Antoine at the entrance of the gallery of the Garboula Mine

Antoine at the entrance of the gallery of the Garboula Mine (Saint-Luc, Anniviers, Sierre, Valais, Switzerland), an abandoned small-scale Cu-Fe mine.

Azurite on malachite, 3.0 cm, from the Milpillas Mine, Cuitaca, Santa Cruz Municipality, Sonora, Mexico. Single lustrous dark blue azurite crystal on a bed of acicular malachite. Photographed by Louis Verschuren.

Vanadinite, 4.0 cm, from the Mibladen Mining District, Midelt Province, Drâa-Tafilalet Region, Morocco. Blood-red vanadinite crystals aesthetically perched on the upper rim of a small piece of matrix. Photographed by Louis Verschuren.

Paradamite with smithsonite, 5.0 cm, from the Ojuela Mine, Mapimí, Mapimí Municipality, Durango, Mexico. Aggregate of lustrous and gemmy paradamite on a matrix peppered with pale orange smithsonite. Photographed by Louis Verschuren.

Wulfenite with mimetite, 4.5 cm, from the La Morita Mine, Ascención Municipality, Chihuahua, Mexico. Lustrous orange wulfenite crystal perched on a whitish matrix peppered with smaller wulfenite crystals and bright yellow botryoidal mimetite. Photographed by Louis Verschuren.

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

I received the first specimen from my dad when I was a very young boy (and I am 33 now). It is a low-end crystallized sulfide specimen with a few quartz points, from an unknown location, that I still own. The next few pieces were purchased over the course of several years at my village's annual flea market, from someone who had a small lot of common minerals lost among other things. Then, I bought some unnoteworthy specimens from a mall when visiting my dad while he was working in Germany. Finally, I attended my first actual mineral shows in Belgium (where I live) and things started to ramp up.

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

Today my collection focuses on three categories of minerals: secondary lead minerals, secondary copper minerals and arsenate minerals. These are targets that I have put in place in 2014, and that I have respected quite strictly ever since. Two other subsets in my collection are a dozen good specimens from my early collecting days, not belonging to the previous categories but which I cannot decide to sell, and a handful of pieces of sentimental value. Since the beginning, I have been attracted to specimens with great aesthetics and lack of damage. The increase in the quality of my collection has been a long and gradual process. It was allowed by new incomes when I started working, and it has been driven by websites like Mindat.org and my subscription to the Mineralogical Record.

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

Mineral-related activities are often the first thing on my mind when I have free time... and they occupy a lot of it! Outside of that, I try to remain in good shape by running and cycling. My holidays are currently often spent in the Alps, skiing in winter and hiking in summer.

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 attending Belgian shows for a very long time now. I always love the smell when I enter the exhibition hall (maybe some Sulphur emanating from the specimens? I think I could recognize the scent of mineral flats with my eyes closed). Then, the frenzy of trying to find a good deal before anyone else. And, when I have found an interesting and beautiful specimen, the thrill of not discovering any damage to it, which makes it perfect for my collection.

I have attended a few major European shows as well (Sainte-Marie-aux-Mines in 2013, 2017 and 2019, and Munich in 2018). I may have experienced the peak of the mineral show experience when I spent an unforgettable week in (and around) Tucson in 2016. I can't wait to go back there one day. In the meantime, I really wish that the Munich show will take place this fall (in which case I'll see you there!).

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

My field collecting is anecdotal. The opportunities have also been very rare until I started going more regularly to the Alps for holidays. Last summer, I spent some time exploring abandoned small-scale mines in the Anniviers valley, which was fun but did not result in good specimens. Then, on the last day, I found a clear quartz crystal in a granite boulder right on the path of a popular hike. You would not believe my excitement for a 1 cm crystal of one of the most common mineral species. I kept my eyes open again this summer, and I spotted the same kind of crystal in the same kind of setting, this time in a different valley. I am already excited to go back with the appropriate tools to collect this totally insignificant specimen.

6) What's your favorite locality? Why?

In addition to the main mineral categories mentioned above, I also keep track of 4 locality subsets in my collection: Tsumeb, Ojuela, Milpillas and Morocco. These are of course localities that match nicely with my preferences in terms of minerals. It is difficult to choose a favorite among them, but the Ojuela Mine probably wins my heart. It offers a wide range of colorful mineral species (more varied than the Milpillas Mine), it is a contemporary locality that continuously produces new interesting finds (in opposition to the closed Tsumeb Mine), and it has all these qualities while being a single deposit (in contrast to Morocco).

