The very best of greetings to all those who read this home page.

I am a (currently 2007) 45 year old building consultant. I provide building certification and environmental design (ESD) services in my every day life. I am married to Karen and have three children, Luke, Heidi and Morgan. We are an active mineral collecting family, though the girls prefer digging in gem stone fields over mineral specimen sites.

Karen is a decedent of multi generation mining families from Waratah and Rosebery on the West Coast of Tasmania. I love spending time with my children digging on locations that their forebears worked at in the past.

I started collecting minerals around 10 years ago after having my previous activities curtailed by a major accident on a work site that provided major back and hip injuries.

I now have a listed and cataloged collection of over 1500 specimens with many more sitting in boxes ready for sorting, selling or swapping at shows and meetings. Our family are members of the Mineralogical Society of Tasmania and the Northwest Tasmanian Mineral club.

I prefer to site collect and Tasmania provides many opportunities to undertake this activity, though it is getting more difficult to gain access to mining leases and forestry operation areas. Selling and swapping surplus specimens has allowed me to expand my collection. I have obtained small collections from my wifes relatives and in 2002 was able to purchase the remains of the Keith Lancaster collection, (over 2000 specimens and polished lapidary items) Some of the KL collection was from early to mid twentieth century Tasmanian mining areas that have long been closed of lost.

Over the last five years I have started to selling specimens to other collectors but have not yet seriously begun to undertake this as a primary activity in the mineral specimen market. I still am more a collector that dealer.

My favorite places to collect are Kara Mine at Hampshire due to the large range of minerals, Mt Bischoff at Waratah as this was one of the places that Karens' decedents worked (and I love the range of minerals) and Magnet Mine on the road to Savage river. I have developed an extensive collection of Kara Mine minerals over the last 10 years, a number of these are shown in my photo list and in the Book - Minerals of the Kara Mine, Tasmania by Steve Sorrell and Ralph Bottrill. I have been fortunate to be in attendance at some of the classic collecting moments of this mine in the last five years, with the calcites, andradites, sheelites and stolzites being very special.

My Favorite minerals, well I love hexagonal crystal forms with beryl family specimens in particular. You will find lots of beryls, fluorapatites, etc in the show collection.