Albert H Petereit
New York City Mineral Dealer

By Daniel E. Russell

Born in Germany in 1860, Albert H. Petereit joined the legions of German nationals who emigrated to the United States in the late 19th Century. Arriving in New York City in 1880, he eventually established himself as a machinist. In the 1890s Petereit patented several inventions, including a milling lathe and two different improvements for incandescent gas lamps.

There is scant information on Petereit's early interest in minerals. But at about the same time as he was achieving a modest success with his new inventions, Petereit began to segue into a career as a mineral dealer. By 1896, he had established a mineral shop at 120 West 102nd Street, and he apparently relocated to a store at 261 West 71st Street. By the Spring of 1906 he was headquartered at 81 - 83 Fulton Street, in Room 78 of the Market and Fulton Bank Building, where he remained until his death in 1917. (Examples of the various labels which Petereit used through his career are show on the Mineralogical Record's Biographical Record website at http://www.minrec.org/labels.asp?colid=77.) Along with Lazard Cahn, Petereit was a member of the Board of Directors of George L. English & Co., one of the premier mineral dealers in the United States in the late 19th Century.

Based upon his sales advertisements, published in a number of different hobbyist and scientific journals, Petereit “carried inexpensive material and also did a substantial trade in expensive specimens--a 1907 ad offers crystallized gold specimens from the Bonanza mine, Trinity County, California for $500, $750 and $1250!” (Wilson, 2008) He also stocked an assortment of cut gems (including synthetic gems), jewelry, and antiquities such as Egyptian scarabs and Phoenician glass beads.

Petereit appears to have published few articles and notices in the scientific journals of the era. He sent a brief communication to the American Journal of Science in 1907 on a group of interesting copper crystals recovered from the Copper Queen Mine in Bisbee, Arizona. The free-standing crystals were up to an inch long, Some of them are one inch long and numbers of them stand free and terminated in a either “a sharp point or like the head of a nail; some are also twinned.”



Shortly before his death, Petereit allowed William E Ford of Yale's prestigious Sheffield School to examine an exceptional apatite crystal from Mount Apatite,

The crystal measures 3.8cm by 4.3cm in the horizontal directions and 3cm in the vertical direction and weighs slightly over 100 g(rams). Its color is the wonderful deep amethyst characteristic of apatite from this locality. The crystal contains cracks and flaws and is cloudy in portions, but also in many small areas it is perfectly clear and of a gem quality... A small crystal showing the same forms is attached at one side to the lower part of the large crystal but is not represented in the figure. A small amount of cookeite is attached to the crystal.

Like many of the better mineral dealers of the era, Petereit supplied specimens – either through gift, sale, or trade – to many of the larger museums in the United States. These included such items as a specimen of euxenite and one of “ampangabeite” [samarskite-(Y)], from Madagascar that was sold to the Smithsonian (acquisition 59030); specimens of California chrysoprase, natrolite on prehnite from Paterson NJ, and variscite from the classic locality of Lucin, Utah to the American Museum of Natural History; and specimens of algodonite “mohawkite” from Keweenaw, Michigan, terlinguaite and montroydite from Terlingua, Texas, and California benitoite and neptunite (accession 3651) were sent to the Carnegie.

One of the more intriguing specimens which Petereit donated to the American Museum of natural History was a “specimen of crucible contents, with plates of artificial Ruby (Corundum)”

Petereit apparently had a long-term interest in laboratory grown gemstones, especially synthetic corundum.

The sapphire as well as its sister of the corundum family, the ruby, has for years been the object of solicitude on the part of scientific experimentalists, who would produce real sapphires by artificial means; Mr. A. H. Petereit, of New York City, the well-known dealer in gems and gem minerals, who purveys rarities in this line to collectors the world over, and whose inventive genius is represented by more than twenty-five patents, exhibited to the author a "reconstructed sapphire" which, tested merely by a visual examination, rivaled natural sapphires, that of the same colour and purity would be very costly gems. Mr. Petereit's process is secret, and he modestly claims success only to the degree of producing stones of a size that will cut into small gems. Of the Petereit sapphires The Mineral Collector says:

We are pleased to announce that the honour has fallen to an American to at last manufacture a real reconstructed sapphire; successful in hardness, colour, brilliancy, and transparency. Efforts have been made in France, Germany, and other countries to successfully make blue sapphires, and, although they have been successful up to the cooling point, they always lost their colour and became gray when cool.