7) What fuels your enthusiasm for mineral collecting?

I still don't understand how the ugly specimen that I received from my dad triggered this burning passion for minerals. How did I sense that, next to the pyrite, chalcopyrite and galena that make up this piece, there would be scorodite, azurite and wulfenite? Today I just know that I love this hobby. Because of the combination of scientific aspects with the simple appreciation of natural beauty and perfection. Because of the thrill of finding a flawless specimen after browsing through thousands of imperfect ones. Because of the childlike joy of opening a package from an online order. Because of the pleasure of discovering yet unseen details of a crystal while trying to photograph it.

I hope that future shows will be the opportunity to meet and to share my passion with more of you, fellow YMCers!

My first Descloizite ever in my collection. From the Berg Aukas mine, Grootfontein, Namibia.

Me (left) and my Boyfriend (right) during our visit of the Paris school of Mines ParisTech mineralogy museum.

One of my favorite specimen in my collection : a very great specimen of Siderite associated with Quartz, Dolomite and Pyrite from the Mesage mine, St Pierre de Mesage, Isère, France

One of my latest, and probably the best descloizite I own. It's associated with Smithsonite, and from the Berg Aukas mine, Grootfontein, Namibia.

Beautiful landscape that I photographed on the road, during a field trip in Iceland with the geology association of my university.

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

I’ve been seriously collecting minerals since 2019 when I was 20, but I technically had a collection for longer than that. My passion for minerals was built through a very long time : When I was 3, My dad showed me a documentary made as a tribute for the French volcanologists Maurice and Katia Kraft, I couldn’t stop to watch it over and over again, leading to me being obsessed by volcanoes when I was a small child. When I learned to read, it started by books about volcanoes, later it was books about dinosaurs, and astronomy, oceanography etc. I was a little earth science nerd until I was 14 when I developed a passion for aviation. My poor mom had to buy tons of books because of how curious I was for earth sciences !

At the time, my grandma had a mineral collection. We loved talking about the minerals she had, looking at a mineralogy book I still have today, and even drawing some specimens! I inherited her collection when she unfortunately passed away in 2013 and decided to keep it, even If I was not into minerals or earth sciences at the time, I still felt very attached to this collection. Fast forward to 2018, even though I had a part of my life in wich earth sciences didn’t interest me, I quickly realized that it was basically everything I truly loved : I was always very good in sciences at school, so I started a geology bachelor degree with tons of petrology, mineralogy and cristallography courses.

I loved everything about these courses and the degree (well, at least everything that was related to geology), and I started to «dig » more and more into my grandma’s collection to identify everything, since it was completely unlabeled. The collection was full of classic specimens from Ojuela, Mibladen, Madagascar etc., this was around the time I discovered Mindat which greatly helped me during the identification of the minerals and I quickly became obsessed by mineralogy. In March 2019, I went to my first show in Paris, I talked to a few sellers and I bought my first specimens that I still keep today, and I’ve been collecting ever since.

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

I didn’t have any focuses when I started, I bought anything I liked and especially what suited my tight budget. This greatly changed after joining YMC and when I started to see what I really like, now I don’t have one single focus in my collection, but rather three. The first one « thumbnails and miniatures from Africa », with an accent to Namibia. I actually really like the diversity found in Africa, and the geological and mining history of this continent is fascinating. The Otavi mountain land, and the Erongo mountains in Namibia are among my favorite localities, just for the diversity and complexity of what’s found there.

The second one is « thumbnails and miniatures of Alpine minerals », minerals from the European alps or from regions with an Alpine clefts mineralogy. I started to grow an interest for these minerals when I started to see Gwindels, Faden quartz, and Chlorite coated specimens. They’re just extremely cool, and the fact that the mineralogy is partially controlled by paleogeography is mind blowing for me.

Finally, the third focus of my collection is « Thumbnails from the US » but it has a twist, since I need to get at aleast one thumbnail specimen from each state in the US. For the moment, I have one for : New York, Arizona, New Mexico, California, North Carolina, Utah, Connecticut and Arkansas. I should receive the Idaho and a couple others really soon. The thumbnail collection is a truly American style of collecting, and I’m amazed by the diversity of minerals found in this country, so I wanted to have both of these ideas in a suite for my collection.

