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GeneralOldest mineral specimens?

27th Nov 2016 15:54 UTCReiner Mielke Expert

See the end of this thread: http://www.mindat.org/forum.php?read,6,386094,399244#msg-399244 Here is some of it:

What is the oldest documented mineral specimen still in existence?

I don't consider cut stones as mineral specimens that is a whole different subject. I am talking about specimens in their natural state collected with the intention of keeping them that way.

I think the oldest specimen would probably be in some European museum. It would be interesting to know what it is, when it was collected and by whom?

I guess there is a fine line between "specimens in their natural state collected with the intention of keeping them that way." and minerals that are in their natural state because they weren't able to cut them. So let me clarify. I mean specimens that where not collected for personal adornment so that would exclude uncut stones used as jewelry. I would also exclude minerals used in the adornment of buildings or objects such as swords, scepters, shields, chariots etc.

From Rob Woodside:

The idea of collecting minerals for intellectual purposes possibly dates to the Greeks. Aristotle asked Alexander to send him back plant specimens, so it would not be a stretch to do the same with rocks. Pliny probably had such a collection. It wasn't until the 18th century in Europe that the curiosity cabinets began collecting natural history objects in earnest. Lumps of ore were probably kept from a much earlier date to show the miners what to look for.

You are probably correct Rob but what I am asking for is an actual specimen. I am not wondering when or why specimens were collected. I would like to see a photo or drawing of an existing specimen with documentation. To make this more interesting, how about the oldest US specimen? Canadian specimen? English specimen? European specimen? Russian? etc. Off course Europe will a be a problem with all the boundary changes over the years.

27th Nov 2016 16:12 UTCDavid Von Bargen Manager

http://www.minrec.org/bookdetail.asp?id=34

27th Nov 2016 16:18 UTCReiner Mielke Expert

Thanks for the link David, I'll have to get a copy. However I doubt that is the final word as there are likely specimens out there that they were not aware of.

27th Nov 2016 18:52 UTCPaul Brandes 🌟 Manager

I suppose I could throw a major monkey wrench into this and ask are we talking about the oldest collected specimen (the first specimen collected for the simple act of collecting), or the oldest specimen by age of formation (i.e., the oldest documented mineral specimen still in existence?). The oldest by age of formation is a zircon from the Jack Hills Conglomerate in Australia at about 4.36 Ga. I have no idea what the oldest collected specimen would be, and I'm not sure that is an answer that will be easily obtained.

27th Nov 2016 20:26 UTCReiner Mielke Expert

Oldest collected specimens by humans, not the oldest mineral or rock.

27th Nov 2016 21:01 UTCPaul Kendall

Peter Bancroft stated that "the oldest traceable mineral specimen in the world" is a 600 gm silver from 1477 in Dresden. Wendell Wilson stated that "the earliest known surviving mineral specimens" are two silvers from 1477 in Dresden. The Bancroft-stated specimen is one of the two Wilson-stated specimens. The two specimens are Mindat photo ID #424280 and #424300. Also see: Bancroft, P. (1988) Mineral Museums of Eastern Europe, The Mineralogical Record, Vol. 19, No. 1, p 18; Lieber, W. and Leyerzapf, H. (1986) German Silver, The Mineralogical Record, Vol. 17, No. 1, p 11; Wilson, W. (1995) The History of Mineral Collecting, The Mineralogical Record, Vol. 25, No. 6, p 16; and Thalheim, K. (2006) Schatzkammer-Museum, Vom Mineralienkabinett zum Museum fur Mineralogie und Geologie, Der Katalog zur Ausstellung im Dresdener Zwinger, Druckerei Thieme GmbH & Co. KG, pp 23 and 25.

Regards,

Paul

27th Nov 2016 21:32 UTCReiner Mielke Expert

Alfredo wrote:

"There is a Roman collection of alpine quartz crystals in some museum in Europe (Austria?), so perhaps around 2,000 years ago?" That would seem to contradict a date of 1477.

