Oi! What about the best of the Brits?

I don't like Foster's anyway Jesse! My current favourite is a New Zealand beer, Steinlager Pure.

Regards
Steve

Woody, I know I've seen similar, but I really can't recall where. Herland certainly crossed my mind and I checked through various books I have - but nothing quite like that. Nice rock though.

Just for Joan & Jesse - a fluorite, cubes to 25mm, with calcite from the southern Pennines - Ladywash Mine in the Peak.

Here is one of my favorite British pieces, alstonite with witherite from brownley hill. label states this is from the original find. Regards - Brad.

Hi Woody,just picked up on your query,I have several similar labels on "Baryte and Blende" from Ulston Moor,mine also have the small attached labels from the museum of M and M, a bit late tonight but i will photograph and send details to you.

Woody - I recently saw a nice group of siderite epimorphs after fluorite from the Virtuous Lady Mine with Heuland catalog label attached. I recall that Ian saw it as well. Unfortunately, financial considerations dictated that it stay where it was.

Ian, Jesse, and Peter,

Thanks for your help and insights regarding the old label on the Herodsfoot specimen. I doubt that such a long label as this would have been specially printed for the specimen. It makes sense that the text was clipped from a spare catalog and glued onto it. Peter, it would be great to see any similar labels that you have. I'll keep looking for the example that I saw before. A siderite/fluorite epimorph from Virtuous Lady Mine is on my holy grail list, but they might as well be made of gold!

Think that the Museum M&M labels on specimens are much smaller, certainly any I have are.

Woody - I'd like a box too, but I don't want to sell the house to buy one

back to the BoB - the dendritic golds from Hopes Nose are good for the UK. This one, field of view 45mm across.

Calcite with hematite inclusions from the Banana Slide find of the early 1970s, Beckermet/Florence mine complex, Egremont, Cumbria. 13 cm across.

Calcite on hematite. Cumbria. 8.1 x 6 cm.

© A&M

Last one before I disappear off to London for a couple of football games.

Anglesite, crystals to 5mm, from the type locality Mona Mine Anglesey, c1790. Ex Acadamy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia.





Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/10/2012 09:32AM by Rock Currier.

Woody,
If you have a look at the late Mick Cooper's article on the Chatsworth House mineral collection (Mineralogical Record Vol 36, pg 239-272), you'll see several examples of specimens with labels glued on exactly like yours and the font looks identical. Those specimens are from the Crichton collection (Crichton was physician to the Emperor Alexander of Russia from 1803 to 1814). His collection was sold at auction by George Sowerby in 2721 lots over a period of 16 days in 1827. Entries from a copy of the cataloge were cut up at the time and glued to the specimens to aid identification. The catalogue still exists and Franz Werner from the Russell Society is the expert on it. Very likely your Herodsfoot piece was in that lot.
Hope this helps,
Ben.

Hi Ben,

That's very good information, and thanks for jogging my memory!! I have Mick's article on the Chatsworth collection, so will go back and have a look at it. Unfortunately it looks like I've either misplaced or didn't save the e-mail discussion that I had with him concerning this type of label. Will send you a PM if I find more. (By the way, I added another view of the specimen to my original photo posting above.)

Woody Thompson

Hi all,

What a nice topic AND specimens.
Just love British minerals.

Here's one of my favorites. [www.mindat.org]

Zenjoy.

Take care and best regards.

Paul.

This one's been a bit of a mystery. It came with an old label from the Sorbonne giving the location as "Northumberland." I've seen a lot of North England fluorite but never anything like this one from the region. While looking through the fluorites in the Sir Arthur Russell collection at the NHM London I came across a couple that were quite similar from the Poldice Mine, St. Day, Cornwall. Specimen is 5 cm across.

"jackstraw" cerussite, crystals to 55mm, from Pentire Glaze Mine, Cornwall.

Famous for large cerussites of this type, in the early 1800s, there are records of specimens being hand-carried upwards of 30miles due to their fragility.





Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/11/2012 09:26PM by Rock Currier.

Jesse,

The blue/yellow zonation and drusy white quartz matrix remind me of some of the fluorites from Wheal Mary Ann.

Here's a nice Scottish zeolite Paul - red stilbite from the Touch Hills, collected in 2000. Specimen is 90mm wide.
Roy

Here is a Kidney Ore Hematite.
The poor thing sobbed all the way out from England in 2011, torn away from the only home it had known for countless millions of years.
It seems to have settled down since i thinned it's matrix down & gave it a new acrylic base.

Time for another rarity.

Hydrocerrusite crystal group, largest crystals 25-30mm, from Tor Works (Merehead Quarry) in Somerset.

Isn't that the stuff we wash off of our galena?