I noticed that the majority of the minerals I’m getting that are out of these three focuses are from the Asiatic continent, so I’m even considering on making a focus out of these minerals from Asia, or making an « occasional suite » for them. In general, I only collect thumbnails and small miniatures, I find bigger specimens a bit too expensive for my taste, and the smaller ones are definitely prettier in my opinion.

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

I’m currently a geology student, I got a first degree in 2020, and I’ll start the second year of my master degree in metallogeny and exploration geology. All the field camps that I had to do made me love hiking in general, among all the places I’ve seen, one of my favorite was the Bourg d’Oisans region (Isère, France). I had the luck to do multiples hikes to very famous places for their mineralogy, like « le Plan du lac » in Saint-Christophe-en-Oisans, which is the type locality of Anatase ; but also « La combe de la Selle » in the same city, which is famous for the incredible Prehnites produced during the 70’s to 90’s and also for being Axinite’s type locality.

I’m also a scuba diver, while I only have my PADI Open water certification for the moment, I plan to get a little deeper in the future, and become an advanced open water diver. Among the countries I had the luck to dive in, there’s Turkey, Crete, Mexico, and Dominican republic.

For more casual activities, I like taking pictures of my minerals. While I’m far from having the material for professional photography, I still really enjoy doing it, I even managed to win the first prize of my University’s photography competition of this year with a photograph of my Okorusu Fluorite.

And lastly, I love video games ! I’ve always been a console player, on the PlayStation, now on the fifth generation. What genre do I like the most ? Difficult to say, I love the games were you can just take it easy and explore, like No man’s sky, or Elite dangerous that are both space exploration games or even games like Red dead redemption 2 that are just the absolute best for me. Survival games are also my thing, like Ark : survival evolved, or my new favorite game : Days gone.

I also love FPSs, my favorite probably being Battlefield 4. I’m currently highly hyped by the new BF2042 coming this year.

𝟒) 𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭’𝐬 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐟𝐚𝐯𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐞 𝐬𝐩𝐞𝐜𝐢𝐞𝐬? 𝐖𝐡𝐲?

The people that know me probably already guessed the answer : Descloizite, specifically the ones from Berg Aukas (Namibia). This mineral can be fascinating : It can get very varied shapes with big arrowheads when found in Berg Aukas, it can also form bladed crystals reminiscent of flowers. While it’s often found in a dark coloration, it can have some very nice colors, from red to yellow, with tints of brown. It’s very lustrous, from metallic to almost adamantine (extra sparkly) ! And cherry on the cake, it’s a relatively rare mineral with a not so well constrained geology, which makes it super cool for me. This mineral deserves more love !

If I had to choose an other species for the second place, it would be Prehnite : varied shapes from tabular to acicular to botryoidal crystals, the associated minerals can also have a lot of variation depending of the host rock the prehnite formed in, which makes it a must have I think. While I’m not a huge fan of the Mali Prehnites, I’m addicted by the ones associated with Byssolite and Epidote from la Combe de la Selle, Isère, France.

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

I’m mostly a stay-at-home collector, but I’m what I call an « opportunistic field collector » : I collect minerals on the field when I go there for the field camps and field trips with my university. Last time, I went in the south of France to determinate the origins of Ba-Cu-F deposits, and managed to get some Baryte specimens during sample collecting. I also did a bit of rockhounding when I was in vacations in the alps, and managed to find a few quartz points, but nothing major. On the other hand, it seems that I have better luck with fossils : I managed to get a great Pyrite coated Gryphaea dilatata shell during my stay in Normandy back in 2019.

I’d love to do some more serious field collecting, but I don’t have a lot of time and I unfortunately don’t know enough French collectors to go on collecting trips.

𝟔) 𝐈𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐚 𝐩𝐢𝐞𝐜𝐞/𝐩𝐢𝐞𝐜𝐞𝐬 𝐢𝐧 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐜𝐨𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐲𝐨𝐮’𝐥𝐥 𝐧𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫 𝐥𝐞𝐭 𝐠𝐨 𝐨𝐟𝐟, 𝐰𝐡𝐢𝐜𝐡 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐰𝐡𝐲?

