How's your provenance?

Although there are progressive mining companies that attempt to save our mineral heritage, the vast majority of material coming to market is looted. Sometimes this is done with a wink and a nod by the companies to augment the miserable salaries of the miners. I've often thought that mineral specimens are really cheap masterpieces and a mine is like an old master. Once dead or mined out, there will be no more. Now with high end prices in the 6 figures, the mineral market, at least at the high end is starting to look like the art market. Combining cultural heritage with big bucks has produced a demand for provenance for antiquities and mineral specimens may not be too far behind. Here's an article from today's New York times that tells of the travails of high end antiquity collectors.

[www.nytimes.com]

ROB This is an important and potentially far reaching NYTimes article. Related senarios have already impacted me in my mineral world.

Several years ago our Midwest Chapter of The Friends of Mineralogy (I am the Chapter President) gained access into an Indianapolis quarry where pyrite nodules up to hen's egg size are highly sought after. Collecting was excellent and all attendees came home with many hi quality finds. Shortly thereafter a number of these specimens turned up for sale and/or auction on one or several dealer sites. The quarry found out and complained as they felt our collecting was not meant primarily for "rock collecting", but for immediate financial gain. They could let their own workers do that and make a few extra bucks. They were quite unhappy as we were "looting" their rocks for our financial gain!! THEY HAVE A POINT.

Another senario is that at the October Indiana State Museum mineral show, one of the conditions of specimen sale is that they have to be LEGALLY obtained. This was in writing, as of 2 years ago, in each dealer show contract. That is, mineral specimens to be sold at the Indiana State Museum cannot be collected from places where collecting is illegal like certain federal lands, national parks, the lake shores on Indiana state property etc. Furthermore, since it usually can't be precisely determined when a particular specimen was collected, ALL specimens from illegal areas technically cannot be sold at the museum show even if collected many years ago. This is quite similar to some of what was discussed in this article.

In the near future this might impact some very hi end specimens from the US and abroad..........

Thanks Bob, So it has begun at the Indiana State Museum and probably elsewhere.Sadly the bureaucrat's answer to any doubts is to ban it all, as is happening with antiquities.

Mont St Hilaire has been closed a couple of times and is currently closed. I think both times at St Hilaire it was the frustration of the Quarry owners that their few bucks per ton roadrock was containing Kilobuck specimens that they didn't have the skill or knowledge to collect themselves. At least they haven't called in the cops to confiscate people's specimens like Richmont did with Nugget Pond Gold specimens.

Bob,
I was interested in your story about the Indianapolis quarry field trip. And I hope the relationship with them was not ruined.

In most field trips to the operating aggregate quarries (not talking gemstone mines here):
1. There are no restrictions regarding where and what is allowed to collect. (If there are such restrictions, they must be honored by the collectors, of course.) Most restrictions are normally safety-related, not on the material found there.
2. There is no limitation on the amount of material one could collect during the field trip.
3. There is nothing prohibiting the field trip participants from keeping or disposing their finds any way they choose, including selling.
4. Full freedom of information is in place for all to enjoy: nothing is preventing the quarry personnel from learning about the market for specimens from their quarry. Which is proven by the story you told. It's just the timing of learning that was not optimal...
5. Mineral clubs strive to maintain good relationship with the hosts, especially if some of the quarry personnel show some interest in mineral collecting. But we always talk to them about what's of interest for us in their quarry, and we show them our finds at the end of the trip anyway.

So, in your opinion, what should have been done differently?

Thanks,
Michael

MICHAEL I fully agree with your assessments and in all our field trips the usual conditions and agreements with the quarry managements are stressed. It just so happened that some person (or people) connected with the quarry was knowledgeable about these matters and had the idea to let quarry personnel collect on their personal time. In this quarry the collectible pyrite specimens are very easily found in the pushed aside overburden shale; they were unhappy that so much rapidly turned up for sale shortly after we were there. The collectors are either us or the quarry employees who then sell the specimens to us (as is done in many mining areas). The relationship was strained, but a collector member who is with the Indiana Geology Survey helped smooth over the frayed feelings for a trip into the quarry this past spring (collecting was not good as all had been found prior to that trip). CHEERS.........BOB

If any field trip participant sells any of the rocks they collected with permission from private property owners, it would seem to be just common sense and good manners for the seller to spend some percentage of their sales to buy a bottle of good scotch, a subscription to Rocks & Minerals, or some other appropriate present for the landowner or quarry manager. A little thoughtful prevention of negative feelings is easier than trying to assuage negative feelings later.

Here is a picture of a typical matrix and non-matrix example. YES YES all the rules were followed, but one or several quarry management (or employees) complained that they could easily collect these and supplement their income. They then convinced the superiors that what we were doing was the wrong approach as some of us were rapidly selling off the finds. I think this could happen in any quarry or mining site; we are really lucky it does not happen more often where the employees convince the superiors to let them collect and then sell it all to us at inflated prices! As a matter of fact most quarries here in the Midwest have one or more employees or managers that know about the crystals found in the quarry and some even collect along with us. Most just don't complain when their crystals are rapidly sold off; this quarry saw it differently and was unhappy at our member's rapid financial gain. CHEERS......BOB.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/16/2012 01:39AM by BOB HARMAN.

I would say that one additional benefit of being a micros collector is that the stuff I collect is unlikely to cause any jealousy in the quarry personnel!