Mr. A. H. Petereit has had a German chemist working on a formula of his own for two years past, and has had his efforts at last crowned with success. At a meeting of experts in the gem business the reconstructed sapphires were placed among the real stones and they had to admit they were equal if not superior to the real gems.

When Mr. Petereit took up the mineral business his inventive mind was turned into a new channel, the manufacture of artificial gems. Already stories were being told of great successes accomplished in this line, but when it came to produce the stones they failed in one form or another; either the colour or hardness was wanting. The new sapphires he has invented are perfect in every way. They cannot be scratched by the natural sapphire, they have a beautiful deep blue colour, their brilliancy is only equalled by the diamond, their specific gravity is exactly the same as the natural stone.

His success with scientific rubies was due to the fact that those he handled were the best in the market. They were made from small natural stones by a secret process and not from aluminum and other chemicals, as many now on the market were. (Wodiska 1909)

It would be especially interesting, if this specimen is still extant in the American Museum's collection, to determine whether this crucible with its contents of synthetic ruby crystals was the product of Petereit's personal experiments or was an example of the process which he acquired from another laboratory engaged in creating “scientific gems”.

While Wilson (2008) states that Petereit died on 8 November 1917, this appears to be in error; both the Mineralogical Society of America and the Newark Mineralogical Society state his death occurred on 5 November of that year:

We are also sorry to have to report the death on November 5 of Mr. Albert E. Petereit, the well-known dealer in minerals and gems of New York City. (Anon, 1918a)

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The Newark Mineralogical Society passed the following memorial resolution soon after Petereit's death:

Whereas, The sudden death of Albert H. Petereit on Monday November 5, was a great shock to the members of the Newark Mineralogical Society, as he had attended the monthly meeting of the Society the previous day and seemed in good health, taking part in the discussions with his usual vigor,
And Mr. Petereit was a charter member of the Society, deeply interested in its welfare and growth, and adding interest to its meetings by the display of many fine specimens. Therefore be it Resolved, that the members of the Newark Mineralogical Society desire to record their sincere sorrow on the death bf their fellow member, recommending that this minute be incorporated in the proceedings of the December meeting and a copy of the same be sent his family. (Anon, 1918b)

Advertisements from A H Petereit, 1917

A H Petereit advert A H Petereit advert A H Petereit advert

Advertisements from A H Petereit, 1917

A H Petereit advert A H Petereit advert A H Petereit advert

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Bibliography

Anonymous
“List of Accessions”
Thirty-Ninth Annual Report of the Trustees of the American Museum of Natural History
New York 1907

Anonymous
“Notes and News”
American Mineralogist Vol 3 No.1 (Jan 1918) p.6

Anonymous
“Notes and News”
American Mineralogist Vol 3 No.2 (Feb 1918) p.18

Ford, W E
“A Remarkable Crystal of Apatite from Mt. Apatite, Auburn, Maine”
American Journal of Science 4th Series Vol 44 No. 261 (1917)

Petereit, A H
Crystallized Native Copper from Bisbee, Arizona
American Journal of Science Fourth Series Vol 23 No 135 (1907)

WILSON, Wendell E.
Albert H Petereit (1860-1917)
Mineralogical Record (2008)
Biographical Archive, at www.mineralogicalrecord.com
http://www.minrec.org/labels.asp?colid=77
Contains several examples of Petereit's mineral specimen labels

Wodiska, Julius
A Book Of Precious Stones – The Identification Of Gems And Gem Minerals
New York 1909

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