My Siderite with Quartz and Dolomite specimen from the Mésage mine, Saint-Pierre-de-Mésage, Isère, France. I directly got it from Grégoire de Bodinat who’s the owner of the mine, we talked a lot about minerals, he showed me his personal collection with an amazing display of alpine minerals and specimens of his own mine, overall a wonderful interaction. This specimen comes from a limited pocket of gem green Siderite, covered with Quartz and Dolomite crystals, the luster is amazing, the color too, and it just glows when exposed to any kind of light. The Siderite quality of this mine is on par with all the other top tier Siderite localities like Morro Velho (Brazil), and this is a really decent example. This specimen is basically a great souvenir from an awesome trip in the French alps, and I definitely can’t let it go.

𝟕) 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’ve been to a few French shows, all of them were rather small though, I went to the ones in Paris, Nancy, Jouy-en-Josas, Issoire, and Thionville. My favorite part is probably talking to the sellers, it’s just refreshing to talk to people that have the same passion, the same enthusiasm as us, and just talk about the specimens they sell, how they got them etc.

I’d love to go to Tucson one day, because of how glorious and huge this show must be ! I’d like to also go to SMAM one day, I wasn’t able to get there in 2019 and we all know what happened to the 2020 and 2021 editions. The Munich show is also on my list, and I should get there this year.

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

I have been interested in natural science and collecting from a young age, and became interested in minerals after visiting numerous rock shops during a family vacation in Arizona in the early 2000s. I joined a mineral club in 2003 but only started seriously field collecting in 2006, and have done so ever since. 

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

My core focus has changed multiple times over the years, starting with anything well-crystallized especially from Canada and the Middle East, followed by Grenville Province (Canada) minerals, and field collected minerals. I now have two collections: (1) Field-collected minerals (mostly species used as gems) and faceted stones; and (2) a research reference collection focused mostly on gem minerals, their host rocks, and locality suites.

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

Mineral collecting has evolved to more than a hobby, and I’m now Assistant Professor (Mineralogy) at Memorial University of Newfoundland, where my lab (www.gem-science.org) focuses on geological modeling of colored gemstone deposits and developing new methods with which to predict where to find them. It keeps me very busy, but sometimes I do have enough time to fish or play music.

4) What's your favorite species? Why?

Spinel, specifically vivid blue, cobalt-enriched spinel. It’s stable, durable, a gem species, and the colour is out of this world.

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

Most of my specimens come from field excursions. It’s harder work and riskier, but also much more fun, with no limit to the quality of specimen you can “afford” – Nature decides!

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

Learn some basic geology, especially if you’re a field-based collector. 

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

Beef jerky. It’s tasty, lightweight, dense, meaty, and doesn’t require refrigeration.

Selfie at the Limmat

Delivering a scientific presentation at a conference (Photo credit: Razvan Popa)

A manuscript i compiled using books from the library back in 2004 (at an age of 9) - one of the earliest surviving objects from my first collecting period

Selection of minerals from my collection

Selection of Chinese dishes i prepared

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

Minerals have been part of my life for almost 18 years. My first encounter with them was 2003 in primary school, when a classmate brought a `gold nugget´ to show off – a nicely crystallized pyrite. I have never seen anything like it and subsequently bothered my friend with countless questions about it, so he invited me over to see his collection and even gave me a tiny dioptase fragment as a gift. This confirmed my decision to start my own collection, and I wished for a mineral book at my 9th birthday to learn about the subject. The first years I only dealt with minerals on a theoretical basis due to a lack of localities and rock shops nearby. Instead of actual collecting, I looked for mineral books at the local libraries and compiled useful information into my own manuscripts to prepare for the day, on which I can finally go digging or buying them myself. To support the new hobby, my parents would take me to museums which have minerals on display – it was great to finally see the minerals I only knew from books before in person. 

Around 2006, I found an advertisement for a local mineral show by accident. It was a tremendous experience to see so many rocks at once, however, I also realized that people didn't take me seriously as a collector due to my age and quiet nature. A dealer busted out in laughter when I inquired about pyrargyrite, asking me if such a little kid shouldn't be more interested in `glittery-glimmery amethyst´, and another collector recommended me to grow up first before trying to join a club. My parents were offended by these responses and agreed for the first time to take me to the field, so I can collect my own specimens and `show those arrogant folks´. In the Christmas leisure 2007 we drove into the Black Forest equipped with the most primitive tools imaginable (a piece of bark as shovel and a quartzite pebble as rock hammer) and dug out a few crystals, which I identified as zeunerite, azurite and baryte, from the snow-covered mine tailings. The next year, I brought them to the show and showed them to the collector operating the identification stand, who was at that time chairman of the local rock club. Impressed by the samples and their correct identification, he invited me to the next club meeting – and the rest is history.  

