Collector Spotlight: Dan Zellner

1. How many years have you been collecting and what started your passion?

I have been collecting minerals for about 23 years. I grew up in Ridgecrest, which is a small town in the middle of nowhere, but it is very close to a prolific number of excellent collecting localities. Many of my weekends were spent 4 wheeling in the desert with my father picking up agates, jasper, petrified wood, obsidian, etc. Many evenings as a teenager were spent cutting cabochons out of various materials I had collected or bought at local southern California shows. I consider myself very lucky to have had a father and several family friends that encouraged me in my interests related to mineral collecting, lapidary, and becoming a mineral dealer.

2. What's the focus of your collection and has that changed through time? Why?

I finally feel that I can say yes, I do have somewhat of a focus in collecting. I have two major suites in my collection fluorite and smithsonite. This is where I would say the bulk of my “good” specimens are focused. However, I do also collect a wide variety of classic USA and worldwide localities and species. I know that I will never be able to limit myself to specific localities, or species. I find it simply impossible when shown a truly good rock to discriminate.

Initially I collected mineral without much regard for locality or provenance. I distinctly remember as a child, throwing away all my mineral labels because I did not care where the pieces were from, I was only concerned how good they were. As I have grown older, I find that I greatly enjoy learning about the geology, and mining history of many of the localities. The more I learn about these minerals and these mining localities the more interested I become in collecting them.

3. What do you like to do outside of mineral collecting? (hobbies, job, music taste, etc).

I work full time a mining engineer for a consulting company in Denver, Colorado. I absolutely love working in the mining industry, I have had the opportunity to work on projects from geological modelling, resource estimation, mine design and planning, to reclamation and closure. The coolest projects to me are those that have involved some significant mineral specimen producing localities. I always find it amazing when projects come up at work and it is a locality that I have read about in a book or heard mention of from a fellow collector. People in my office don’t quite get why I am so anxious to get into the field for mining work, but I honestly can’t imagine much of a better day than getting to play in a mine (and maybe collect some field samples during free time). Outside of work and mineral collecting I love to kayak, raft, surf, backpack, dive, and pretty much anything else outdoors.

4. Have you been to any shows? If so, what's your favorite part of them? If not, are there any particular ones you would want to experience one day?

Every year I attend a variety of local Colorado shows including of course the Denver show. I travel to Tucson every year and it is one of the things I look forward to year long. I have found the change from attending shows to becoming a dealer at shows very interesting and entertaining. I sincerely enjoy the comradery among dealers and the many friends I have made from selling minerals. The thing I dislike the most about selling at shows is that it takes time away from being able to hunt around for bargains or fantastic pieces for my personal collection. The two major shows that I hope to attend soon as a collector are the Munich show and the Sainte-Marie show.

5. Are you a stay-at-home collector or do you collect on the field too?

Field collecting is really what started my passion/obsession with mineral collecting. I still absolutely love field collecting. There are few experiences more rewarding than pulling a beautiful specimen out of the ground and being the first person ever look at it. Some of my best memories in life are focused around field collecting whether it was digging turquoise at Royston, digging underground at the Mazanar Reward Mine, or taking my first tour of the Sterling Hill Mine.

6. If you could give any advice to someone new to the hobby, what would it be?

Buy fewer specimens of higher quality rather than many specimens or medium quality. I am finally starting to heed this advice from my friend Jeff Lines and I believe it has seriously improved my collection. My other piece of advice is to read as many mineral publications as you reasonably have time for. The more you know about what is out there in terms of quality, localities, rare species, unusual crystal habits, etc. easier it is to build a unique and interesting collection. Subscribing to mineralogical record magazine and reading The Frugal Collector by Bob Jones would be my starting recommendations.

7. What is the funniest/coolest field collecting experience that you had?

For work I had to travel to New Jersey for a few months, I was told by a good friend about several collecting localities in the area that I could visit and dig some minerals. He told me there was an old dump from the Sterling Hill Mine that I could collect some great fluorescent minerals at. Unfortunately, this dump was now located almost immediately adjacent to someone’s backyard. When I asked him how close it was, I remember being told not to use a rockhammer because it would make too much noise and wake the neighbors up. I donned my black backpack, black jacket, and darkest colored jeans and drove to this random New Jersey suburb to go field collecting. Immediately after arriving I realized he was not exaggerating. The collecting site was about 50 feet away from a house and I could see someone washing dishes through the kitchen window! Here I was in the dark covered in dirt waving around a fluorescent light picking up rocks. Overall, it was a great night of midnight mining and I came away with a good amount of intermixed fluorescent willemite, franklinite, and calcite.