Minerals-5

This year is the 40th anniversaryof the discovery of the famous “blue-caps” from the Tourmaline QueenMine in 1972. Below we reprint an ac-count given by one of the discoverers –William Larson. The text was writtensoon after the discovery and printedthe same year in the Lapidary Journal.

Pala Properties International, Inc.,became involved in the Pala mining dis-trict when Ed Swoboda purchased theStewart Lithia, Tourmaline Queen andPala Chief mines. We had been miningthe Stewart with mild success since1968, when we decided that it was timeto make the switch up the hill to theTourmaline Queen. Originally our idea inmining the Stewart was to set up basicoperations, learn the gem mining trade,and then move up to the Queen which we

were sure was more promising. However,with the discovery of the famed lost tour-maline adit and initial production of afew fine tourmaline crystals, we over-stayed these original plans. But withoutincreased production, economics forcedus to make the necessary move up themountain.

After much talking and planning, Edarranged for a bulldozer to repair theroad, create a working pad and move thecompressor. As luck would have it, thebulldozer was delayed one week; andwith a lack of anything better to do, JohnMcLean placed a final blast in the Stew-art between two adits where a rich zoneof lepidolite was exposed. When thefumes cleared, John checked, and lyingin the rubble pile was a tourmaline a full

M I N E R A L SI S S U E # 5 T H E C O L L E C T O R ’ S N E W S P A P E R 2 0 1 2

www.SpiriferMinerals.com

Spirifer Minerals specimen. J. Scovil photo.

Editor:

Tomasz Praszkier (Poland)

Associated photographer:

Jeff Scovil (USA)

Contact:

[email protected]

“Blue-caps” find 40th anniversaryWilliam F. LARSON

Famous specimen of “blue-cap” tourma-line with albite, Tourmaline Queen Mine,USA. 13.2 cm tall. Pinnacle Collectionspecimen. J. Elliot photo.

INTRODUCTION

The Tourmaline Queen Mine is oneof the most famous localities among min-eral collectors. For over 100 years themine has produced hundreds of kilo-grams of gem tourmaline crystals and ahuge amount of specimens. Among manypockets the “blue-cap” find made themine so famous. Some collectors believeit is the most important find ever.

Several authors have written exten-sive descriptions of history and geologyof the mine which were used to compilethis text. The most important ones arecited at the end of the article.

LOCALITY

The Tourmaline Queen Mine is lo-cated on a slope, close to the summit of

585 m high Tourmaline Queen or QueenMountain. It is located 2.7 km to thenorth of Pala and 72 km NNE from SanDiego, in San Diego County, SouthernCalifornia, USA. The mine is locatedwithin the territory of the Pala IndianReservation.

J. Gajowniczek specimen. J. Scovil photo.

In this issue also:

Collector interview:Gail and Jim Spann (USA)

In our Collector interview se-ries we try to show different per-spectives and different people. Wehave already interviewed a profes-sional photographer, a famous collec-tor of huge specimens and theMindat.org founder. This time wewould like to interview some rela-tively new collectors who are ...

Read on page 15

Journal presentations:Mineral Up

Mineral Up is a magazine aboutminerals, for mineral collectors andby mineral collectors. We publish ar-ticles about everything from micro-mounts to museum pieces, coveringEuropean and worldwide topics onmineralogy from the collector’s pointof view. We consider photography tobe very important. We think that aphotograph is not merely a decora-tive complement to an article, it is thearticle as well.

MINERAL UP is printed in 21x28cm format, 72 pages, on very highquality 150 g glossy paper, coveredby a protective varnish, with plasticcover of 300 g paper ...

Read on page 13

Tourmaline Queen Mine, California, USATomasz PRASZKIER

Valley fog and the Tourmaline QueenMine on Queen Mountain, as seen fromthe Oceanview Mine. M. Mauthner photo.

Continued on page 7

Elbaite with quartz and albite from the“six-pack” pocket found in 1984 in the Tourmaline Queen Mine, USA. 13.2 cmtall. M. and M. Swoboda specimen.

J. S

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to.

Continued on next page

Apart from the Tourmaline QueenMine there are several other mining operations, both small and large, presenton the same mountain. The best knownare the Tourmaline King Mine and the Stewart Lithia Mine. Other hills lo-cated to the East are famous for othermines such as the Oceanview Mine, thePala Chief Mine and the White QueenMine.

GEOLOGY AND MINERALOGY

Like the majority of pegmatites inSouthern California, the pegmatites oc-curring in Tourmaline Queen Mountainare formed as veins and tabular bodiesintruded into the fractures in granite.Probably they were injected during the

Lower Upper Cretaceous into thebatholith built by numerous plutons ofdifferent chemistry. The age of the plu-tons was determined to be 143-101 Ma,which is during the Lower Cretaceous.Pegmatites occurring in the area are ofthe LCT type and are enriched in boron,which manifests in the presence of nu-merous tourmalines. Tourmaline Queen

Mountain is built mainly of dioritic andgabbroid rocks with numerous peg-matite veins. Several of them are gem-bearing but the pegmatite accessed by

the Tourmaline Queen Mine is definitelythe most important one. It is at least1000 meters long, and usually around 10meters thick. The average dip is about 30degrees and the strike N-S.

In the mine, pockets occur irregu-larly in the pegmatite, and are groupedclose to each other in some areas. Inother parts of the pegmatite body thereis a complete, or almost complete, lackof them. Concentrations of lepidolite,larger sized crystals and finally the clayfilling the pockets are the indicators ofcavities, which vary in size from a fewcentimeters to over 3 m. Serious miner-alogical research has never been con-ducted for the Tourmaline Queen Mine,therefore little is known about the micro-minerals. From the collector’s point ofview only a few of the mineral speciesare important. They are briefly de-scribed below.

Beryl was found in many pocketsforming gem crystals. Usually their colorvaried from almost colorless, through or-angeish to pink, while the size rangedfrom a few to almost 10 cm (exception-ally). Crystals were formed in tabularform with the dominant basal pinacoidface and very short prism typical formorganite. The majority of them alsofeatured well developed pyramid facestruncating the pinacoid. Often the pina-coid faces were lustrous and glossy,while the other faces were frosted due topreferential etching. Some of the crystalswere highly etched. The combinations ofcolorful tourmalines with pink berylcrystals are especially appreciated bythe collectors as they are extremely un-common in other localities. In the Tour-maline Queen Mine they were collectedonly from a few finds.

Feldspars, albite and microcline ap-pear in the majority of the pockets. Whiteto grey and yellowish cleavelandite (var.

of albite) forming spheroidal aggregateswas particularly frequent and often co-occurred with tourmalines and beryls. Itgave a great contrast to the colorful tour-malines including some of the “blue-caps”.

Mica was represented mostly by lep-idolite but muscovite was also noted.Usually micas occurred as small crystalsbut some exceptions are known - crys-tals even 7 cm long have been reported.Lepidolite together with other mineralsformed the matrix for the gem crystals insome pockets.

Quartz was very common in thepockets and was frequently well formed.Usually it was colorless, milky or lightcitrine. The size of some crystals associ-ated with tourmalines reached over 20cm. The majority of the most famousspecimens from the mine are a combina-tion of quartz crystals and tourmalines.

2 T O U R M A L I N E Q U E E N M I N E . . . M I N E R A L S I S S U E # 5

Pala

Tourmaline Queen Mine

Stewart Lithia MineLittle Joe Mine

Gem Star MineTourmaline King Mine (behind mountain)

View of Pala Mountain and the town of Pala, marked the most important mines in the area. M. Mauthner photo.

Tourmaline Queen Mountain in the early1900’s. Photo courtesy Pala International.

Over 100 year old chinese carved snuff bottle, 8.5 cm tall. Carved from a single crystalfrom the Tourmaline Queen Mine. W. Larson collection. Mark Mauthner photo.

Notice of claiming Tourmaline Queen Mineby the discoverers in 1903. Courtesy E.Swoboda.

Continued from page 1

Los AngelesWashington

San Francisco

USA

USA

CANADA

MEXICO

Bonsall

SanMarcos

Vista

Escondido

Pala

Falbrook

Camp Pendleton

Temecula

Valley Center

Pauma Valley

10 km

Pala

TourmalineQueen mine

TourmalineKing mine

Stewart Lithia mine

Chief Mt.

Hiriart Mt.

