areas above Niaslo village (courtesy Ikram Minerology)
Recently reading about a new discovery of hematite from Morocco seen at Denver Show reminded me of the locality Niaslo, Basha Valley, Skardu, Pakistan.
The...
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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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Rupert Harrison recently posted these pictures of Ed Retallack, retired quarry manager for Dean Quarry, St Keverne, Lizard, Cornwall.
It features Ed holding his best collected specimen with the locality in the distance behind him.
To me, another...
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I have just been updating 2 new minerals recently added to the e-Rocks database and made a sad but interesting discovery about the name.
Edtollite and alumoedtollite are comparatively newly IMA approved minerals pending publication.
Edtollite Minerals...
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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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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 the boxes so there is no way of...
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During September we undertook the appraisal and purchase of Peter Uuerpmann's collection located in Guadamar Del Segura near Alicante, Spain.
As the collection was in secure storage there were some challenges in getting access and seeing the minerals,...
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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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Congratulations to Chris Spiromitros of Greekrocks - he has just updated/upgraded his website.
He is also the first Dealer to put his e-Rocks auctions on his website using our Page App.
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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...
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Facebook friend and collector Michael Pfeil posted a gallery of fine micro photos of specimens collected in the Bergischen Land area of North Rhine - Westphalia.
Here is a translation of his album introduction and a few of his 165 photos.
"In this album...
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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...
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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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Here is an old book, with a wonderful fantasy cover.
It would be hard not to pick up this combination of graphics and illustrations and look inside.
Schubert's Natural History of the mineral kingdom for school and home dates to the late 1880s and was...
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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, but George will be catching up...
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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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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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This super quality pure blue Lapis polished freeform 77cm tall and weighing over 48Kg is going under the hammer next month at an auction in Billingshurst, Kent, UK.
The auctioneers estimate is £5,000 - £7,000 - see link below.
Looks a really good one,...
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One of Germany's most diverse sources of minerals, and still open here is a specimen of "plain old" baryte with inclusions of limonite etc.
Makes a pretty and elegant display.
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It is that time of year again and I am sure you will have noticed a number of "Munich" themed auctions lining up on the schedule.
Suffice to say there have been some tremendous minerals coming through and still more to come over the next week or so, and...
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Sapphire - September's Birthstone
Sapphire - Zazafotsy, Ihosy, Madagascar - 16mm, sold in September 2018
We have not written a "numbers" blog for nearly a year; we figure most people are here for the minerals but sometimes it might help to find out...
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A few days ago an anonymous user from Germany made e-Rocks history by being the 10,000th registered user to sign up to our site.
As ever, we would like to thank "anonymous" and all our growing ranks of visitors both old and new for checking in and making...
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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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Here we are with another auction close coming up for a specimen of liroconite.
This specimen is a nice thumbnail with abundant blue crystals from German seller Karin’s Mineral Shop.
Liroconite is a comparatively rare mineral and because of this and it’s...
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Something we do not see very often (maybe twice a year), the administrator's "auction items closing panel" for the next 24 hours is blank!
This means we don't have any auctions closing on Christmas Day, but we will be back on Boxing Day with a full...
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These amazing images recently appeared in the Journal of American Chemistry Society.
The picture shows individual molecules obtained by microscopy - the scale is mindblowing - 1 Angstrom length is 1 X 10-10m.
Amazing to see how the structures that have...
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Having worked with Madagascan minerals over a number of years, grandidierite has always been a interesting and hard to get hold of mineral.
The story went that there were a few localities close to each other in the south of Madagascar near Fort Dauphin;...
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e-Rocks now has real time bidding and status updates; these change and prompt you automatically without refreshing your browser etc
In addition to this we have just added our network manager to support this real time information to your device.
Your...
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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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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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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...
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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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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...
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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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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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As they say "you live and learn" and in the interest of mineralogy this is nearly a daily experience.
The photograph above shows some little grain-like crystals of native sulphur set on scorodite from Hemerdon Bal in Devon, UK. I have never seen these...
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Here is a great picture of Australian collector/miner Dehne MacLaughlin, taken in 1966 at Allies Mine, Deepwater, NSW, Australia. Dehne is showing off some quartz crystals recently collected.
