About Us: My father, William O’Neill and I have been collecting world-wide minerals since the mid 1960's and decided to set up this web page to visually share our collection. Although many of the specimens were purchases, a number of them were collected throughout the years at places like the Sparta and Franklin area mines, Salsigne gold mine in Aude, France and many other lesser known locations, quarries, and road cuts. We wanted to display our collection on this site as a visual reference and may attempt to display several different angles and close-ups, as well as additional photos of associated minerals and even labels accompanying some of the older specimens which may have some historical significance.

Photography: I'm using a Canon S40 which is not suited for macros and a third party clip-on lens for some of the extreme close-ups with just a single white light source. Most of the photos are adequate in attempting to display particular characteristics of the specimen. A few came out surprisingly well and many were difficult to photograph but I had to use what I had and move on. Hopefully the pictures may improve in the future if I acquire better equipment.

Fluorescence: I'm using a UVP model 38 (8 watts) which is able to produce short, mid and long wave. I've come across a number of species which either react stronger, uniquely or only in mid-wave ultra violet light. Check your specimens out in mid-wave UV light, you may be suprised!

Radioactivity: We are using a Ludlum Model 3 with a 44-9 pancake probe. I use CPM as the measurement unit because it's what most people are familiar with. The probe is usually placed as close as possible to the specimen (or in some cases if the specimen is too small, I'll set it on the probe) as I know of no distance standard (or any standards) used for radioactive measurement with various Geiger counters.

Please feel free to contact me with any questions or corrections.

Enjoy and thanks for looking,
Christopher O’Neill