Pala Chief mine

Oceanview mine

Little Chief Mt.

WhiteQueen mine

TourmalineQueen Mt.

Elisabeth R mine585 m

458 m

352 m

509 m

OceansideOceanside

Map of North America showing inserts of the Pala area and the location of the Tourmaline Queen Mine.

Grant Deed showing sale of the Tourma-line Queen Mine to Edward Swoboda in1968. Courtesy E. Swoboda.

3T O U R M A L I N E Q U E E N M I N E . . . I S S U E # 5 M I N E R A L S

Tourmaline was the main goal ofmining in the beginning of the 20th cen-tury and later, during the collectors'specimen-focused operations. It was alsothe species that made the mine famous.Analytic works showed that tourmalinesfrom the Tourmaline Queen Mine are el-baites. They form prismatic crystals,more or less elongated, with the trigonalprism and pedion typical for the species.More complex terminations occurred onsome of the smaller specimens. The pe-dion face was frequently matte, but insome cases, like in the “blue-cap” pocket,it was mirror lustrous. Prism faces werealways heavily striated. Split growth wasfrequently present on the larger crystals.It was manifested by the growth ofsmaller individuals that were almost par-

allel to the main crystal. Thesize of the crystals variedreaching in some cases over 20cm for gem crystals! Most of the

crystals were a few cm long. The mostunique characteristic for the mine wasthe hot pink to almost red rubelite color.It was often associated with all theshades of blue, from grayish to deepblue. The core of the crystals was usu-ally pink, while the last phase of growthwas blue. Probably Mn enrichment wasresponsable for the pink color and Fe forthe blue one. Pure indicolite crystals arealso known. Multiple color crystals werealso found in some pockets. In suchcases the color changed from green andpurple to pink and blue within the samecrystal.

MINING HISTORY AND MOST IMPOR-TANT POCKETS AND SPECIMENS

The end of the 19th century and thebeginning of the 20th was theperiod of quickly grow-ing gem research andmining industry inSouthern California.Intense pink rube-lites, which weresent to China forcarving as gem-stones and latersold to several UScompanies includ-ing Tiffany & Com-pany, were especiallyvaluable at that time.

In 1903 FrankSalmons (a store owner inPala) and C.W. Ernsting(jeweler), initiated a partner-ship for mining and selling gem-stones. Their main goal was to find a new source of tourmalines to supplythe growing demand. At the same timeSalmons, together with John Giddens,hired two Basque sheep herders to carry out the research in the nearbymountains. They quickly found the gemtourmalines and pegmatite vein near the top of the hill today known as Tour-maline Queen Mountain. In a short time they collected quite a lot of gem ma-terial. When they came back the four of them decided to claim the area together. They did so on November 6,1903 naming the claim the TourmalineQueen.

From the descrip-tion given by George

Kunz, who relied on the1904 Waldemar Schaller re-

port, we know that at the timethere was already an open cut, 3 me-

ters deep and20 meters long, and that

about 35 kg of gem tourmalines had beenrecovered. He reported yellow, green,pink and ruby red crystals.

Shortly thereafter, the TourmalineQueen Mine became one of the biggestproducers of gem tourmalines in South-ern California (along with the HimalayaMine). The most productive period wasbetween 1904 and 1914. During this pe-riod extended surficial and undergroundmining was done and an undergroundtunnel almost 300 meters long wasdriven. It remains unknown how muchtourmaline was produced in that period,but we know that the sale of tourmalinewas about $50,000 only in one year –1913. There were numerous pockets withgem crystals found in 1904-1914 andhundreds, if not over a thousand, kilo-grams of gem tourmaline were mined.Almost all the material was cut andcarved, hence almost no specimens fromthat period have survived. What is inter-esting is that the carvings made in Chinafrom the California material are nowvery highly sought by US collectors aspieces of the history of the TourmalineQueen Mine. One of very few specimensthat survived from the mentioned periodwas collected in 1913. It is the so called“Postage Stamp Tourmaline” which con-sists of a 7 cm long single tourmaline andtwo quartzes. It was pictured on the 10cent American postage stamp printed in1974 in the Mineral Heritage series.

The revolution in China that tookplace at the turn of 1911/1912 was im-portant to the history of the mine, whichmight seem surprising. The Emperor ofChina abdicated and the socialists cameto power. The aristocracy was in retreatand the Chinese market for luxurycarved gemstones rapidly collapsed. Al-most at the same time (1913) the localgemstone market in the USA collapsed,resulting in the closing of the majority ofthe mines in Southern California, includ-

ing the Tourmaline Queen Mine, in 1914.There were 55 years of almost no

activity in the Tourmaline Queen Minefrom 1914 to 1969. During this periodsome minor research and mining wasdone but without great luck. In 1955president Dwight D. Eisenhower grantedthe mine patent to Margaret Moore andMildred Wear – daughters of FrankSalmons. In the ‘50s and ‘60s many high-

Pen and ink drawing of“The Postage StampTourmaline” spe-

cimen by W.Wilson.

Photo and drawing of the big, 22.6 cm tall, specimen oftourmaline with quartz. Specimen was recently trim-med, see lower right photo on the page 5. S. Rudolphspecimen. Photo by J. Scovil, drawing by W. Wilson.

Specimen known as“The Postage StampTourmaline” foundin 1913. 12.7cm tall. HMNHcoll. W. Wilsonphoto. 10 cents po-stage stamp from 1974.

Resting at the front of the mine in 1972. J. Scripps photo.

Mine puppy Chamuko, around 1972. J. Scripps photo.

Flat with freshly mined “blue-cap” tourma-line crystals. J. Scripps photo.

Tourmaline crystals in situ in the pocketclay. J. Scripps photo.

Bob Bartsch collecting in the mine in 1972.R. Currier photo.

Mine portal in 1972. J. Scripps photo.


graders visited the mine trying to locatesome of the pockets. They did a lot ofdamage digging in the security pillars,dumping waste material inside the mineetc. Because of that the mine was in badshape and needed serious work to be-come productive again.

On September 25, 1968 EdwardSwoboda purchased the 30 acre paten-ted Tourmaline Queen mining propertyfrom M. Moore and M. Wear. The nextyear he leased the property to Pala Prop-erties International which was estab-lished by himself and William Larson. Adetailed history of the activity and dis-covery of one of the world most famoustourmaline pockets is given in WilliamLarson's account written and publishedat the end of 1972 and is reprinted in thisissue (see at page 7).

The “blue-cap” pocket was openedon January 19, 1972 among a series ofother pockets. It was 3.5 meter long, 1.2m wide and 60 cm high in the highestplace. The majority of the tourmalineswith quartz grew downward from theceiling of the pocket. In a few days it pro-duced many specimens, includingaround 34 major ones. Several of themare now considered to be world-classmineral icons. All are characterized bydeep pink color of the main part of thetourmaline crystal, an intense blue toppart, high luster, flat termination and bigsize. Descriptions of the best of the spec-imens given below should be a good illustration of the quality of the speci-mens.

The huge specimen known as “Can-delabra“ is probably the best knowntourmaline from the “blue-cap” find. It isexhibited in the Smithsonian Institutionand illustrated here on page 11. It con-sists of a 30x23 cm matrix with three 14cm long tourmalines sticking up from it.The Candelabra needed some repairsbut even with them it is one of the bestknown specimens in the world.

A specimen called “Rabbit Ears” isnearly as famous. It is exhibited in theHouston Museum of Natural Science andis illustrated here on page 11. This spec-imen contains 2 main quartz crystalsfrom which two tourmaline “ears” aresticking up. Altogether it is 24 cm high.It needed some repairs and some of thequartz is damaged, but its aesthetic,color and size make it an iconic speci-men overall. Value appraised by the mu-seum for that piece is $15,000,000!

Another famous big specimen isnow in the Canadian Museum of Naturecollection and is shown here on page 10.This specimen is 26 cm high and has two13 cm long tourmaline crystals standingon a group of doubly terminated quartz.

One of the most aesthetic specimenscontaining a single, huge “blue-cap” ona single quartz crystal belongs to CarlLarson. The specimen is 18 cm high, re-paired but with very dramatic aesthetics,shown here on page 9.

Another famous specimen, ownedby William H. Larson, is a cluster of two“blue-caps” with morganite betweenthem, making a superb mineralogical

and coloristic composition, illustratedhere on page 12. The specimen is 15 cmhigh, and also has some repairs.

