Other Advice

 

Store Minerals Properly to Protect Them from Damage

Storage drawers or cabinets are meant to protect mineral specimens from dust and greasy fingers. So don't stack minerals one on top another. Don't store minerals in drawers without separators between minerals to keep them from touching. It is hard enough finding undamaged minerals (at reasonable prices), don't add damage to a specimen after you have acquired it.

 

Don’t Collect More Than You Can Display

There is probably something psychologically unique about collectors. Whatever it is, many collectors get out of hand and focus on the hunt, on gathering all they can. The result is a garage or basement filled with minerals in boxes. And what good are they in boxes!!? If you can’t find it, you might as well not own it.

 

So invest in a cabinet or display case for your collection and display them. It doesn’t have to be a glass-front cabinet, a chest of drawers stores minerals very efficiently yet makes sharing your collection with others convenient. If you have more than you can display, then choose your best to display. Then take a hard look at what is left in the boxes. Do you really need them? If not, then take a few minerals to the next show or club meeting and offer them to friends or one of the dealers. If you do need to keep the specimens then spend some more money on display cases. 

 

Does it make sense to invest in nice mineral specimens then throw them in second-hand storage drawers? Of course not! Set aside a percentage of your mineral budget to acquire nice display cases and storage drawers designed for mineral specimens. Five percent of your acquisition budget might be appropriate.

 

Good storage should be a mix of display cases and drawers. Display cases should be well illuminated and protect against dust accumulation. Drawers should be fully extendable and each specimen separated from others to prevent damage. Needless to say, storage cases should prevent heat, humidity, acidity or other environmental factors from ruining your minerals. (Tip: don't store your native silver next to your sulfur specimens.)

 

Go through your collection and weed out the junk every so often. Every two years? Every five years? When your closet door won't close anymore? It doesn't matter how often. Just do it. Over time your collecting tastes change. You may evolve to focus on a particular mineral group or a specific mineral locality. You may have acquired better specimens in your collection, making your earliest mineral specimens redundant or substandard.

 

Review your collection, sorting all of your minerals. As recommended above, sort your best specimens into one group. After your collection has been reorganized give your lesser specimens away to a beginner or sell them on eBay or trade with club members at a swap. Eliminating specimens from your collection is a good thing, not bad. The minerals you are getting rid of can be traded with another collector or you can offer them to a dealer as partial payment for that killer he has. Most dealers will gladly allow you to trade up, though don’t expect to pay for the entire purchase in trade. Trading is not to be underestimated. The key to a good trade is both parties get something they want. When you are trading up, offer a flat of minerals for that one killer you just have to have. Often the best trading is when you travel to another region. Offer minerals from your home region for mineral from the other guy’s home region. It is likely that each of you will be getting rid of minerals that you are up to your eyeballs in and can’t give away at home.

 

Develop Relationships with Dealers

Once you are an impassioned collector you will develop a specialty in your collection. This is often collecting the same mineral from many different locations or collecting many minerals from one location. Whatever it is, you will be on the lookout for those unique mineral specimens that fill the gaps in your collection. The best advice I have is to develop a relationship with several mineral dealers that you have bought from in the past. Take the time to tell them your interest, give them your want list, check in periodically to see what is new. Dealers see more minerals in a year than you could ever hope to see in a lifetime. If they have you in mind, you will have a better chance of building a unique collection.

 

There is a down side though. If a dealer finds you something that you have requested, you run the risk of spoiling the relationship if you do not buy the specimen. I am not suggesting that you buy everything that is offered. But understand that a dealer will eventually drop you from his list if you don’t occasionally purchase his offerings.

 

Buy the Best You Can Afford

When you buy, get the best you can afford. Remember the last mineral show you went to that had display cases. Which was more impressive or memorable: the case stuffed with 50 specimen each worth $20 or the case with one specimen worth $1000. Though the dollars may vary, we all remember that "killer" at the last show. Yet both collectors invested the same amount.

 

Set a budget for mineral purchases in the coming year, decide how many specimens you must buy during the year to satisfy your urges, then divide your budget by the number of specimens to set the target range for you purchases. For example you say you want to spend $600 in a year and you go to six shows a year and have to buy something at every show. The advice to buy the best possible minerals says you should the buy one $100 mineral at each show - rather than buying ten $10 minerals. At the end of the year those $100 minerals will look better than a collection of $10 minerals.

 

How much did you spend on minerals last year? Take the time to add it up. It will probably be more than you expect. Use last year’s purchases as a guide to set your budget. Then divide that budget among the fewest specimens possible. You won’t spend any more than you intended, but you will end up with a much better collection.

 

Do Nothing to a Specimen that's Not Reversible

This may seem obvious, but too many collectors don't think about how foolish it is to permanently put numbers on specimens with finger nail polish, or glue specimens to Styrofoam using epoxy glue. It is permissible, even preferable, to carefully trim a mineral specimen. But that is the only permanent action that a collector should do to a specimen. (If a specimen has been illustrated in a book or magazine it is not advisable to trim the specimen - it is a "figured" specimen. Trimming will change the appearance from the published illustration.)

 

Otherwise, do nothing that cannot be undone in the future. Do not use permanent glues like epoxy to glue anything to the specimen. Do not use any permanent markers or ink when numbering specimens. Do not use finger nail polish, India ink, sharpie pens or other markers. For numbering a specimen, it is best to print out small numbers on a laser printer, cut out the numbers and glue them to the specimen using Elmer's Glue.

 

At the same time, it is necessary to put a tag or code on each specimen for identification. The tag should be both durable and removable. The BEST solution is to tagging minerals with a code that is both secure and reversible:

 

1. Print out your tags on a laser printer or copy with a Xerox. Don't use water soluble inks.

2. Cut out the tag

3. Adhere the tag to the specimen with Mineral Tack.

 

The mineral tack is quite secure yet removable if necessary. It is also water proof. Mineral collections labeled this way is the best system currently available. Another great way to do this is to purchase or make your own acrylic or wooden sealed mounts and use mineral tack and label the specimen on the mount so that the mineral is not altered. But you have to be very careful with this method as the minerals can become separated from the mount.

 

You are only the temporary caretaker of your specimens. You should not alter specimens in any way that will take away from the future study of them.