I have known Dehne since 2001 and since 2009 he has been...
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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...
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Saturday is the last day of our Munich roundabout tour for 2017. It is also the first public day and weekend crowds descend upon the place.
We only planned to be there for 1/2 a day finishing off business and seeing the last few people on our list...
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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...
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As we have passed Thanksgiving and now moving into the Christmas festive period, you might want to indulge yourself in a box of chocolates to go along with the celebrations?
If so you might be interested in this listing from Norbert Stotzel starting...
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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-...
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Today 30 December is the last day of auctions for e-Rocks in 2017, and quite a year it has been both on and off "the pitch".
The Piatek Minerals auction closing at 23:40 tonight will be the final and 1839th auction during 2017; a year when we have...
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Poudretteite, pronounced “poo-dret-tay-ite” is a rare borosilicate mineral first discovered in the 1960s but not formally recognised as a mineral until 1986 (IMA1986-028).
Named after the Poudrette family, original owners of the Poudrette Quarry where...
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Here we are at the 2017 Bakewell Show, and what a day it has been.
Having stayed overnight in town last night we started the day early in the main "gymnasium" hall and straight into the business of looking at minerals and meeting people.
The Main Hall...
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Crystals to cosmetics, this post is about various minerals which have been used, without chemical alteration, as makeup.
OCHRE
Evidence of the use of minerals to adorn human skin has been gathered back to around 7000 years ago, although there is little...
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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...
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You may have noticed today's home page centre has changed; usually we display "today's auctions closing", but today we are showing "all auctions". There is a simple reason for this.
Because of demand from our sellers, we have had to increase our schedule...
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A warm welcome to new seller and excellent photographer Andreas Schmid from Austria.
Andreas is the first new seller to join us since we opened the new site. Selling as Just Minerals you will see his first offerings specimens in Auction 1279.
He has...
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I recently came across a reference to gold being worked at Cross Gill in the North Pennines. It’s in an 1873 article - On the Occurrence of Lead, Zinc, and Iron Ores, in some Rocks of Carboniferous Age in the North-West of England, by De Rance. This 18...
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This excellent large specimen of smithsonite was one of a large suite of smithsonite in Warren Taylor's main Tsumeb collection.
The piece is a mound of flattened crystals pink in colour with an orange "cadmium derived" coating to the surface.
Collected...
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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...
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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...
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We got up early this morning and traveled to Heathrow, and then on to Munich, arriving at 15:00 local time.
Although the show officially opens on Friday and many dealers have not arrived yet, there is already so much to see and take in; it feels as if...
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Late to bed and up with the lark, is the usual routine at Munich Shows and today was no different.
Our Hotel breakfast was excellent, very unhealthy and would set anyone up for the day.
A quick ride on the U-bahn and we were back in the Halls and set up...
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Working with old collections will often throw up unexpected snippets of information, "factoids", or link to some other part of a mineralogical jigsaw.
Recently spotted stowed away in Norman Cogger's collection was a specimen of "Gold", Banket Ore; a...
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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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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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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 entryLast Thursday we had a visit from Aamir Khan our good friend and supplier of all things from Pakistan/Afghanistan. Aamir is based in the UK and Pakistan and spends his equally between the 2 places. As usual he arrived with all kinds of minerals from his...
Blog entryRecently I have been enjoying the micro photos of Yaiba Sakaguchi from Wakayama, Japan posted on Facebook. Yaiba has kindly let me share some of these on e-Rocks. I am sure you will agree these shine a new perspective on the minerals/localities. Well...
Blog entryYesterday our friend Aamir Shah came calling as he has been doing since 2007. We first met Aamir in the car park at Bakewell Show in October 2006 and ever since he has been a regular visitor to TV Towers 3 or 4 times a year. Aamir spends 2-3 months in...
Blog entryCalamaite is the third natural Ti dominant sulfate mineral known yet. Russian scientists recognized this phase, occuring as filigrane colourless sprays, while doing some analytical investigations in a matrix of coquimbite / römerite. Type locality is...