A 26 cm wide specimen of quartzwith big “blue-cap” tourmaline group isowned by the Los Angeles County Mu-seum of Natural History; illustrated hereon page 12.

One of the few big and aestheticspecimens was kept hidden for manyyears and introduced by Edward Swo-boda to the public for the first time onlyin 2012. This specimen is over 28 cm longand is built of big quartz crystals andtwo “blue-caps” sticking up from them;illustrated here on page 8. Rumor has itthat this piece was purchased by MarionStuart, an extremely wealthy collector atthat time, during a mine party, to be do-nated to the LA museum. After purchas-ing it, she decided to keep the specimenin her collection rather than donating it.She selected this specimen as the most

Pocket found in 1974 photographed in situ, note big morganite crystal along with tour-malines. W. Larson photo.

Tourmaline found in 1973, 6.5 cm high. J. Fisher and J. Kureczka collection. J. Fis-her photo.

Tourmaline crystal, 10.6 cm tall. G. Meie-ran specimen. J. Scovil photo.

Fluorapatite, 2.6 cm wide. W. Larson col-lection. M. Mauthner photo.

Tourmaline with quartz found in 1972, 4.5 cm high. C. Graeber collection. J. Fisher photo.

Tourmaline crystal, 4.4 cm tall. G. Meie-ran specimen. J. Scovil photo.

Beryl var. morganite crystal, 6 cm wide.W. Larson collection. M. Mauthner photo.

Freshly collected tourmaline specimens, around 1972. J. Scripps photo.

5T O U R M A L I N E Q U E E N M I N E . . . I S S U E # 5 M I N E R A L S

aesthetic of the big ones, having only onerepair and bought it still dirty. What is in-teresting is that she had never cleaned itin her life! The specimen remained hid-den and only one polaroid photo of it wasknown. In the ‘90s the specimen was soldto James Horner still in a “big secret”and finally washed and trimmed. Todayit is owned by the Arkenstone company.

One of the few matrix specimensthat is not repaired is the 14 cm tall sin-gle crystal with a group of albite as a ma-trix. This specimen, pictured here on thecover, was also on the cover of the fa-

mous “Ikons” book. It shows an amazingcoloristic contrast and general aesthet-ics. It is now owned by Pinnacle Collec-tion.

“The Belly Button” is a smaller butalso very famous specimen and belongsto Peter Via. It is a single 13 cm high“blue-cap” tourmaline crystal with a biggemmy morganite crystal placed in themiddle of it looking like a button. It is il-lustrated here on page 10. Its aestheticsand the paragenesis make this specimenreally unique.

A 12 cm high group of four “blue-cap” crystals with quartz on the base isowned by Azurite Corporation and illus-trated here on page 7.

Another very distinctive specimencalled “The Beer Cans” resembling twobeer cans laying one on another, is 14 cmhigh and, as the name suggests, containsbeer can size tourmalines. It is illus-trated here on page 12.

After the “blue-cap” bonanza, PalaProperties International continued min-ing in the same area hoping to find moretourmalines. They drove many meters oftunnels but had not found any importantpockets.

Finally in July 1974 the so called“Barlow Pocket” was hit. It was namedafter John Barlow who was in the mineat the time and helped to extract thespecimens. He bought most of them, in-cluding the huge “Barlow Buster” withtourmalines and morganites. Later, to-gether with Peter Bancroft, they restoredthe pocket as it looked in situ in themine.

Finally in 1978 after mining hun-dreds of meters of tunnel, Pala Proper-ties International decided to close themine. It is estimated that during theyears of its activity the company soldspecimens and gemstones worth over $1million.

From the end of ‘70s to the mid-‘90sthe mine was leased from time to timefor short periods and small-scale opera-tions were done. The only importantpocket found in this period was the so-called “Six-Pack Pocket” named after the20 cm long specimen of feldspar andquartz with 6 multicolor (blue, purple,pink and green) zoned tourmaline crys-

Large specimen known as “six-pack”found in 1984 in six-pack pocket, 19.5 cmtall. Arkenstone specimen, now on dis-play in the Perot Museum of Nature andScience in Dallas. J. Budd photo.

Mine portal in mid 90’s with new cookshack on the right. E. Swoboda photo.

Beryl var. morganite crystal found in1972, 5 cm wide. W. Larson collection. H. and E. Van Pelt photo.

Tourmaline found in 1973, 6.5 cm tall. C.Graeber collection. J. Fisher photo.

Huge tourmaline with quartz, trimmed from specimen shown on page 3. 20 cm tall. S.Rudolph specimen. J. Scovil photo.


tals on top (see photo on page 5). A sec-ond major specimen from that find con-tains two colorful tourmalines on quartzcrystals – it is altogether 13 cm tall (seephoto on the cover). The pocket was kepta secret until 2012 and still remains amystery but probably it did not producedmany high quality specimens apart fromthe two described above.

In 1993 the mine was leased toRoland Reed who did not have much luckand after drifting tens of meters of tun-

nels found only a few small pockets withrubellites. He gave up in 1996.

In 1996 Edward Swoboda decided togive the mine another chance. He rebuiltthe entrance to the mine, created a cookshack with a covered eating area andarranged a “bedroom” along the old tun-nel providing fresh air and guaranteeinga nice temperature all year long. Theminers also placed a statue of SaintGuadalupe surrounded by candles in asmall alcove in the weathered granite.The mining started again.

In 1997 the mine was explored byCanadian geologists with geo-radar insearch of anomalies. They identified sixanomalies in 2 days. After examiningthem it turned out that they were onlymud filled cracks and vein disturbances- no pockets were found.

Swoboda was a close friend of thefamous gemmologist Richard Liddicoat(after whom liddicoatite was named) forover 40 years. At the end of the ‘90s theyformed a hand-shake agreement to workthe mine pushing a tunnel to reach anenriched zone that Edward believed ex-isted and had never been touched. For alittle less than two years they worked onreaching this area but eventuallystopped the operation as it was gettingexpensive and there was nothing to showfor the work.

In July 2001 Swoboda, together withSan Diego Mining Company, decided towork some surficial parts of the peg-matite. During this time the vein was ex-posed on quite a long distance. In theweathered pegmatite there were stillsolid boulders which needed to be re-moved. Old tunnels mined back in theearly 1900s were uncovered. A pocketfrom which several cats-eye indicoliteswere recovered was discovered veryclose to one of the tunnels. To continuethe research 1 to 2 tons of heavy boul-ders had to be removed. Behind one ofthe boulders a small pocket with 4 cmlong deep blue tourmalines was found.Soon another pocket was discovered pro-ducing two superb specimens. They are

both very similar - about 20 cm long ma-trix of quartz, lepidolite and cleave-landite with morganite crystal andmulti-color tourmalines with pink, greenand blue zones. All these pockets werefound in the small area of the old sup-porting pillar. A short time after the care-ful extraction of the content of allpockets and cleaning the area the minewas again closed and remains closed tothis day (2012).

The mine has not been active in re-cent years for several reasons, one of theproblems being the legal issues with PalaIndian Reservation on the territory ofwhich the Tourmaline Queen Mine is lo-cated.

The mine is not active but its fameis still alive. In 2006 Bryan Swoboda, sonof Edward, established a company called“BlueCap Productions”. It producesDVDs about minerals and collecting. Thehistory symbolically closed in 2012 whenBryan produced a DVD with his father'spresentation about his gemstone andmineral-dedicated life.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This article would have never beenwritten if not for the huge help and a lotof information and materials from Ed-ward and Bryan Swoboda and William

Larson. I would like to give my specialthanks to Robert Lavinsky, Wendell Wil-son, Scott Richie and Mark Mauthner. Iwould also like to thank other peoplewho helped me with this article in differ-ent ways: Jamie Newman, Daniel Trin-chillo, Jesse Fisher, Mia Dixon, JamesElliott, Robert Simonoff and Paul Cra-gan.

To those who would like to readmore about the Tourmaline Queen MineI recommend the California Pegmatitesissue of the Mineralogical Record, 2002,33/5 and literature cited there. More in-formation can also be found atmindat.org: http://www.mindat.org/loc-3564.html

Tomasz PRASZKIERSpirifer Minerals, Warszawa, Poland

e-mail: [email protected]

For the first time since 1972 a big group of the “blue-cap” tourmalines “met” together in 2008 at the Tucson Gem and Mineral Showat the American Mineral Treasures Exhibition. W. Wilson photo.

