What's your favourite mineral specimen today, part TWO.

Thanks Peter for your comments, what minerals do you find at your favourite digging spot, any pictures of your favourites?
Great Torbernite Paul, l used to own a super Saleeite which is now in the Australian Museum.

[www.mindat.org]

Been having fun out at the Mary Kathleen uranium mine before I head back to Victoria lately. Went out and got some nice pieces yesterday to etch with hydrochloric acid, usually reveals nice allanite and garnets from the calcite. I'm glad I run out of acid half way through doing my pieces though, because I ended up finding little tiny axinite crystals this morning on one (please correct me if I have ID'd it wrong). Never found it before, let alone seen it in hand specimen, so it's definitely my favorite for today.

Congrats Ryan, beautiful.


My favourite for today, a Smithonite that "glows" when near light.
Berg Aukus, Namibia. Small Cabinet

Gail Patricia Copus Spann

Hi Ryan
I suspect these nice little brown crystals are more likely titanite. I know of no axinite or other borosilcates there, but someone may know better?.
ralph

Ralph

Hello all,

Here is one to join the colorful radioactives. Love that torbernite, Paul! And Gail, that smithsonite looks good enough for dessert!

This autunite is from the Daybreak Mine in Spokane Co., Washington. It measures 13X6.5X3 cm. I had the pleasure of examining a number of uranium mines in this area many years after I acquired this specimen in 1964.

Cheers!

Steve

Hello all,

Here is one to join the colorful radioactives. Love that torbernite, Paul! And Gail, that smithsonite looks good enough for dessert!

This autunite is from the Daybreak Mine in Spokane Co., Washington. It measures 13X6.5X3 cm. I had the pleasure of examining a number of uranium mines in this area many years after I acquired this specimen in 1964.

Cheers!

Steve

Hello all,

Here is one to join the colorful radioactives. Love that torbernite, Paul! And Gail, that smithsonite looks good enough for dessert!

This autunite is from the Daybreak Mine in Spokane Co., Washington. It measures 13X6.5X3 cm. I had the pleasure of examining a number of uranium mines in this area many years after I acquired this specimen in 1964.

Cheers!

Steve

I like this specimen but one post is probably enough. I guess that after telling me that there was no room for the post the system saved it and did it later while I repeated it.

The endless wonders of 0's and 1's!

Cheers,

Steve

Hi every one, great mineral posts. Great pics Phil of Calcites from Stories Quarry. Makes me home sick but the weather in tucson is fantastic and so are the mineral people.lots to see and do. Love your Smithonite Gail. Cant wait tell saturday.

my fav i got today is a topaz from pakastan s/c

take care....Trev

Hi,

Thank you all for your nice comments concerning my Torbernite.
Trevor, your Topaz is awesome.
Gail, that is one of the best Smithsonite I have ever seen from Aukas.
Stephen, very nice Spokane. I once saw for sale a specimen like that in the 80's. The price was right but I bought some other meaningless things in stead. It was in the time that I prefered to buy quantity instead of quality, however.
I never saw it back. That is one of my collecting regrets.

You can't have them all, is'nt it, otherwise I would stop looking for new specimens.

Today, a nice copper secondary, from Cornwall that I bought in the " Quantity " era. [www.mindat.org]

Enjoy.

Take care and best regards.

Paul.

Thanks Paul. It appears that some of those copper secondaries 'purchased in quantity' are pretty fantastic!

Here is a small chalcocite twin with quartz and pyrite. I acquired this in the late 80's at the Cincinatti show with a small collection of thumbnails. Stewart Mine, Butte, Silver Bow County Montana. Maximum dimension 2 cm.

Cheers,

Steve

Philip, looks like you had a lot of fun and the calcites are really neat. Still waiting, but think some postal worker is a mineral collector. Oh well. Gail and all, your posts are great. I look forward to seeing more. all of you guys must have dust free homes or "dust fairies" that dust your glass shelves! I was noticing how nice and clean your glass shelves are in your photos. Must get out the feather duster or produce a "genie" out of one of my lamps.

Linda Smith
Rock Mama and Boogie Boarding Grandma

Good evenin'

Gail, could you take a picture of that smithsonite with a light beam penetrating it? I'm thinking you are very right.

I spent yesterday in the mountains near Mexico and collected from what looked like late-magmatic hyrdothermal veins. I break Gail wish tonight...sort-of. My favorite is one of the pockets, so I present three crystals from one pocket.

The ephemeral stream packed rocks and debris in the opening of this one, but the back 1/2 was still fully intact. They appear to have gone through one episode of rupture.
The largest, the SceptorCap measure 5 cm, whereas the smallest nearSceptor measures 3 cm. I have only lightly cleaned these at this point.

Cheers.
Ian

Oops!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/03/2009 06:12AM by Ian Merkel.

SceptorCap picture.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/03/2009 06:13AM by Ian Merkel.

nearly a sceptor picture



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 02/03/2009 06:20AM by Ian Merkel.

Oops!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/03/2009 06:10AM by Ian Merkel.

oops



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/03/2009 06:14AM by Ian Merkel.

Paul I am constantly amazed at the uranium minerals you post, congratulations they are superb.

It has been a while since I posted on this thread.

I am a dedicated thumbnail / small miniature collector, but occasionally I go off the rails
My favourite today a very old Broken Hill New South Wales Australia Reticulated Cerussite coated with Anglesite crystals to 3 plus cm, lots of 1mm sulphur crystals, specimen weighs in at 54.5 kilo's

and another couple of angles