Excellent specimens from travels in Peru, including a trip to the Quiruvilca Mine. This Peru Update features barite, hubnerite/quartz, epidote, a great pearceite, pyrite and more. I hope you’ll find them interesting. If you are curious about Quiruvilca and what it is like to be searching for crystal specimens at the mine, have a look […]

Each year when “Tucson” nears, I’m like a kid who can’t wait to race downstairs on Christmas morning. Just the chance to experience the sprawling mineral shows all over the city (known collectively in Mineral World simply as “Tucson”)… there is so much to see! This is a brief blog post about a few finds from Tucson 2014.

Welcome! This website is brand new. Which means it’s not good enough yet, but that’s ok. You’re here and I’m hoping you’ll enjoy looking around, even though I’m still working on it day and night. Kinda like entering a mineral dealer’s show room/setup while flats are all over the place and display cases are only […]

High in the Andes, Southern Peaks Mining operates one of Peru’s most famous historical mines, the Quiruvilca Mine. Quiruvilca is one of Peru’s most important mineral specimen producing localities. I was invited to go to Quiruvilca, resulting in an adventure that included some amazing time underground to explore the sulfide veins as they were being mined.

Who could pass up the chance to adventure in one of the world’s greatest mineral countries? Morocco hosts to some of the great contemporary specimen producing localities of our time, in a beautiful region with stunning landscapes.

After the Sahara adventure, it was time to descend into the workings of the world famous Mibladen mining district.

This Brazil update contains some brilliant specimens. Two matrix fluorapatites, in purple and blue, are really special! Two exquisite hematite iron roses – one is a great old-timer. The elbaite tourmalines and other fine minerals are excellent with lots of character, so I hope you’ll enjoy looking through them.

I have a just posted a small group of wonderful Canadian native copper specimens, collected in 2013 from the Colonial Copper Mine, Cap D’Or, Cumberland Co., Nova Scotia, Canada. These are beautiful intricate branches of copper crystals, some on matrix and some free floating. Really nice!

We have all had that moment when looking at a pyrite from Navajún, Spain: “No way are those cubes natural!” Well, if you’d like to adventure to the remarkable place where they do in fact come out of the ground, this post will take you to this beautiful region of Spain, and to the Victoria Mine.

If you could choose anything in the world, imagine for a moment what would you want out of your ideal hobby, pursuit or passion – what would it give you? What if mineral collecting could give you all of these things? If you’ve never thought much about mineral collecting before you may be thinking I’m crazy… but read more and see if you still think so…

Building a great collection of fine minerals involves a few generally recognized fundamentals, and yet every perspective on this is a little different, with emphasis and focus varying from one to the next. So this is my perspective and I also include a list of great articles at the end of this post…

Ok, like anything new, mineral collecting can seem daunting, but there are thousands and thousands of collectors out here and we all started somewhere. So if you are interested, don’t be shy about it! If you find that you have a love for minerals, you will absolutely not be a beginner for long. There are seven easy steps you can take to start on your way…