Close-up of the six-pack specimen shown on page 5. J. Budd photo.

BlueCap Productions is a company thatspecializes in producing mineral-relatedfilms. It was started by Bryan Swoboda,Edward's son, and the logo is a stylizedrepresentation of “The Rabbit Ears” spe-cimen (page 11) - Ed's favorite blue cap.

Edward Swoboda (right) and his sonBryan with “The Rabbit Ears” - one of themost famous specimens from the “blue-cap” pocket. Mae L. Swoboda photo.

10 cm tall tourmaline on quartz collectedas one of the last specimens before mineclosed in 2001. Swoboda specimen.

Ed Swoboda – American mineral collector and first recipient of the

Mineralogical Record’s newly created award – The American Mineral

Heritage Award created to recognize lifetime achievements in field

collecting. From collecting Benitoite in the 30s to being the first to

begin mining Brazilianite in the 40s to finding the Tourmaline blue cap

pocket in the 70s and so much more. Ed Swoboda’s career has span-

ned both decades and continents. Now, for the first time, Swoboda

tells stories of his world-wide adventures and shares images from his

private photo collection. Hear the collecting stories only one man can

tell in the highest attended Sunday Evening Program the Westward

Look Mineral Show has ever hosted. It’s history in the making.

www.bluecapproductions.comRecent photo of the Edward Swoboda atthe site of the “blue-cap” pocket, ownerof the Tourmaline Queen Mine from 1968.B. Swoboda photo.

7" B L U E - C A P S " A N N I V E R S A R Y . . . I S S U E # 5 M I N E R A L S

10x4 inches looking at him. In disbeliefhe muttered thanks to the mine spiritsand took it out to show Jose who, seeingthe red, started jumping wildly and cele-brating. No one who saw this large crys-tal could believe it. After 3 1/2 years, itwas a crowning glory. The crystal re-mains the largest and finest tourmalineproduced from the Stewart Mine.

Later the bulldozer arrived, theroad was improved, a small pad carved

out and the compressor placed. All wasnow ready for operations to begin. Theold adits were in terrible shape, as theworking face had sluffed in during heavyrains a few years before. We decided to“poor-boy” the operation until we hitsome limited evidence of future success.John and Jose dug a trench with pickand shovel until one of the old adits wasintersected. The trench was enlargeduntil ventilation was possible. After sev-eral hours, we went below to check outthe workings. The upper adits had suf-fered most from the heavy rains. Theyhad filled up with silt, making it impossi-ble to traverse them without crawling onone’s hands and knees; however, theyhad not caved in. Water had completelyfilled the lower workings, leaving thewalls slightly covered with mud. We wereable to locate one route to the surfacethrough which temporary airlines couldbe brought with minimal effort.

The next problem was where tobegin our exploratory work. With thewalls coated, chipping was necessary toexpose the mineralogy of the pegmatite.A suitable area was found where apocket had been removed in past opera-tions. The back face of this adit showedevidence of slight enrichment such aslarge feldspar crystals, minor schorltourmalines and large grains of lepido-lite. Some of the schorls in the ceilingshowed exteriors of pink and green tour-maline indicating the possibility thatgood colored crystals had been found inthe past. All equipment was set up on atemporary basis so we could drill andblast in several areas to see if we wantedto go into the great expense of setting upa more or less permanent operation. Our

equipment would be minimal: a com-pressor, jack leg, drill, rubber hose andelectric generator. We would not worryabout mucking during the sniping oper-ations, as there were several blank tun-nels we could backfill. We needed a smallstrike to strengthen our convictions thatthis mine would be more productive.

John McLean began drilling andblasting by September 1971. He was re-ally roughing it. Water was placed in thedrill holes manually to keep dust down;

and after a blast, the material was back-filled into the nearest adit, which hadbeen deemed unnecessary. After twoweeks of backbreaking work of this sort,20 feet of new tunnel had been carvedout downdip. Buzz Gray and I were up inSeattle at the National Gem and MineralShow when I got a call from my wife,Karla, that a large pocket of dark bluetourmaline had been hit. Buzz and I wereoverjoyed at the prospect that this minewould indeed be productive.

As soon as we returned, I examinedwhat remained of the pocket. It had beenabout 2x2x1 feet, quite a nice size andcontained a sticky red clay. Four fine

tourmalines had been found, one singlecrystal doubly terminated 3x2 inches.The three matrixes were all similar; eachhad a single crystal 3x2 inches attachedto a quartz crystal. Many quartz crystalswere found, all with distinctive montmo-rillonite inclusions giving them a whiteto pink opaque exterior. The most excit-ing aspect was that the tourmalines,while dark blue on the exterior, weredeep rubellite on the interior, almost too

much to hope for since most of the recentpockets that had been documentedlacked rubellite.

The mine had passed its test. Wenow had to back off and go about miningseriously. This would be expensive andtime consuming but, hopefully, worth theeffort. The pads were made permanent,concrete replaced dirt; the dangerousface which had sluffed in during therains was blasted back resealing ourcrawl hole. For over a month, pick,shovel and wheelbarrow worked to re-open the main adit. A winch had to be in-stalled to bring the wheelbarrow up theadit as it followed the 12 to 15 degree dipof the pegmatite. Our operations werebasic; hand operations cleared all themuck, pick, shovel and wheelbarrowover and over again, each blast makingmany more hours of the same grind.

“Blue-caps” 40th anniversaryTourmaline Queen Mine, USA

William F. LARSON

Continued from page 1

Scan of the unique photo made on polaroid showng Peter Bancroft collecting in the“blue-cap” pocket in 1972. E. Swoboda photo.

John McLean chief miner of the Tourma-line Queen Mine holding freshly mined“blue-cap” tourmalines from famous findin 1972. J. Scripps photo.

Edward Swoboda holding freshly mined“blue-cap” tourmaline. W. Larson photo.

Young William Larson holding freshlymined tourmalines. J. Scripps photo.

Bucket with mud and fragments of thecrystals from the “blue-cap” pocket. W.Larson photo.

Edward Swoboda in 70’s examining hisfavourite “blue-cap” tourmaline – “TheRabbit Ears”.

Doubly terminated pair of "blue-cap" tour-malines, 6.1 cm tall. W. Larson collection.M. Mauthner photo.

" B L U E - C A P S " A N N I V E R S A R Y . . . M I N E R A L S I S S U E # 5

Little by little the adit was clearedto the area where the indicolite pocketwas found. After two months, we couldwalk standing up the 180 foot downdipinstead of crawling.

The pegmatite continued to showsigns of increasing richness. The size ofthe lepidolite crystals had increased twoor three times. Much cleavelanditefeldspar was still present along with sub-hedral and euhedral quartz and perthitefeldspar. The next six feet or so was un-productive; however, all the pocket indi-cations continued, and we were againrewarded with a pocket. This time it wasa small vug series, a group of intercon-nected vugs from fist size to football size.They were quite devoid of gem mineralsbeing mostly filled with a red clay on topand a sandy clay on the bottom. Whentourmaline was encountered, it was usu-ally present in 1-inch crystals clusterednear the bottom. Tourmaline crystalswere found up to 2 inches in diameter in

one vug; however, even the most carefulremoval yielded only crystal fragments.They had grown into the walls havingonly contact terminations at best. Themost exciting aspect of these larger tour-malines was their color, rubellite withoutany indicolite at all. We were all muchmore excited by these poor specimensthan anything up to that point. We fig-ured the indicolite watermelon tourma-line was as close to red as we could hopefor.

We carefully removed all the vugcontents into our powder boxes to takehome and wash. Washing is a crude

process of placing all the carefully re-moved pocket contents into tubs of waterto soak. When the clay has absorbedwater, it is more easily removed. Thesticky mass is placed on a large screensupported between two sawhorses. Agarden hose is used to spray the claywhile a scrub brush is used to breakdown the larger clay masses. As this isbeing done, the different minerals be-come recognizable. After a few minutes,the screen contents are bright and clean;everyone gathers round it to pick out allthe crystals. Screening the contents ofthese vugs didn’t produce any large crys-tals but many more 1 inch crystals didshow up, and more interesting were theseveral morganite thumbnails that werefound.

