I’ve posted excellent specimens from the John S. White Pennsylvania collection. These include some of the best Smoky Mountain smoky quartz specimens known, along with great specimens of classic Pennsylvania minerals and rarities – pyromorphite, celestine, andradite, magnetite, rutile, calcite, stellerite, ruizite, and more.

I’ve added great new specimens in a new update of pieces from the Steve Szilard Collection. Steve is a well-known and highly respected Canadian mineral collector and this update includes fine mineral specimens from all over the world.

The Rochester Mineralogical Symposium is one of the best mineral events of the year. Here’s my report from RMS 2019, with lots of great mineral photos.

I’ve added some super new specimens in this Elmwood Update. This update features beautiful high-quality twinned calcite crystals, and also a great fluorite.

I’ve added some excellent specimens in this Russia Update. In particular, there are some super, transparent, colourless fluorites from Dal’negorsk, with crystals exhibiting up to five crystal forms. Among these area couple of great overgrowth and phantom pieces. This update also includes some great calcite specimens, with some fascinating crystal forms, and some fine datolite specimens with sharp crystals.

I’ve added some beautiful, gemmy, twinned calcite crystals in this Elmwood Calcite Update. Over the years, the miners referred to the large orange Elmwood calcite crystals as “footballs”, and they referred to the clear gemmy calcites in this update as “jewels”. These are from a pocket found in late 2014 – most specimens were damaged and these are exceptional.

Tucson: urban field collecting at its finest! Some years are better than others, and this was a great year at the Tucson shows – many excellent mineral specimens and good fun with mineral friends. This post includes interesting news from Tucson, with glimpses of Tucson specimens to be posted on the website over the coming weeks.

I’ve made no secret of my belief that excellent black crystals are very cool. But colour is great too, and the latest update has lots! The new DR Congo Update features some amazing hues of pink in beautiful specimens of cobaltoan dolomite from Katanga, some of which have green malachite in association. The update also includes a specimen with exquisite twinned calcite crystals from Mashamba West.

The new China Update features selected fine specimens – beautiful fluorite crystals of different colours and crystal habits (and some great phantoms), pyromorphite, golden barite, spessartine garnet and more.