Collector Spotlight: Tim Baaij
1. How many years have you been collecting and what started your passion?
Though I am only 17, this has already been quite the journey! When I was six years old, my family and I were in a Dutch province named Zeeland, visiting family, and while we were visiting a beach called the Banjaard, I found a fossilized shark tooth, and so the seeds were sown. My mother also collected when she was younger, and she still had her collection, mostly consisting of shells and tumbled stones. We always visited the same shop in Zeeland, named ‘de aquamarijn’ and I always got a few fossils there, the old man behind the counter also gave me a few minerals every now and then. When I was 14, I sort of made the switch, I only went for minerals, fossils were getting kind of boring, they were always beige, grey, brown or black, minerals on the other hand were always so colourful! And that’s the way it’s been ever since! Minerals for life!
2. what’s the focus of your collection and has that changed through time? Why?
My current focus is thumbnails, from Europe, USA, Antarctica, Japan and both Korea’s (though North Korea is certainly difficult to get minerals from)! I collect up to 4.5 cm (small miniatures) too, but it’s not what I go for specifically, I do get minerals from outside of the locations mentioned, but there has to be something interesting about it, pseudomorphs, epimorphs, weird combinations, or just stuff that I find cool. I started collecting fossils, found out about amber/copal, and through that started getting more attracted to minerals, then I stepped over to the other side and only collected minerals, then I decided to only collect European minerals, but there was too much cool stuff I was excluding, so I wanted to go for specifically thumbnails and small miniatures from the locations mentioned!
3. What do you like to do outside of mineral collecting?
I have a bunch of stuff to do outside of mineral collecting! First of all, I do martial arts, judo, jiu-jitsu and kickboxing! Though judo is what I focus on most, I do competition judo, or did, Covid really screwed that up, I do judo Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday! I hope we can get back to competition soon! I also love music! I can find myself in most genres, but simple acoustic guitar and singing is probably my favourite, think Gordon Lightfoot, Jim Croce, Mississippi John Hurt and John Denver, I love to sing along with them! Though I love to screech along with those songs, I don’t play, even though I would like to pick up a guitar and learn sometime! Lastly, I am a huge movie fan! My favourite 2019 movie is probably ‘the lighthouse’! So I definitely recommend it! I am currently studying to become a teacher’s assistant, though my end goal is to be a high school history or philosophy teacher!
4. Have you been to any shows? If so, what’s your favourite part of them? If not, are there any particular ones you would want to experience one day?
I have been to a bunch of shows! I’ll start with some of the first I attended, the Dutch international fossil show, this show was very important for me, because I truly realized then that collecting is not just buying stuff and displaying them, but it’s interaction too! My favourite show has been Sainte-Marie-Aux-Mines 2019! I attended shortly after I joined YMC, and I met so many incredible people there! Niels Brouwer, David Ziga and Nauroz Nasherwani to name just a few! I also came into contact with a lot of minerals, not that weird of course, what with it being one of the two biggest mineral shows in Europe, but that many minerals really did shaped my collection today! I also want to go to the Munich show sometime! For YMC purposes and just to see if I can find any pieces for my collection, SMAM and Munich are the most viable currently, but I also need to attend Tucson and other American shows!
5. Are you a stay-at-home-collector or do you collect on the field too?
Sadly, currently, I am not experienced in field collecting for minerals, the Netherlands is notoriously bad for mineral EXISTENCE let alone for field collecting, there’s only two active quarries in the whole country, one only produces crappy pyrites and is on the other side of the country! The other, called the Ratum quarry actually produces some decent pyrite, marcasite and Celestine, so I need to find some good ones of that material, this quarry is mostly visited by fossil collectors, so not a lot of minerals come out. With that being said, the Netherlands is Valhalla for fossil collecting, fossilized footprints, shark teeth just to name a few, I have gone on a few fossil collecting trips, but I found nothing ground breaking, maybe YMC needs to organize a couple of collecting trips
6. If you could give any advice to someone new to the hobby, what would it be?
Take. Your. Time. It’s a hobby, not a race, I am seventeen years old, and I have seen so much evolution in my collection, it’s crazy! Also, be sure to ask questions, because there is so much knowledge out there that people love to share! Crystallography nerds and pseudomorph weirdo’s love to tell you all about it! So if ever you have a question, just ask!
7. What fuels your enthusiasm for mineral collecting?
The fact that there’s always something new to experience, new people to meet, and new things to learn (and buy hehe). I would never have done a lot of things that I did because of mineral collecting, and the wealth of knowledge is just super motivating! I love this hobby and the people in it, and I believe that I will continue to collect until I die.