I’ve added new specimens in this new Worldwide Update, including specimens from the Pete Richards collection and the Steve Szilard collection. I hope you enjoy them!

I’ve posted a new update featuring the first of many specimens to come, from the collection of my friend Tracy A. Kimmel. Tracy built an excellent, substantial collection of fine minerals, and I acquired it this year. I have also written a post about Tracy (see Profiles and Tributes), and I really hope you’ll enjoy reading about her – she was a remarkable person.

Tracy Kimmel was a Canadian mineral collector who built an excellent worldwide collection, with particularly strong sub-collections of arsenic minerals and quartz. She was of course so much more – and, together with her mineral collection, that’s what I’d like to share with you.

I’ve posted superb new specimens in this new Bou Azzer Update. A few localities from this famous Moroccan mining district are represented, including the famous Agoudal Mine, which unfortunately has just recently closed.

I’ve added a few excellent new specimens in this Morocco Update. This update includes some particularly fine and unusual pieces – some are rather colourful!

I’ve added some super new specimens of erythrite from Bou Azzer, along with excellent new, very different, barite specimens from Bou Nahas. These are beautiful erythrite specimens from the contemporary classic locality generally regarded as having produced the world’s finest erythrites, and the barites are from a locality that has been known for quite some time but has been the source of a few very fine specimens more recently.

The annual mineral show at Sainte-Marie-aux-Mines is so different from all others. Sure, we all love the large exciting mineral-filled halls and general mineral mayhem of the large shows, and the hotel shows in Tucson and Denver. But Ste Marie’s character and charm, from the theatre and the tent-lined streets within the show, to the town and the countryside beyond, make this an experience not to be missed.

This Morocco Update includes excellent specimens of several minerals, including blue barite from the Sidi Lahcen Mine, fluorapatite from Imilchil, fluorite from Sidi Ayed and Tounfit, cobaltoan dolomite from the Agoudal Mine, and more.