Blog entryA little self indulgence here; not only is liroconite one of the "holy grail" UK minerals, it is one of my favourites! This specimen listed by Carsten is small but exhibits excellent crystals, and is beautifully photographed! Check out the other photos...
Blog entryAs Facebook does, this fantastic specimen photo posted by Val Collins in May 2012 appeared in my timeline today. Not many of these specimens of cerussite with pyromorphite from Daoping Mine appeared, this must be one of the best examples. Thanks to...
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 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 entryA large block of native iron and weighing approx 20 tonnes. It was brought to the Naturhistoriska riksmuseet in Stockholm Sweden in 1870 by boat and horse-drawn carriage from Greenland's West Coast by Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld to a large fanfare. Naturally...
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 entryOn 12th August 2005 we relocated family and business to what we affectionately call Thames Valley Towers in Twyford, Reading. I thought it would be fun to reproduce and share our original posting covering the event, funny how 10 years later though not...
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 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 entryOur man of action George (and partner Sam) have had a busy few months getting themselves organised for a house move. Today finally it is the big day and everything is set to move into the new place. Of course we are all happy; with new house comes a...
Blog entryWe came across this this specimen of bright pine green chalcosiderite with goethite in a box yesterday. Very dirty, but with its label in the box. The specimen has cleaned and trimmed well to reveal its interest. Chalcosiderite was first noted as coming...
Blog entryAs promised I took some pictures of the displays within the Mine to Mine Exhibition. If you are at Munich it is really worth going to see this. This is not all the cases, or all the minerals within the cases shown, but hopefully gives and appreciation of...
Blog entryI 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 tourmaline member only known...
Blog entryTerlingua 1936 The Terlingua quicksilver district is a narrow, east-west area about 20 miles long, in the southern part of the Big Bend region of southwestern Texas. The cinnabar deposit was discovered by Comanche Native Americans, who used it for war-...
Blog entryLast month we blogged about the acquisition of an important Wheal Maudlin "Horsetooth" siderite specimen from an unspecified lot of minerals at an auction in North Yorkshire. Siderite - Wheal Maudlin, Lanlivery, Cornwall The provenance of the piece has...
Blog entryJill Brunner's listing in her current Kalahari Classics Auction for a calcite and pyrite specimen from NChwanning takes the mineral additions on e-Rocks to #640000, or 140,000 items added since in October 2015. Jill was the lucky "winner" of this...
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 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 entryA 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 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 entryA very early start from TV Towers, to Heathrow and onto the short flight to Munich. Really it is a very easy journey and a good time for George and I to catch up on business and plan for the next few days. The view of mountains of Bavaria as we came into...
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 entryNot well known for its mineral collecting Albania seldom figures as a source in many collections or available minerals. In 9 years of e-Rocks we have only ever seen 2 specimens and localities. The current specimen is a newly "discovered" combination of...
Blog entryWishing all our visitors, sellers and buyers a very Happy New Year and great things from 2017. Thinking things over this morning I had a sobering thought; there are now 357 days left before Christmas 2017 and the next planned "dark day" with no auctions...
Blog entryIntroduction: A few months ago I came across the mineral aldridegeite in the IMA list of minerals whilst doing some research. This sulphate mineral is a member of the develline group first discovered and only found at Broken Hill, New South Wales,...
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 entryIn November 1777 French botanist Joseph Dombey, above, set sail for Peru and Chile, as part of the joint Spanish-French Ruiz & Pavón Expedition. The arduous eleven year botanical exploration provided a wealth of plant specimens, an international...
Blog entryIn the depths of Peter Uerpmann's collection we came across a block of massive crystalline halite - rock salt. The locality is given as Asse II, probably picked up during his time as a worker in the German Nuclear industry. Asse (Shaft) II is situated...
Blog entryOf course earthquakes are not funny, but this report on Facebook did make me laugh....thanks to my Facebook friend Matt Houston for the report. Matt Houston - "Just had an earth quake here. 9.43" Other - "That's a very strong earthquake - Do you think we...
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 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 entryGermanium (Ge) & gallium (Ga) are elements which are essential in our todays life. ----------------------------------------------------------------- In the semiconductor industry Ga is used for InGaAs diodes, which have a very good sensitivity in...
