Collector Spotlight: David Tibbits
1. How many years have you been collecting and what started your passion?
I would like to say I’ve been collecting minerals my whole life but I think the more honest answer is that I have been seriously collecting minerals for 5 years. I certainly have been interested in rocks and minerals since a young age. Like many others in this group I would always pick up little bits of rock while hiking with my parents as a young child. I have fond memories of visiting the Mining and Mineral Museum on class trips in elementary school and going to gem shops to buy little pieces of rocks. Things really ramped up for me at the Flagg Gem and Mineral Show in January 2017 where I joined the Mineralogical Society of Arizona. Over the next few years I would attend every meeting I could, absorbing all of the information I could from every lecture and making incredible friendships and connections that I’m sure will last a lifetime.
2. What’s the focus of your collection and has that changed through time? Why?
My two biggest focuses as a collector have been worldwide thumbnail minerals and peruvian minerals of any size. Peru was my first big focus. My mom was born in peru and I grew up speaking both spanish and english. With this great heritage connection, I certainly focused quite heavily on the peruvian specimens available at gem shops, or at markets in Peru itself. It wasn’t until joining the Mineralogical Society of Arizona that I learned about thumbnails. The club takes credit for thumbnails, claiming that their founder, Arthur Flagg, coined the term thumbnail. As to the validity of that claim, I have no evidence, but it is certainly true that many members of that club today are thumbnailers and they certainly encouraged me into becoming a thumbnail collector myself. Many members of MSA enter in thumbnail mineral competitions at TGMS and seeing everyones cases at TGMS 2017 led me to really start collecting thumbnails and ultimately enter my own thumbnail exhibit at TGMS 2018 and every subsequent tucson show.
3. What’s your favorite species? Why?
My all time favorite species has to be wulfenite. Beyond just it being a beautiful species with varied forms and colors, I have been very absorbed in wulfenite as an Arizona resident. Arizona has over 200 wulfenite localities and many of the places I have collected have been either primary wulfenite spots or have had associated wulfenite. Beyond that, I was involved in the “Wulfenite is Love” campaign to make wulfenite the state mineral of Arizona. As a part of that, I and some of the other MSA Junior members had the opportunity to go down to the Arizona State Capital and give special Jeff Scovil Wulfenite calendars to all the State Representatives in order to give them a visual idea of how amazing wulfenite, and in particular Arizona wulfenite, can be.
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?
I have been to most of the Arizona mineral shows, especially those in Tucson. I’ve also gone to the New York Gem and Mineral show on quite a few occasions. My favorite part has to be the friendliness and connections formed at the shows. I have found myself on many occasions more excited for the people I will get to see at the shows than for even the minerals themselves. Year after year there is always people to catch up with and new people to meet. Some of the shows I’d like to attend include the Denver shows and the New Mexico Symposium as well as the European shows like Munich.
5. Are you a stay-at-home collector or do you collect on the field too?
I collect on the field whenever I can! I would like to think I have become an adept field collector. I’ve collected all over the state of Arizona as well as venturing into Utah, Colorado, and New Mexico. Some of my best finds are going to be featured in the YMC section of the upcoming Mineralogical Record Field Collector’s supplement. Additionally, in 2020 I put in a self collected competitive exhibit at the Tucson Main Show, and will be putting in an updated exhibit woth another 2 years of specimens in the upcoming 2022 Tucson show.
6. If you could give any advice to someone new to the hobby, what would it be?
My greatest advice would be to start cataloging early. I know it is difficult to get started once you've acquired 100+ pieces and haven’t done anything yet, so get started as soon as possible. At the very least, write down somewhere the price and date of every specimen you buy as that is the easiest thing to forget. For those of you who have quite a few pieces, I have personally found it helpful to subdivide catalogging by category. In my collection I have subdivisions for each size category as well as a few other focuses. I did this purposely to divide the backlog up into smaller easy to manage sections. My philosophy on cataloging has been that if tomorrow I were to disappear, I want to ensure that no information is lost about my collection. It is quite a challenge, but having caught up has been incredibly rewarding.
7. If you could field collect at one locality, which would it be.
My dream place to collect has to be Huanzala Mine, Peru. I have mostly gotten bored of Huanzala pyrites, but I would absolutely have a blast actually collecting them by hand. Not to mention the other sulfides at Huanzala or even the weird other things like fluorite and barite. Honestly, its an absolute dream to just be able to collect ANYWHERE in Peru, even if it was just one piece.