Work was continued downdip pastthe vug area. The first chance I had toexamine the new workings, John hadjust encountered what appeared to be afault plane crosscutting our tunnel. Therock looked barren on both sides of thestructure and barren all the way fromthe vuggy area. John had already gonethis far so he wanted to try a little to theright and down. It seemed a little softerto him there. The next shot uncoveredlepidolite, at least a little more promis-ing. One week and two more shots laterhe hit a small pocket. It contained onespecimen, a quartz crystal about 5x4inches with a rubellite tourmaline flaringout of the center, 2 inches in diameter.The tourmaline was recovered in threepieces, but careful repair would make itinto a fine specimen. These tourmalinesare broken by nature in the pocketsthrough final phase explosive pocket for-mation, earth movements and generaldecompositions, especially a smallpocket like this, where the tourmaline,when perfect, filled the entire pocketfrom side to side.

The discovery of a rubellite speci-men of major consequence really turnedus all on. I was in contact with the miningoperations daily. Ed would call or comedown from Los Angeles as often as pos-sible as we were now sure somethingmajor was shaping up.

I was working in the shop with a finejewelry designer from Bar Harbor,Maine, Mr. Rocky Willis, when Johncame down from the mine to tell us hehad hit a new pocket. “I can’t tell how bigit is, but there is one tourmaline exposedmeasuring 2x2 inches.” This was enoughfor all of us. Entering the mine, we foundthe new workings had now taken a 10-foot jog to the right, starting whereJohn had originally found the softer ma-terial. The pocket was exposed at theback of this new short adit near the center about two feet above the floor. It was elliptical about one-and-one-half

“Blue-cap” tourmaline crystal, 11.2 cmtall. S. Lawrence collection. Scovil photo.

Spectacular 28.5 cm wide specimen of quartz with “blue-caps” after trimming andcleaning, compare with photo on the left. Arkenstone specimen, now on display in thePerot Museum of Nature and Science in Dallas. J. Budd photo.

Polaroid photo of the big quartz and el-baite specimen still dirty. This specimenwas hidden and almost unknown untill2012. See recent photo on the right.

“Blue-cap” tourmaline crystal, 12.2 cmtall. Arkenstone specimen. Scovil photo.

The largest known single “blue-cap” tour-maline, never before seen by the publicand hidden for 40 years, as photographedin the Arkenstone inventory before tra-ding to Gene Meieran, in whose collec-tion it now resides.

98


by one foot, all solid feldspar, quartz andmica making up the walls and here in thecenter of this seemingly solid mass was abrown wet sticky mass of red clay. Ex-posed on one side of the opening was the2x2-inch tourmaline scraped clean andglowing red in our light. I took my screw-driver out and checked the depth of theclay. It was deeper than my 10-inch longscrewdriver as I could bury it up to thehandle. I removed large globs of stickyclay from the center of the hole with myfingers and small ice picks. The pocketwas definitely increasing. We worked forabout an hour and removed four or fivepowder boxes full of clay and quartz

crystals. We were back 18 inches fromwhere John had exposed the pocket. Icould still bury the screwdriver to thehandle. “This is a pocket to call Edabout.” I finally removed the tourmalinethat John had exposed, leaving it for afinal reward to pluck after the tediouspocket work. It came out easily in a sin-gle crystal, but was different than any ofthe other tourmalines found so far. WhenI cleaned it with my thumb, I felt asmooth glassy termination; and as it be-came cleaner we gasped. The termina-tion was a bright indicolite blue. Herewas a real treasure, a bicolor deep rubel-lite tourmaline with a vivid blue termi-

nation. We tore ourselves away from theopen pocket to await tomorrow when allcould join in.

Ed and his wife, Kumja, came downearly the next day. The tourmaline I haddug out was even more beautiful aftercleaning, firing Ed’s imagination. Wewasted little time getting up the moun-tain. Ed got right in and began to probe.We brought in foam rubber pads to lie onand settled in for a day’s work. Using hisfingers, Ed removed glob after glob ofclay; he was soon covered with red stickymud. The clay had shards of quartz andfeldspar through it, so you had to be care-ful not to slice your fingers. Gloves areimpractical as they interfere with thesensitive touch necessary so you don’tbreak anything important; and, of course,gloves pick up so much of the clay theysoon weigh several pounds. Ed had beendigging for several hours and had re-

One of the most spectacular specimens from the “blue-cap” pocket, 18 cm tall. Carl Larson collection. H. and E. Van Pelt photo.

Recent photo of William Larson, one of the “blue-cap” pocket discoverers, holding oneof the specimens, see detailed photo on the left. M. Mauthner photo.

“Blue-cap” tourmaline on quartz, 11.4 cmhigh. G. and J. Spann collection. B. Swo-boda photo.

" B L U E - C A P S " A N N I V E R S A R Y . . . M I N E R A L S I S S U E # 5

moved 6 or 7 powder boxes of clay with-out finding a single tourmaline crystal.

Unfortunately, you do get pocketsthat are devoid of gems. This one hadlots of quartz crystals and was now verylarge. It measured over 3x2x2 feet butwith only one tourmaline. Every so oftenone of us would think we had a fine gemtourmaline only to discover it was a plas-tic screwdriver handle completely cov-ered with red mud. Ed and I worked offand on until about 3 p.m. The pocketthen got tight towards the back, and wegave up, wearing our disappointment.We forced smiles and cursed the mine alittle. Ed had a 2 1/2 hour drive home, sohe and Kumja left for Los Angeles and Iwent home to see if the beautiful colored

tourmaline really existed. Buzz and Iwere looking the piece over when Johncame in looking terribly muddy. He mut-tered something about the small tour-maline I left up there, the only one Edhad found. I said I didn’t want it, re-membering a 1-inch scrap. He grinnedfrom ear to ear and said, “Well, it grew,”and proceeded to hand me a 3x1 inchperfect crystal. “You quit too soon,”quipped John, and he pulled anothercrystal out of his pocket and so on untilwe had five beautiful bicolor tourmalinesin front of us. Total emotion is hard to de-scribe but these brought tears to every-one’s eyes. What a New Year’s present.It was 6:30 p.m. and Ed would just be get-ting home. We phoned him and literallycaught him coming in the front door. “Wequit too soon” “See you at 9: 30!” Acrossthe room Karla asked, “9:30 tonight?!”

We called up two friends, JosieScripps and Bryant Harris, to share thefind. Josie didn’t want to go up to themine in the dark but was really excitedabout the find. At 9:30 we assembled: Ed,Buzz, Karla, Bryant, Carl (my father),and I. Fortified with a quick brandy, wedrove through the night to the Stewart.The six of us piled into our yellow truck,a hilarious sight. I was elected to driveup the two-mile road; rough enough inthe daytime, it was treacherous and dan-gerous at night. Slowly we inched ourway up the mountain. The one close callwe had resulted only in someone cursingabout shaking up his beer, however, andon we went.

Finally getting to the mine, peopletumbled out of the truck trying to get ori-ented. It was quiet and beautiful over-looking Salmon City, the deserted oldmining camp below. I wondered abouthow it had been the living quarters forthe miners of the area in the early 1900’sall the stories of highgrading at night.Asour electric generator coughed into life,however, all visions of the old days van-ished.

We almost raced down the now fa-miliar adit to the pocket. It was reallylarge now after we had worked it all dayand John had expanded it in the evening.Ed laid at the pad and settled down tomore profitable work. For ten minutes orso, no tourmalines showed up; and wehad visions of another dry run. Then hehit a really big one, four inches at least,as he scraped his fingers along the crys-tal. A real artist at pocket removal, Ed

began exposing the crystal and anotherone nearby. The two were nearly paral-lel and visions of a matrix specimendanced in our heads. After another houror so, enough material had been re-moved to show that they were only sin-gles, but what singles! With the samefabulous colors, they were the finestcrystals to date. Karla cleaned them witha little beer, and they looked beautiful.Each had a little damage on the termi-nations for these large crystals wereoriginally attached to the roof of thepocket and were broken when they haddetached eons ago. By the time these twocrystals had been removed, the pocketwas so far back that whoever was dig-ging in it had to crawl into it. As it wasnearing 4 a.m., we decided to call it anight. We knew there were more thrillsawaiting us as this pocket would con-tinue.