Blog entryWe are having quite a golden time for new mineral species additions to e-Rocks. This short blog features news from from Jason Smith and Volker Betz regarding two new phosphate minerals from Foote Mine in North Carolina, USA. Apologies for the pun in the...
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 entryEver had a discussion along the lines of "I have this old specimen, but it has no labels so I am not sure of where or what it is?" Most of us have and the mystery sometimes never gets solved, we have quite a pile here, which sometimes has a happy ending...
Blog entryIt is January 1st 2018 and welcome back to a new year of minerals and other things going on, on e-Rocks. I promised Carsten last week to make sure there was a "liroconite alert" in place for his auction closing tonight. A fitting start to the New Year...
Blog entryToday 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 entryMining areas above Niaslo village (courtesy Ikram Minerology) Recently reading about a new discovery of hematite from Morocco seen at Denver Show reminded me of the locality Niaslo, Basha Valley, Skardu, Pakistan. The...
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 entryRupert Harrison recently posted these pictures of Ed Retallack, retired quarry manager for Dean Quarry, St Keverne, Lizard, Cornwall. It features Ed holding his best collected specimen with the locality in the distance behind him. To me, another...
Blog entryI have just been updating 2 new minerals recently added to the e-Rocks database and made a sad but interesting discovery about the name. Edtollite and alumoedtollite are comparatively newly IMA approved minerals pending publication. Edtollite Minerals...
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 entryWe 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 the boxes so there is no way of...
Blog entryDuring September we undertook the appraisal and purchase of Peter Uuerpmann's collection located in Guadamar Del Segura near Alicante, Spain. As the collection was in secure storage there were some challenges in getting access and seeing the minerals,...
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 entryCongratulations to Chris Spiromitros of Greekrocks - he has just updated/upgraded his website. He is also the first Dealer to put his e-Rocks auctions on his website using our Page App.
Blog entryHi 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...
Blog entryFacebook friend and collector Michael Pfeil posted a gallery of fine micro photos of specimens collected in the Bergischen Land area of North Rhine - Westphalia. Here is a translation of his album introduction and a few of his 165 photos. "In this album...
Blog entryOn 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 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 entryHere is an old book, with a wonderful fantasy cover. It would be hard not to pick up this combination of graphics and illustrations and look inside. Schubert's Natural History of the mineral kingdom for school and home dates to the late 1880s and was...
Blog entryFor 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, but George will be catching up...
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 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 entryThis super quality pure blue Lapis polished freeform 77cm tall and weighing over 48Kg is going under the hammer next month at an auction in Billingshurst, Kent, UK. The auctioneers estimate is £5,000 - £7,000 - see link below. Looks a really good one,...
Blog entryOne of Germany's most diverse sources of minerals, and still open here is a specimen of "plain old" baryte with inclusions of limonite etc. Makes a pretty and elegant display.
Blog entryIt is that time of year again and I am sure you will have noticed a number of "Munich" themed auctions lining up on the schedule. Suffice to say there have been some tremendous minerals coming through and still more to come over the next week or so, and...
Blog entrySapphire - September's Birthstone Sapphire - Zazafotsy, Ihosy, Madagascar - 16mm, sold in September 2018 We have not written a "numbers" blog for nearly a year; we figure most people are here for the minerals but sometimes it might help to find out...
Blog entryA few days ago an anonymous user from Germany made e-Rocks history by being the 10,000th registered user to sign up to our site. As ever, we would like to thank "anonymous" and all our growing ranks of visitors both old and new for checking in and making...
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 entryHere we are with another auction close coming up for a specimen of liroconite. This specimen is a nice thumbnail with abundant blue crystals from German seller Karin’s Mineral Shop. Liroconite is a comparatively rare mineral and because of this and it’s...
Blog entrySomething we do not see very often (maybe twice a year), the administrator's "auction items closing panel" for the next 24 hours is blank! This means we don't have any auctions closing on Christmas Day, but we will be back on Boxing Day with a full...
Blog entryThese amazing images recently appeared in the Journal of American Chemistry Society. The picture shows individual molecules obtained by microscopy - the scale is mindblowing - 1 Angstrom length is 1 X 10-10m. Amazing to see how the structures that have...
