LUÍS ANTÓNIO BRAVO TEIXEIRA LEITE
1942-1999
I met my friend Leite in the beginnings of the decade of 80, had him a minerals store in Areeiro - Lisbon. Well……to me the Leite store was a church and quickly we were friends. It was one of the people that gave me more incentive in the Minerals World …. always thank you my friend. Luís Bravo António Teixeira Leite was born in Lisbon, to July 5, 1942. From very new he collected minerals and it always developed along its life, wants as amateur, wants as professional, related activities with this thematic. He worked as assistant several years in the Institute of Scientific Investigation of Mozambique and in the Museum Dr. Álvaro de Castro (Geology section) in then city of Lourenço Marques, today Maputo. Great expert of minerals and indefatigable traveler, traveled the African continent of Morocco to South Africa, America, Asia, Europe and Australia. It was author of several articles concerning minerals, mines and collections, in publications in the USA, South Africa, Mozambique and Portugal, including the description of a new mineral specie of the famous Tsumeb mine in Namibia, baptized in its honor with the name of Leiteite. (Work of F.P. Cesbron et. Al., published in 1979, in Mineralogical Record, nº. 8. pp. 95-97). Between 1968 and 1976 it exercised the activity of minerals merchant's in the city of Pretória in South Africa, tends during this period collaborator of the Museum of this city. Starting from 1976 it continued to exercise the activity of merchant's with a store in Algarve - Portugal and later in Areeiro - Lisbon. It was vendor of minerals of the main museums of the World, near which it was very well-known and he had special room like Special Exhibitor in the Tucson show, Arizona, USA. It went to its death, official collaborator of the National Museum of Natural History of Lisbon and Partner founder (no. 13) and director of the friends' of MNHN League. He created in Portugal, starting from 1989, the International Fair of Minerals, Gems and Fossils of Lisbon, done ever since every year on the first weekend of December, as well as the important paper that also carried out on this year in the acquisition for MNHM the McGuinness collection that went look with Drº Professor A M Galopim de Carvalho to United States of America. In the year that died he walked to collaborate with the Quartz Museum project in Viseu - Portugal and which arrived to ask me it helps with samples of my collection for this project, but however it was postponed due to its sudden death in 2 of March of 1999, in Porto Seguro - Brazil where met of vacations after having executed the Tucson show. Its body rests in Governor Valadares, Brazil, an important place in the minerals world trade. Its disappearance went an irreparable loss to the Portuguese Mineralogy and I understood for well to write in this well-known site a felt and longing homage.