27th Nov 2016 22:15 UTCGerhard Brandstetter Expert

These quartz crystals were found in Roman excavations at the Magdalensberg in Kärtnen, Austria. The settlement existed from about 170 bc to about 50 ac. The place was a trading center. Mining was important: there was a smelter for noric iron from Hüttenberg and a smelter for gold from the mountains in Carinthia. I even have the copy of a gold bar from the Magdalensberg. The original mold was found there. The mentioned rock crystals were probably a raw material for quartz crystal objects such as jewelery and vessels. 70 crystals with a weight of 115 kg were found. These crystals can be found in the Hohe Tauern mtns. (Carinthia and Salzburg).

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stadt_auf_dem_Magdalensberg

Sorry - german only but with lots of photos including the mold for my gold bar.

And a photo from this quartz find:

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Magdalensberg_Bergkristall.jpg

28th Nov 2016 00:51 UTCBob Harman

I will stay with my original idea that colored stones used as found for jewelry by the Egyptians starting before 2500 b.c. represent the earliest mineral specimens. They were revered, collected and used as found with no cutting or facetting. Mineral specimens originally used as jewelry. CHEERS.....BOB

28th Nov 2016 01:31 UTCAlfredo Petrov Manager

Jadeite was collected in Japan for use in tools 7,000 years ago, and for use in adornment starting 6,000 years ago. Mineral collectors in the modern sense started picking it up less than 80 years ago.

30th Nov 2016 13:16 UTCChristian Auer 🌟 Expert

Alfredo, your last conclusion isn`t correct.

The first hype for collecting minerals was way sooner. Sure, it was mainly a hobby for Nobles and the Cleric but it existed.

Last year I heard an interesting lecture about historic collections in Vienna, Austria. It was also shown how many percent of collectors were Nobles, Clerics, Military, Private, ... This changed dramatically within the centuries but the origins date back waaay longer.

One example that I just worked on. The Erasmus mine http://www.mindat.org/loc-16004.html was well known for collectors specimen and this dates back between 1780 and 1820! There existed three large collections (with specimen from other mines too of course). Mathias Mielichhofer, a mine official http://www.biographien.ac.at/oebl/oebl_M/Mielichhofer_Mathias_1772_1847.xml as well as Freiherr Karl von Moll https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_von_Moll and Bergrath Schroll. Its a pitty that we don`t have pics from those collections here on mindat.

30th Nov 2016 13:32 UTCAlfredo Petrov Manager

Christian, I was only talking about collecting jadeite in Japan, not mineral collecting in general ;-) ...There was at least one mineral collector in the "modern" sense in Japan in the 18th century - He wrote a book about his collection titles "Unkonshi". As there were no mineralogy references in japanese in those days, that poor collector's only written source of information were chinese medical texts, which described things like cinnabar. And he didn't know about the existence of jadeite.

We "western" collectors have a tendency to be rather eurocentric. If we look at other parts of the world, we'd probably find Asians (at least the Chinese) were collecting and studying minerals long before Europeans started. (Just a guess; I don't have information about old chinese mineral collections.)

30th Nov 2016 15:45 UTCDavid Von Bargen Manager

The Chinese apparently didn't collect minerals as such, but did collect "scholar stones"

With luck, every semester of the art season has a sleeper, some quietly excellent show just off the beaten path. This spring's contender is the wonderful, eccentric "Worlds Within Worlds: The Richard Rosenblum Collection of Chinese Scholars' Rocks." It features 80 examples of the beautifully textured, unusually shaped rocks collected as art by Chinese scholars as early as the Sung Dynasty (960-1279). Prized for their intimations of mountain landscapes, tigers or withered trees, such rocks were often distinguished by dramatic outcroppings and overhangs or deep furrows and were displayed on carved wood bases that were themselves minor works of art.

http://www.nytimes.com/1996/05/31/arts/art-review-old-chinese-rocks-rorschach-blots-in-3-dimensions.html

http://shimagata.tripod.com/srhist.htm

30th Nov 2016 16:13 UTCReiner Mielke Expert

Interesting stuff! Thanks David!

30th Nov 2016 16:38 UTCTom Goodland

Scholar's rocks can be worth a lot, more than almost all mineral specimens. This one fetched $1,120,000 in a Christies auction last year.

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