Blog entryHaving worked with Madagascan minerals over a number of years, grandidierite has always been a interesting and hard to get hold of mineral. The story went that there were a few localities close to each other in the south of Madagascar near Fort Dauphin;...
Blog entrye-Rocks now has real time bidding and status updates; these change and prompt you automatically without refreshing your browser etc In addition to this we have just added our network manager to support this real time information to your device. Your...
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 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 entryCurrently 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 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 entryWe 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 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 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 entryAs they say "you live and learn" and in the interest of mineralogy this is nearly a daily experience. The photograph above shows some little grain-like crystals of native sulphur set on scorodite from Hemerdon Bal in Devon, UK. I have never seen these...
Blog entryHere is a great picture of Australian collector/miner Dehne MacLaughlin, taken in 1966 at Allies Mine, Deepwater, NSW, Australia. Dehne is showing off some quartz crystals recently collected. I have known Dehne since 2001 and since 2009 he has been...
Blog entryFlicking 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 entrySaturday is the last day of our Munich roundabout tour for 2017. It is also the first public day and weekend crowds descend upon the place. We only planned to be there for 1/2 a day finishing off business and seeing the last few people on our list...
Blog entryRecently 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...
Blog entryAs we have passed Thanksgiving and now moving into the Christmas festive period, you might want to indulge yourself in a box of chocolates to go along with the celebrations? If so you might be interested in this listing from Norbert Stotzel starting...
Blog entryApart 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 entryToday 30 December is the last day of auctions for e-Rocks in 2017, and quite a year it has been both on and off "the pitch". The Piatek Minerals auction closing at 23:40 tonight will be the final and 1839th auction during 2017; a year when we have...
Blog entryPoudretteite, pronounced “poo-dret-tay-ite” is a rare borosilicate mineral first discovered in the 1960s but not formally recognised as a mineral until 1986 (IMA1986-028). Named after the Poudrette family, original owners of the Poudrette Quarry where...
Blog entryHere we are at the 2017 Bakewell Show, and what a day it has been. Having stayed overnight in town last night we started the day early in the main "gymnasium" hall and straight into the business of looking at minerals and meeting people. The Main Hall...
Blog entryCrystals to cosmetics, this post is about various minerals which have been used, without chemical alteration, as makeup. OCHRE Evidence of the use of minerals to adorn human skin has been gathered back to around 7000 years ago, although there is little...
Blog entryIt 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 entryYou may have noticed today's home page centre has changed; usually we display "today's auctions closing", but today we are showing "all auctions". There is a simple reason for this. Because of demand from our sellers, we have had to increase our schedule...
Blog entryA warm welcome to new seller and excellent photographer Andreas Schmid from Austria. Andreas is the first new seller to join us since we opened the new site. Selling as Just Minerals you will see his first offerings specimens in Auction 1279. He has...
Blog entryI recently came across a reference to gold being worked at Cross Gill in the North Pennines. It’s in an 1873 article - On the Occurrence of Lead, Zinc, and Iron Ores, in some Rocks of Carboniferous Age in the North-West of England, by De Rance. This 18...
Blog entryThis excellent large specimen of smithsonite was one of a large suite of smithsonite in Warren Taylor's main Tsumeb collection. The piece is a mound of flattened crystals pink in colour with an orange "cadmium derived" coating to the surface. Collected...
Blog entryThis 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 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 entryWe got up early this morning and traveled to Heathrow, and then on to Munich, arriving at 15:00 local time. Although the show officially opens on Friday and many dealers have not arrived yet, there is already so much to see and take in; it feels as if...
Blog entryLate to bed and up with the lark, is the usual routine at Munich Shows and today was no different. Our Hotel breakfast was excellent, very unhealthy and would set anyone up for the day. A quick ride on the U-bahn and we were back in the Halls and set up...
Blog entryWorking with old collections will often throw up unexpected snippets of information, "factoids", or link to some other part of a mineralogical jigsaw. Recently spotted stowed away in Norman Cogger's collection was a specimen of "Gold", Banket Ore; a...
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 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 entryIt 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...