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

At first, I was mostly drawn to gem minerals and native gold due to their spectacular looks. Their exorbitant cost, however, made collecting prohibitive, so this interest died down quickly. Learning mostly through old books and museum displays, classic European (specifically German) localities soon became my core interest, particularly historical metal mining districts such as the Ore Mountains, Cornwall, or Harz. I love the rich history connected with these places, and that information about the historical finds have been published in books and other resources over time, so everyone has the chance to learn about them – unlike new discoveries, where the background is often deliberately shrouded in mystery and only open to few initiated `insiders´ with the right contacts.

Another focus that manifested early on are world-wide rare species and `mineralogical oddities´. Scientific curiosity about which sort of materials naturally occur under which geological conditions has always been a main driver to learn about and accumulate minerals.  I also love samples demonstrating certain mineralogical phenomena, such as pseudomorphs, epitaxy, unusual mineral associations, or twins. The famous Blaubleierz (galena pseudomorph after pyromorphite) for instance is an evidence of oxygen fugacity changes within an oxidation zone towards more reduced conditions by the influence of sulfide-rich thermal waters – fascinating! 

While my core interests did not change much over time, there are some changes in my overall collecting style. Until 2013, I maintained a systematic collection of reference-grade micromounts, as they offer the opportunity to gather a wide variety of species even with a very limited student´s budget. This became unsatisfying over time, however, mainly due to constant issues with specimen identification. Countless times I happily bought or swapped a rare species, only to find out later that it only exists on the label. As reference-grade specimens (often brown smears, or dust grains in gelatin capsules) don´t offer much value aside from their mineral contents, I had to throw these specimens away. The disappointment left me terrified about acquiring new material, and thus I stopped collecting for a few years. Since 2020 I actively collect minerals again and while I still focus on rare and classic minerals, I now try to obtain samples that fit my aesthetics, or that I find otherwise charming (e.g. less aesthetic specimens with nice antique labels and provenance). Selecting specimens based on their individual qualities really helps to build a more personal collection reflecting ones aesthetic taste and preferences, and even if a sample turns out to be misidentified, it wouldn't be a complete loss as it would still maintain its decorative value.  

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

Currently I am doing geology-related research on the fields of Magmatic Petrology and Geochronology. In my free time I enjoy preparing Chinese food and searching for new recipes to try. I also like to do art, mostly pencil sketches and digital drawings. Another interest of mine is practicing classical guitar. I mostly play solo works from the Baroque, Classical or Late Romantic era and from various composers including J.S. Bach, Fernando Sor and Agustin Barrios Mangoré.  

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´m a regular visitor of some local shows (e.g., Fellbach, Walldorf), and I have been to the international shows in Sainte Marie-aux-Mines and Munich a few times. Looking through all the displays and flats hunting for rarities and sleepers gives me a thrill almost comparable to field collecting. Also, it is great to catch up with friends you otherwise seldom see, and spend time together talking about rocks. The Tucson show would be an experience that every collector should make at least once, but as a Europe-based university student it makes little sense to try it now, as the journey itself would consume most of my budget. It would be torture to look at all the magnificent pieces up for a grab, without being able to take any home lol. 

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

I look for specimens at every possible occasion and source without bias, so I own both field-collected and bought specimens. There were many memorable trips I participated in, either with my family, or, more commonly, with friends from our local rock club. I have dug for minerals in a Bronze age mine tailing, in the garden of Heidelberg castle (much to the bewilderment of the tourists…), underground in an old silver mine, and even on an active volcano. Although most finds can´t hold up against the commercial stuff, I still highly recommend going on the field. You learn so much by seeing the lithologies in person, and it is great fun to look for minerals with friends and having a beer (or more) afterwards. Besides, nothing makes you appreciate your bought specimens more than the experience of spending painful hours digging at the locality yourself without finding a single crumb.

6) Describe your dream/ideal/perfect specimen (even if it's not real, go wild!) and tell us what the locality would be!