For the next week John cleared thearea around the pocket. This was doneby careful blasting using half or quartersticks of dynamite. The original pockethad more or less played out, but two newones had been discovered joining theoriginal. It was during this time thatDean Luxton, an advanced collector andamateur photographerrented a camper,filled up the back with a load of photog-raphy equipment and parked it at theStewart Mine for several weeks. He livedand worked along with John and Jose inthe Queen, all the time taking many in-valuable photos. His aim was to create aslide presentation showing the tourma-line find at the Tourmaline Queen frombeginning to end. He took over a thou-sand photos and has accomplished hisidea. This document, one of the finestever put together on mining, would beshown continuously in the American Mu-seum of Natural History in New York Citybeginning in February 1973. The Los An-geles County Museum was also con-

10

Unique spcimen known as “The Belly Button”. Big “blue-cap” tourmaline with morga-nite crystal, 13 cm tall. P. Via specimen. H. and E. Van Pelt photo.

Pen and ink drawing of “The Belly But-ton” specimen by Wendell Wilson.

“Blue-cap” tourmalines on quartz, 26 cm high. Canadian Museum of Nature collection.M. Bainbridge photo.

Freshly mined, still dirty “blue-cap” tour-maline on quartz with beer can as a scale.W. Larson photo.


tacted; and Barbara Lowe, the AssistantCurator, came down with a photogra-pher. A few good pieces were removedwhile the cameras clicked, making thisone of the first times a gem pocket hadbeen accurately documented.

Wednesday night. After having ex-posed a nice single tourmaline duringthe day, I had asked my father to go upand dig it out. Driving the truck up themountain for the second time was a lit-tle easier but still frightening. This nightwe encountered a problem, the electricgenerator refused to work. No amount ofpulling, fiddling or cursing would makeit work. For some reason, Carl thought tobring a large flashlight along; and we en-tered with it. As we got to the pocket, Iforgot our troubles as the red translu-

cence shone back at us through the crys-tal I had exposed earlier. I tried unsuc-cessfully to remove it, but it was tightlyattached. Our first matrix perhaps. Toget at the pocket better, I had to use adouble jack and chisel. The work went onslowly and I was further slowed by thecramped position. To get the results Iwanted took the better part of an hour.Now I could start to remove the clayaround the tourmaline. A quartz crystalbegan to take shape behind the tourma-line. They appeared to be attached; myheart raced, I felt a tremendous urge torip the piece out to look at it, but I re-strained myself and continued workingcompletely around it. That is when thespecimen took shape; it was really quitelarge, over a foot long. Then at the rear I

found a second tourmaline attached. Iknew then we had a great piece. I wasready for the final removal. We placed asmall bar in the center; a gentle pressurewas applied, and I could feel the entiremass move. What a thrill! I reached inwith both hands and pulled out the nowfamous “candelabra” specimen. Over afoot long, it had two tourmalines on ei-ther end and in the center top was aplace where a third tourmaline had oncebeen attached. We dug for about 40 min-utes more and found the third tourma-line. It was a perfect fit. It was a fabulousspecimen, one of the finest ever.

Friday night. John had finished thenecessary preparation of the two con-necting pockets. One week of meticulousblasting and cleanup left the new pock-ets well exposed. All of us were terriblyexcited. The few single crystals foundfrom washing the original pocket mudand a few new small ones from the twonew pockets have all been that samebeautiful bicolor blue top, red base. Thegroup had gathered at the Stewart:Josie, Ed, Bryant, Buzz, Carl, and myself.The two pockets were about 18 inchesapart, each being about 2 feet across.There were a couple of small tourma-lines exposed in the bottom of one; thiswas a sight. While the others joked,drank beer and Pepsi, Ed and I each gotinto a pocket! The two pockets turned

One of the most famous specimens from the “blue-cap” pocket – “The Rabbit Ears”, 24 cm tall. Houston Museum of Natural Science collection. H. and E. Van Pelt photo.

“Candelabra”, an iconic specimen believed to be the best from the “blue-cap” find, 30cm wide and 23 cm tall. Smithsonian Institution collection. H. and E. Van Pelt photo.

Cut stone 132.67 ct made from broken to-urmaline from “blue-cap”pocket. W. Lar-son collection. M. Dixon photo.

12 " B L U E - C A P S " A N N I V E R S A R Y . . . M I N E R A L S I S S U E # 5

out to be interconnected; and if weworked out the bridge between them, wewould have one working face. Shortly, Edand I were stretched out working thesame pocket and not even fighting for thesame crystals. The singles were comingregularly. After we had each removedthree or four fabulous singles, to a toastof beers, shouts and obscenities, Edleaned over to me and said, “You know, Ican die happily now!” Truly a dreamcome true. I was emotionally drainedfrom the last two weeks’ excitement. Asit was getting dark, we went down fordinner which Karla had brought up tothe Stewart. As the pocket really looked

more promising than ever, the menelected to go back up while Josie andKarla would go home and wash the crys-tals we had found. As we drove up thehill for the third time in the dark, the foghad set in creating an impressive setting.We all felt part of something quite spe-cial.

We were soon both back into thepocket. I didn’t know what we wouldfind, but I knew it was going to be great.Both of us were working only with ourfingers; these pieces were too perfect torisk breakage. More and more singlesshowed up. The air was fairly blue withexcited shouts as each new piece waswiped clean. One crystal would lay underanother in a jumble, until we had 10 crys-tals exposed. One by one the pieces wereremoved. As I was working on the lastfew singles, I wiped my fingers acrosswhat appeared to be quartz crystal; itshowed deep salmon pink. “Morganite,” Ishouted.

The others crowded around andmurmured enthusiastically. As I wasworking around it, I hit another morgan-ite. This one was a cluster, but there wasjust too much excitement already. Iworked slowly for half an hour, and theycame out. They were matrix morganites,and the matrix was tourmaline. No onecould believe it. Morganite on tourma-line? Impossible! Unique, fantastic! Yethere they were.

I continued working and pulled outa perfect quartz crystal, thought little ofit, and worked on. About 2 hours later,we had worked the pocket to near com-pletion. As it was quite late, we decidedto take our loot and go home. The girlswere waiting; the kitchen table was cov-ered with newspapers and the 10 tour-malines from earlier were laid in a rowsparkling clean. We unloaded our five dy-namite boxes full of goodies and mud

and began to clog every drain in thehouse. All the pieces were saved, formany of the specimens would have to berepaired, creating jigsaw nightmares. Aswe got most of the pieces cleaned, Ifound a second tourmaline crystal thatfit on the morganite cluster specimen;this was too much. This piece is unique;and, in my opinion, one of the finest spec-imens in existence.

I cleaned the large quartz crystalthat was so perfect and that we hadthought so little of, only to discover thatit had places where two tourmalines fit.These were quite easily found; the re-sulting specimen took everyone’s breathaway. We knew we had three magnificentpieces, the candelabra and these twonew pieces. We all had a toast of brandyand stumbled off to sleep.

During the next several days, thedrama was repeated twice again on amuch smaller scale with the discovery oftwo more major pieces. It was February,and we had been planning to have a mineparty the week before the Tucson show.A hurried list was made up, and invita-tions rushed out; the museum curatorswere called and most were able to at-tend. Pala had never been so beautiful asMonday, February 7, 1972. Over 100 indi-viduals gathered at the Stewart. Severalcases of champagne and beer were con-sumed while questions about the find,the previous work, etc., were answered,and nature was just generally appreci-ated. As evening began, everyone wentdown to the Collector Shop about 25 min-utes away for the unveiling of the good-ies. My own favorite memory of the daywas going into the back of our shop andviewing the candelabra with Dr. PeterEmbrey and Dr. Pierre Bariand on eitherside of Paul Desautels, who was down onhis knees examining the piece destined

to grace the halls of the Smithsonian In-stitution. Two weeks later, when Dr.Vince Manson of the American Museumof Natural History was visiting after theTucson show was history, he summed upour feelings in one phrase. “In terms ofcolor and degree of perfection, This isthe find of the Century.”

William LARSONPala International Inc.

Fallbrook, California, USA; e-mail: [email protected]

One of the greatest specimens from the “blue-cap” pocket. Two tourmalines with mor-ganite, 18 cm high. W. Larson specimen. H. and E. Van Pelt photo.

Recent photo of William Larson, one ofthe “blue-cap” pocket discoverers, hol-ding one of the specimens, see below de-tailed photo. M. Mauthner photo.