Most quarry field trips around here are attended by about 25 collectors. On most field trips, a FEW of these collectors find a FEW nice calcites or sphalerites or celestites worth a FEW bucks. But in this quarry, on that field trip, over a 4 hour collecting period, 25 collectors EACH found 20 - 40 of these pyrite nodules worth about $20 to $50 apiece (matrix specimens command the premium). Now, if 5 quarry employees collected during some of their personal time every week, then you do the math. The extra money can become VERY substantial. I can understand their unhappiness with our "intrusion". CHEERS..........BOB

I am going to throw my opinion in the ring here from a little different perspective. If something is "given", then in my opinion, the giver shouldn't be upset with what happens with the gift. Obviously, the quarry owner was aware of what the collectors were finding and quite likely wasn't interested in doing the dirty work himself until he saw the money the collectors were making from the sale of the specimens. That, coupled with his jealous employees, who probably felt underpaid and complained to the quarry owner, likely acerbated the situation.

Of course, Alfredo has the ideal solution! A little P.R. goes a long ways and the collectors should have thought of that, and maybe a nice specimen to boot! BTW, I have owned a quarry and few people every bothered to "ask" before digging.

Bob, those are truly gorgeous specimens.

Cheers, Lyla

Bob,
At the Indiana State Museum show where there was a clause in the contract that required that the specimen be legally obtained, was there anything in the contract that specified what documents would be accepted as poof that the specimens were legally obtained? Did this apply to foreign as wekk as domestic specimens? Did this also apply to gemstones and jewelry? If this sort of provision was strictly enforced I think that it would be possible for 90% of the dealers in the show to be in the show.

Rock Currier
Crystals not pistols.

Hello friends!!
The subject is interesting because it fits anywhere and here in Portugal there are also some places that currently can not take samples because the owner of the quarry was discovered that they were stupid and take his money from his pockets.
In this case the Museum to legally require the provenance of the samples must have a legal basis. To have a legal basis for any situation relating to the topic will have to be legislated which presupposes that the subject was debated and then approved by appropriate Assembly of this State or of the Nation.

Martins da Pedra

ROCK, I remember the "legally collected" clause because I had considered being a dealer at that show and decided not to for several other reasons. I don't think the wording was more specific and I am pretty sure there were no specific statements about exactly what was considered "proof" of legality. I am, also quite sure the clause was not really enforced; how could it be at a small to medium size show with few real experts in Midwest and USA mineral/mining collecting sites? No crystal or mineral police present! But the museum is a state property and does have a strict code of ethics......that is understandable. All the dealers that have been present these last few years presumably have signed the contract containing that clause. See you all in Denver!! Cheers..........BOB

It is quite normal for the fine print in show or auction contracts to contain some variant of an ass-covering clause about not selling anything that isn't supposed to be sold. "Enforcement" has nothing to do with show organizers running around trying to figure out if each specimen was obtained legally or not - it is dependent on property owners (or a government) making a complaint, as has happened in the case of Canadian gold, Argentine meteorites, and recently the Mongolian dinosaur. For ordinary mineral specimens (not talking about high value gem crystals and native gold here) it would be quite exceptional for a mining company to send anyone over to a mineral show to see whether anything from their mine was on sale and to complain about it.

Some complaints have resulted not from mineral shows but rather from property owners googling their property and finding links to rocks on sale on dealers' websites or e-bay. Maybe eventually we'll see dealers labelling their specimens not only with the dreaded "POR" (price on request, or priced out of reach), but also with something like "LOCDAS" (locality divulged after sale) ...Let's hope it doesn't come to that.

Actually, I'm not too pessimistic about this. In recent years I notice an increasing trend towards fine specimens being produced by professional specimen miners who have a contract to lease a locality specifically for specimen mining. If you walk around a mineral show randomly looking at rocks, I think you'll see that only a minor percentage come from illegal plundering, and the percentage of that is dropping, if for no other reasons than that access in "first world" countries is more and more tightly controlled for liability reasons, and mining everywhere in the world is increasingly mechanized, resulting in fewer specimens to be saved in miners' lunchboxes.

This isn't news to me. I was selling a collection of cubic diamond crystal micromounts from the Congo in Denver at the 98 show. One of the potential buyers was going to call the police because I didn't have a Certificate of Origin for the diamonds. I believe this was well before the "blood diamond" fiasco but it shows how some people are disturbed or concerned about being in possession of something "illegal".

It there anyone who knows the formal status of rocks, minerals, and fossils collected from Federal lands by hobby collectors? Can they be sold, or must they be gifted? Technically, one must have a special use permit to conduct any business activity on Federal lands.

Bob

Alfredo, et al
Until several years ago there was a pretty good Pittsburgh, PA show at the Carnegie Museum (they have a great mineral display). Again, note that this was a show held in the museum; state owned property adhering to rather strict regulations and ethical standards. The show ended rather abruptly (?) and has not, to my knowledge, been resurrected. Now I am not sure of all the reasons, but they may have had something to do, at least in part, with the legality and ethics of possessing and selling questionably collected specimens. If any of all this discussion is true, it should be duly noted that shows in museums and other state venues have to adhere to a uniformly high ethical standard of specimen provenance which was the original theme of this thread. CHEERS.......BOB

Bob,
I was a dealer at all of the Carnegie shows. The event ended when the Art Museum was having its Biennial. Also,
the main emphasis of the show the next year was the new Dinosaur Hall. It was never revived. It had nothing to do with legality or provenance of mineral specimens.


Chris

CHRIS Thanks for your info! BOB

Ok, so let's say someone is selling a specimen with the label stating that it was personally collected on the [mineral club name] field trip to the [quarry name] in [month, year]. Is that a sufficient proof of origin without any other supporting documents?