Collector Spotlight: Dominic D'Amato

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

I have been collecting for 7 years, but more seriously in the past 4 years. I got interested in minerals and geology in general when I was living in Colorado and going around to a lot of concerts and festivals. The people around me were selling and collecting minerals, jewelry and other types of art, and slowly I ended up buying a few mineral specimens here and there. This ultimately led to me starting a business buying and selling minerals which I had for 4 years, and disbanded last year. I no longer have the business, but I am still obsessed with collecting and digging for minerals, and have been studying them the past 4 years because of this.

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

I don’t have a hard and fast focus of my collection, and every time I sit down to think about it I can’t decide what I want to focus on. My past few purchases have been metallic minerals and sulfides which I really enjoy. I also like nice thumbnails and miniatures of gem minerals, calcite from all over the world, and copper minerals. Along with this, I collect a few localities like Tsumeb, various Montana mines, and Swiss minerals. So yeah, I have a hard time narrowing it down and I generally buy things that are “affordable” and interesting to me. I used to hate metallic minerals, and now those are probably my favorites to buy.

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

Outside of mineral collecting I am a student and am hoping to start a masters degree in metamorphic petrology/tectonics this upcoming fall. I love everything about geology, and having mineral collecting as a hobby fits in well with everything I study. I also dig for minerals probably 40-50 days per year an have been prospecting for minerals for about 5 years. Another hobby I have is trail running. I love to be in the mountains struggling and enjoying nature. Long trail runs are probably my favorite activity to do outside of geology related stuff, and I always end up playing with the rocks on the trail so I never really escape the world of rocks. Being outside is pretty important to me and I think it helps keep me sane.

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

Most of my collection is field collected. I think out of the ~265 minerals I have on display about 200 are self collected. It’s not because they're the best by any means, but I get really sentimental and have a hard time getting rid of anything that I dig up. Its not the most economically productive way to dig, but it makes me happy. I would buy more minerals, but being a student without a job is not conducive for buying very many minerals. I love being in the field working with rocks, whether it is mapping or digging.

5) Where do you see yourself as a collector in 5,10 or 20 years?

Down the road I hope to have a much larger collection of self collected minerals. I would like to travel around the world and dig different locales for my graduate degrees, and I would also like to research mineralogy and petrology after school, hopefully allowing for more collecting with each research project. I don't think that my collection will ever have a defined focus beyond self collected minerals, because I am too cheap to dish out the money for the specimens that I really want in my collection. I am, however, willing to sit in the hot sun, or musty mines all day digging, so at least I have that going for me.

6) What’s your favorite snack in the field? And why?

I have an ongoing joke about who I pray to in the field, and the whole Gardetto family is on the list. I absolutely love Gardettos. They are the best snack ever created, and I don't think there is any room for argument there. The salty goodness fuels me in the field and I can easily go through a family sized bag in 1-2 days. If you haven't tried them before, I can not recommend them enough. John, Baptiste, and Johnny Jr. and part of my final supper geology table because they created the best snacks to ever exist. I am really passionate about snacks, and anyone who has dug with me probably knows my obsession with Gardettos.

7) What's your favorite locality? Why?

Probably Tsumeb. I love the variety and quality of minerals that come out of Tsumeb, and along with that they're minerals that I am personally interested in collecting which makes it that much more fun for me. I also am interested in the geology of Tsumeb and W. Africa in general. Outside of Tsumeb it has to be Butte, Montana. Living so close to such a historic and prolific mining city has some perks, with a lot of Butte specimens floating around the shows out here. Butte has some of the craziest mining history of any place I have ever rad about, and if you want to hear some wild stories the old Butte mines have some crazy ones.