I'm a professional geologist living in Dallas, Texas. I got my start collecting as a kid, in the 1950's, when my father took me on several visits to the Franklin zinc mines, which were still operating at that time. Since then I've field collected in Nebraska (where I went to college, & a rough spot for mineral collecting), the South Dakota Black Hills, Colorado, Magnet Cove and other Arkansas locations, various Texas and Oklahoma spots, and in the Bancroft, Ontario area. I specialize in single crystal thumbnail-sized (1-2.5 cm.) specimens. Also I collect miniature and cabinet specimens, especially quartz varieties and specimens from classic U.S. localities. A special interest of mine is a topical collection of "urban minerals" - mainly specimens from in and around (50-mile radius of) the ten largest metropolitan areas in the U.S. (New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, Philadelphia, Phoenix, San Diego, Dallas, San Antonio, and Detroit).