William Larson holding freshly minedspecimen, same specimen on photobelow, 26 cm wide. J. Scripps photo.

One of the most unusual "blue-cap" speci-mens known as "The Beer Cans", 14 cmtall. Azurite Corporation specimen. H.and E. Van Pelt photo.

One of the great “blue-cap” clusters with quartz, 12 cm tall. Azurite Corporation speci-men. H. and E. Van Pelt photo.

13J O U R N A L P R E S E N T A T I O N SI S S U E # 5 M I N E R A L S

MISSION

Mineral Up is a magazine about mi-nerals, for mineral collectors and by mi-neral collectors. We publish articlesabout everything from micromounts to

museum pieces, covering European andworldwide topics on mineralogy from thecollector’s point of view. We considerphotography to be very important. Wethink that a photograph is not merely adecorative complement to an article, it isthe article as well.

QUALITY

MINERAL UP is printed in 21x28 cmformat, 72 pages, on very high quality150 g glossy paper, covered by a protec-tive varnish, with plastic cover of 300 g paper. Our goal is that it shouldpreserve mineralogical information formany years to come.

WEB PAGE

We think that paper is more stablethan that the web, but we are makingchanges in our websites to post part ofthe contents of the magazine there, especially photographs and complemen-tary texts that we were not able to fit into the magazine because of space constra-ints.

You can visit us at: www.mineral-up.net

More information about photo-graphy of minerals at: www.Joaquim-Callen.cat, e-mail: [email protected], also on Facebook.

HISTORY

Mineral Up could arguably be consi-dered the third incarnation of this mine-ral magazine, which was born as amodest bulletin.

In 1977, the Grup Mineralògic Catalá (Mineralogical Association of Ca-talonia) was founded in Barcelona, be-ginning as a small group of mineral fansthat would eventually become one of thebiggest clubs in Southern Europe. Thefollowing year, it was decided to make abulletin, which quickly grew into a ma-gazine called Mineralogistes de Cata-lunya (Mineralogist of Catalonia). In1995, in collaboration with other clubsoutside of Catalonia the club decided to make a version in Spanish with thename Revista de Minerales (MineralReview). After a radical change in de-sign and content, the English version ap-peared under the name Mineral Up in2006.

Joaquim Callén, the publisher of Mi-neral Up and the Mineral Up Calendar,lives with his wife Eloisa in a house sur-rounded by woods and mountains 20 kmfrom Barcelona. There they run theirphoto-studio and a small specializedpublishing house. They often have to tra-vel to different cities in Europe and Ame-rica, to take photographs for Mineral Up,

the Mineral Calendar, private collectors,and editorial projects. Joaquim andEloisa also have strong ties to Hawaii,where they spend part of each year.

MINERAL UP BENEFIT CALENDAROF MINERALS

With the desire to combine mine-rals, photography, and to help disadvan-taged children, the Benefit Calendar ofMinerals was born.

Production costs are funded by thedealers and collectors who provide theirminerals to be photographed. They receive a certain number of calendars todistribute among friends and clients forfree. The calendar aims to show thebeauty of minerals, but also specificallyseeks to remind the viewers that there arepeople treated unfairly in the mining industry, and that together, we must do something to help them. Joaquim requeststhat if you like the calendar, you shouldmake a voluntary contribution to a non-profit organization of your choice to helpchildren living in poverty in mining areas.

SUBSCRIPTIONS

Two issues of the magazine Mine-ral Up and one Mineral Up Benefit Ca-lendar of Minerals are published everyyear. The spring edition is published in May and the fall edition is publishedin October along with the Calendar of Minerals. The cover price is 14 euros andthe annual magazine subscription is 17 euros (2 issues), plus the cost of ship-ping (4.80 euros in Europe; 5.90 euros to North America). The Calendar of Minerals is distributed freely to subscri-bers of the magazine at the mineralshows of Munich and Tucson. The Ca-lendar is also distributed for free at the booths of dealers who contributed to its production. It is also possible to getit on request by paying only the shippingcost.

The first issue of the Mineralogistes deCatalunya – predecessor to Mineral Up.

Cover of the first issue of Mineral Up pub-lished in 2006.

Covers of recent issues of the Mineral Up. J. Callén photo.

Journal presentations:Mineral Up

Joaquim Callén editor and publisher ofthe Mineral Up magazine holding threeversions of the same issue, in English,Catalan and Spanish. E. Artola photo.

Logo of Mineral Up magazine.

Mineral Up benefit calendar. Money earned from it helps children living in poverty inmining areas. J. Callén photo.

14 A D S M I N E R A L S I S S U E # 5

Scovil PhotographyP.O. BOX 7773, Phoenix, AZ 85011 Tel: +1 602 254 0735, Cell: +1 602 692 0944

E-mail: [email protected] www.scovilphoto.com

I travel the USA photographing collections at major shows and in private homes

and businesses. I also visit European shows in Munich and Sainte-Marie-Aux-

Mines. You can also send specimens to my studio. I work in digital (DSLR) and

large format (4x5 film) photography for the web, advertising, publications,

education and insurance. Contact me to discuss pricing and scheduling.

15C O L L E C T O R I N T E R V I E WI S S U E # 5 M I N E R A L S

In our Collector interview serieswe try to show different perspectives anddifferent people. We have already inter-viewed a professional photographer, a fa-mous collector of huge specimens andthe Mindat.org founder. This time we

would like to interview relatively newcollectors who very seriously involved inthe world of minerals.

Jim and Gail Spann started collect-ing 8 years ago, but during this relativelyshort period they have become com-pletely engaged by the hobby. In a short

time they have built a world-class collec-tion, one of the most important in theworld, with numerous top quality speci-mens. They keep their specimens inshowcases in their home in Rockwall,Texas, USA, which looks more like a mu-seum than a regular house. They areboth very open and strongly involved inmany projects in the mineral collectingcommunity.

Tomasz Praszkier (Minerals): Howand when did you start collectingminerals? What triggered your new-found interest?

Gail Spann: We started almost eightyears ago, when we first went into a shopin Breckenridge, Colorado, while gettingacclimated to the altitude. Jim had beenreading about rhodochrosite and I wasmore into looking at fossils for our home.But we bought our first significant piece there, from the Hedgehog pocket,Sweet Home mine, Colorado, USA. I wasshocked at how much a "rock" cost!

Jim Spann: After seeing Gail’s “priceshock”, I took her to the Houston Mu-seum of Nature & Science to show herwhat the very best rhodochrosites werelike, such as the Alma Queen. She was soimpressed by the fine minerals on dis-play that she promptly got on the inter-net to learn more about them. Her mostfamous line is: “Hey Honey! You can buy

this stuff!”. I knew then that this was a hobby that we could learn about to-gether while enjoying the passions thatwe each had for it. Collecting mineralswas a natural fit for us, since Gail pro-fessionally had an art background with

a technical aptitude and I had a techni-cally oriented “mining” (i.e. oil and gas)background with an eye for art. It was ahobby perfectly suited to our interestsand talents!

TP: Do you still have your first speci-men?

GS: We do have it. It sits rather proudlyin our American minerals cabinetamongst a few other Sweet Home Minerhodochrosites.

JS: It is a 20x11 cm plate that we got inDecember, 2004, with sharp pinkish redrhombs up to 1.5 cm on a bed of long thinquartz needles. We got it just after themine had been closed and plugged, notrealizing that the portal was only fivemiles from our winter home in the moun-tains of Colorado or that it produced thebest rhodochrosites in the world!

TP: Have you ever collected in themines? Where would you like to tryyour luck?

GS: We have, and we loved it. I was un-sure how I would feel in the depths of amountain, but I was quite comfortableand found it quite thrilling.

JS: There is nothing more magical thanthe sound of “tap.. tap.. thunk” as you hita hollow spot in a rock wall with yourhammer. Gail had done that within min-utes of entering a tight, narrow crawl-space and opened up a brand new pocketwith blue fluorites! I also was lucky andopened a new pocket with brilliant bluelinarite crystals about 2 meters down-dip. We were lying prone with my headnear her feet and we both had a newpocket opened at the same time! We haveseveral of those pieces in our displaycases today. We did this in a mine nearBingham, New Mexico, as the guests ofthe mine owner. He also found a spec-

tacular pocket that day and I insistedthat Gail was his “good luck charm”,hoping that he would invite us backagain. He did.

TP: How many specimens do youhave in your collection? How are theyorganized?