An ideal specimen for my taste would be a miniature of an uncommon/rare mineral in a quality considered world-class for the species. It would be from a historic find at a classic or really obscure locality somewhere in Germany. Ideally, it would also be accompanied by a nice hand-written label with provenance. Imagine, for instance, 1 cm large schachnerite crystals, one group even showing V-shaped twinning, perched on a piece of cinnabar-stained rhyolite matrix from Moschellandsberg with an antique label from the 1860-ies. Or cm-sized, dark blue connellite veins running through a palm-sized chunk of cuprite ore from Helgoland island… That would be a delight!

7)  How do you see the future of the mineral hobby?

Mineral collecting has come a long way – from a scientific hobby for the privileged classes used as a tool to master Natural Sciences in the past centuries, to a popular nature-related activity for the masses after World War II, and finally evolving towards the more artistic hobby that it is today, emancipating itself from its purely scientific roots. As aesthetics is a universal concept relatable by a much broader populace than hard materials science, `pretty rocks´ will continue to dominate the mainstream and help to open the hobby up to new target demographics. 

The decline of scientific/systematic mineral collecting that I noticed in the past years, at least in my personal circle, is ironically to be attributed to the recent advancements made by mineralogy. More precise mineral definitions and a flood of new minerals, many of which are not optically distinguishable, made analytical confirmation necessary for most specimens – and not all collectors have the resources or interest performing PhD-worthy studies for each rock in the collection. In the long term, however, I can see `traditional´ mineral collecting gaining more traction again. Not everyone can or wants to afford the ever-increasing prices for highly aesthetic pieces, and cheaper analytical services available in the future might also fuel new interest in the more scientific side of mineral collecting.     

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

I’ve been collecting for as long as I can remember, but I’ve only been into serious collecting for a couple years (4-5 years ago) for higher quality pieces. It’s a bit hazy, but one of my collecting memories when I was younger was a project to collect examples of several types of igneous, metamorphic, and sedimentary rocks, and this was when I was in primary school. I think one of the first things that kickstarted my passion was definitely visits to the Los Angeles Natural History Museum when I was younger and staring at all the many mineral species! Though I was young and didn’t really understand and appreciate them as I do now, it did start a plethora of questions about their formation that definitely did help with my interest in geology and collecting. To this day, I visit the Los Angeles Natural History Museum whenever I go to LA, and it’s my favorite museum! However, my interest in geology isn’t solely confined to minerals in general. Another precursor to my interest in collecting was definitely seismology! I think this was even earlier than my visits to the LA museum and even my project. I actually did make a primitive seismograph from popsicle sticks when I was younger, but it wasn’t exactly “effective” (I made a couple!). I also visited the Berkeley Seismology Lab often and stared at all the wonderful maps and instruments that they displayed. It was wonderful and definitely helped contribute to my current relationship with my love of mineral collecting.

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

My current and main focus is definitely rare minerals, which I try to often find as gemmy rather than opaque, and with their faceted counterparts. Though it’s pretty difficult with most of them being micromounts or thumbnails, and also sometimes their astronomical prices, it’s definitely a challenge! I only relatively recently (2-3 ago) added the faceted stuff, but before it was mostly those rare minerals with most being micromounts or thumbnails. Of course, I don’t only collect these; sometimes there are really good thumbnails that simply aren’t “rare”, but I’ll get them anyways. I’ve also recently tried to get bigger samples of pieces, my miniature collection, but thumbnails are typically cheaper. Though this is my current focus, I also have an older side focus: my Californian reference thumbnails. Mainly weird and interesting species found across California that are only my reference pieces, not really in my “main mineral collection”, but just used for helping to identify stuff I might have in my other pieces. 

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

Though mineral collecting is one of my main hobbies, I also have other hobbies to do in my spare time… this might be a bit long haha. One of my favorite things is music, and I quite like a little of every genre. However, I must say that my favorite genres are definitely classical and jazz music. I tend to listen to more relatively “contemporary” classical composers, like Debussy, Ravel or Rachmaninoff, Scriabin, Rautavaara etc. I also have been playing the piano and violin for a while, but I definitely like the piano more now that I am not forced to do it. Besides listening and playing, I also like to sometimes make some music! Music is always in my head whether I like it or not, so I thought I would capitalize off this and just write some of it down as a review and just for fun. Other than music, another one of my hobbies is learning languages. It’s a win-win because it will definitely help in the future and it’s a good way to pass time when I feel like I want to do something productive. Since there are so many languages I want to learn, I often spend more time deciding which language to learn rather than actually learning it. Despite this, I am currently learning Norwegian and I am also trying to learn Spanish; I can read it, but I can’t speak it. Besides these current ones I’m learning I can also speak some other languages which I am definitely better at. Besides languages, I also have a new love for art! Mainly graphite pencil drawings, but I only started again like a month ago-ish after like 5 years of not drawing so I really haven’t completed anything. I must say though it requires a lot of focus and peace, like making music, so it’s a bit tricky to find times when I won’t be interrupted or disturbed which is mainly at night. Other than these hobbies, I love to go outdoors in nature, mainly to cold places (I hate the heat), and to go hiking, preferably with myself or a small group. I find it’s very refreshing to just take a step outside of daily life, far away from the hustle and bustle, and just find time to enjoy and wind down. Luckily I live relatively close to the ocean, so every couple of months or so, I get to just stare and walk on the beach for a couple hours! 

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’ve been to many shows around the San Francisco Bay Area, but my favorite is definitely the annual San Francisco show! My favorite part of them are definitely the displays and the minerals for sale that are like a “mini-museum”. Though I'm very nervous when meeting new people, another favorite part is definitely connecting with local collectors and visitors from other parts of the world. Despite my gratitude to be so close to these shows, I definitely really want to visit Tucson, the Saint Marie show in France and the Munich show in Germany, but definitely more so for Munich and St. Marie because I’m a sucker for Europe and I really want to visit Europe one day. 

5) Is there anyone who has inspired you in this field? Do you look up to the collection of someone in particular? 

Because I haven’t had the chance or courage to meet a lot of people, I still haven’t gotten to know well a lot of people in the San Francisco area that I know have mineral collections or are very knowledgeable about geology in general. So, a lot of the collections I look up to are people in YMC! I definitely love Yi Sun’s collection of his excellent rare species and I always enjoy him when he posts his pieces. Kyle Kevorkian’s collection of thumbnails is also always amazing to look at. Christopher Stefano’s collection is also superb; a bunch of top-tier rare species that are just mind blowing! I generally look up to everyone’s collection, and love Tama’s emerald, Effren’s calcite, Kyle’s nambulite, Filip’s hyalophane, Erin’s calcite, Alex’s turquoise, Tim’s gold, Gawan’s neptunites, just to name a few! I also in a way look up to those who are super knowledgeable about minerals in general. I had the pleasure to meet Charles Trantham a few years ago and he was super nice and encouraged my collecting. I also met Alfredo Petrov at the San Francisco show a year or two years ago, and I didn’t even know he was there until I overheard a man talking about how he (Alfredo) was giving change in 1 dollar coins or something along those lines! Quite a funny story, but when I found him, he had a whole table of strange minerals, an alfredopetrovite, which I got, and even a sanidine from North Korea! Meeting these people definitely helped encourage my passion for minerals.

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

 Since a large part of mineral collecting rests on buying minerals, budget is a large part of mineral collecting. Unless you self-collect, it’s a way to lower costs, but getting those famous localities that are off-limits and or are defunct is really difficult. Personally, for me, I’m a high school student that doesn’t currently have a job, so mineral collecting really rests on how I handle my finances. One of my ways to reduce costs is to really wait for times where getting a specimen is a deal, in other words, patience is really important if you want to save money. Of course, this is difficult with focuses where a certain specimen is rare, but in general it’s a good habit to wait for good deals. I also keep my mineral collection relatively small, physical and numerically. I only have roughly 40 minerals part of my “main” collection, not counting my reference minerals, and most of them are thumbnails or bordering on micromounts. I began to sell some minerals that I had in order to fund my mineral collecting expenses, so in a way my collecting is self-sustaining, and I would really recommend that. 

7) How has mineral collecting, or YMC, affected your plans going into the future? 

Mineral collecting, and my passion in geology has greatly affected my plans going into the future! I am a physics person, so I definitely want to do something that is connected with geology. I also have a large interest in astronomy and astrophysics, so maybe I could even focus on a career connected to geology one-day. YMC, on the other hand, has greatly improved the amount of people that I can connect to that have an interest in minerals, so I really look forward to learning anything I can from such knowledgeable people and making new friends. This would have been something unimaginable to me before as my local mineral club is mainly geared toward fossils, and jewelry making, so it’s a great opportunity to be able to discuss minerals with people that have the same interests as I have.