Collector interview:Gail and Jim Spann (USA)

Gail and Jim Spann, collector couplefrom Texas, USA, who built a world classcollection in 8 years.

Living room looking more like a museumin Gail and Jim’s house. G. Spann photo.

Jim and Gail with their first specimen ofrhodochrosite which began their adven-ture with minerals. C. Hurley photo.

Beryl var. aquamarine with great etchingfigures; 15.2 cm high. Medina mine,Minas Gerais, Brazil. G. and J. Spann collection. J. Scovil photo.

Showcases in Spann’s house. G. Spannphoto.

Beryl var. heliodore; 12.9 cm high. Volodarsk Volynskii, Zhytomyr, Ukraine. G. and J. Spann collection. J. Scovilphoto.

Rhodochrosite with quartz; 14.7 cm wide.Sweet Home mine, Colorado, USA. G.and J. Spann collection. J. Scovil photo.

Scheelite on muscovite; 21 cm wide. Mt. Xuebaoding, Sichuan, China. G. and J. Spann collection. J. Scovil photo.

16 C O L L E C T O R I N T E R V I E W M I N E R A L S I S S U E # 5

GS: We have over 6,800 specimens, all very much appreciated. They are organized, right now, as locality cabinets.We move our minerals around to enjoy

them in different settings. At this pointwe have 32 large cabinets (including 6 double-wides) and more are on theway.

JS: We like to display our collection bygeographic region or country. I have

been painstakingly cataloging our col-lection from inception to capture asmuch information as possible about eachpiece. Since we are worldwide collectorsof all specimen sizes, we are able to mon-itor what we have from each country orspecies and to determine what we needto round out various mineral or localitysuites. This also allows us to track whatwe paid for a piece and whether we needto “average down” our cost per item orto gloat when we have underpaid for apiece!

TP: Which specimen do you considerto be your best?

GS: I just love so many of them, but forme I would say it is a rhodochrosite withfluorite, quartz and pyrite called the“Wutong Princess”. It resembles a largerose and I take joy every time I look at it,which is quite often!

JS: It is 23x17x18 cm, has bright redtranslucent flattened rhombohedralsharp-edged crystals up to 11x11x0.5cm, which are interlaced into a boxworkpattern. The obverse side has a largecluster of pale blue cuboctahedral trans-parent fluorite crystals up to 14 mmacross. It is the largest rhodochrositespecimen known to be in a private col-lection today from the Wutong mine inLiubao, China. Only the famous “Em-peror” and “Empress” pieces from Wu-tong are larger and better known.

I also have many favorites, but Ithink our best one is “an ugly black rock”from the classic locale of Alberoda,Schlema-Hartenstein District, Erzge-birge, Saxony, Germany. It is a largeheavy floater (9.7x6.5x6.0 cm), consist-ing entirely of very sharp-edged metallicdark gray pyrargyrite crystals, withhuge elongated hexagonal crystals up to20 mm across each face and smallstephanite. It is my favorite “hunk of sil-ver”.

TP: What kind of specimens are yourfavorites?

GS: I have a love of hematite, from Cum-bria to South Africa. I think many peopleknow I have a passion for hemimorphitefrom Mexico as well. Smithsonite fromall areas of the world, olmiite from N'Ch-waning mine, South Africa.

JS: I love ‘em all! I focus more on the details along with the associated miner-als and use our stereo microscope tostudy the cavities on nearly every speci-men. I even got a 38x33 cm azurite,cuprite and malachite plate “under thescope” and found some unusual pseudo-morphing that raised some curious paragenesis questions. I had a great time discussing the waffling crystalliza-

tion environment with the scientists.Rhodochrosites from around the globehave always appealed to me and man-ganese minerals generally. Scheelites,especially from China, and titanite andother titanium minerals are among myfavorites, as well.

TP: You have a lot of world-class spec-imens, but at the same time you alsohave many reference specimens, orjust curiosities. Apparently you arenot purely “trophy collectors”. Canyou explain your collecting philoso-phy? Why do you think that collectingmore than just top quality specimenshas value?

GS: We are true mineral collectors. Wesee the value of every mineral we have,from the common to the uncommon.

JS: We see beauty in all forms, whetherit be due to color, shape or combinationsof minerals. We also enjoy diversity and variety by incorporating geographyand different geologic environments into our collecting themes. I like to thinkthat our collection can appeal to manydifferent categories of reviewers, rang-ing from the casual non-collector to thetrophy hunter to the hard-core scientistto the ‘cut and rough’ gem collector to

the species or locality collector and evento the thumbnail collector. People thatsee our collection will quickly notice thatwe have very esoteric tastes as well and like to add novel or distinctive piecesto the collection. We have been quietlyexpanding our rarities suite, too. Manyof our earlier “reference” pieces havebeen retained to help educate our children and grand-children about thevagaries of mineral resources and geog-raphy. They are systematically beingpassed down into their collections astime passes.

Cut (0.62 ct) and rough haüyne. Eifel, Germany. G. and J. Spann collection. J. Scovil photo.

Favorite specimen of Jim – pyrargyritefrom Schlema, Germany; 9.7 cm high. G. Spann photo.

Native gold, 6.2 cm wide. Eagles NestMine, California, USA. G. and J. Spanncollection. J. Scovil photo.

One of the world best and biggest rhodochrosite specimen, known as “WutongPrincess”, 23 cm wide with the biggest crystal 11 cm long! Wutong, Guangxi, China. G. and J. Spann collection. B. Swoboda photo.

Gail playing with her favorite specimen,one of the world best rhodochrosite. De-tailed photo on the right. J. Spann photo.

One of many Spann showcases in theirhouse. G. Spann photo.

One of many Spann showcases in theirhouse. G. Spann photo.

Grossular, 2 cm wide. Lowell, Vermont,USA. G. and J. Spann collection. J. Sco-vil photo.

“Alien” fluorite, 7.8 cm tall. Erongo, Namibia. G. and J. Spann collection. J. Scovil photo.


TP: You are fairly new to collecting –have you noticed any changes in pric-ing or quality of specimens since join-ing this hobby?

GS: We have evolved as the market haschanged. Nothing seems drastic, butsince we only started 8 years ago it'sbeen fairly consistent with the quality ofthe minerals we see. There seems to be anever ending parade of wonderful min-

erals available, some bargains and someperhaps not such a bargain. This iswhere we have to decide if we say “nothanks”.

JS: Quality has held up well during our tenure, especially as older collec-tions have been recycled back into the market. We are hearing more fre-quently that high quality new material is getting harder to obtain, which should-n’t be a surprise given the advances in mechanized mining and geopoliticaltensions around the world. When thatfact is combined with a surge in cus-tomers, especially at the higher qualityend of the hobby, it is not surprising to see that prices have continued to escalate and to bifurcate among marketprice levels. This is the one hobby that is practiced by all cultures around theworld. Thus, when local currencies areperceived as being devalued, then thereis a tendency to seek hard assets, likefine minerals, gems, silver and gold, that retain their relative value regard-less of “price”, as measured in papermoney.

TP: There are a lot of collectors thatprefer to stay private and don't cometo shows or publicly exhibit theirspecimens. You are different; open andextremely involved in the collectingcommunity. Is there some special rea-son for this?

GS: We believe that to grow the hobbyyou should educate people who knownothing about minerals. You shouldshare their provenance, beauty and sci-entific importance. We are very muchabout sharing our love of minerals.

JS: In addition, Gail and I are “party an-imals”. We love to visit with like-mindedcollectors that also bring different expe-riences and perspectives to our world.We have met more fascinating people inthe mineral world than we could haveimagined. It is quite exhilarating! Theycome from all walks of life, whether richor poor, famous or pedestrian, Asian, Eu-ropean, African, Latin or American, itdoes not matter. Fine mineral collectingis the ultimate “equalizer”.

TP: Does the fact that you are ''goodbuyers'' make your collecting diffi-cult?

GS: Not really. We find that people are re-ally pleased that we appreciate their in-volvement in the mineral world. Thereare a few dealers who have been verypushy, but we do not do business withthem. That's not how we like to do busi-ness. All in all we have become friendswith many collectors and dealers, min-ers and associates of the world of miner-als. We are very comfortable with beinggood buyers and hope to continue to be.

JS: I agree. We both have a “good eye”for quality and we prefer to deal withfolks that consistently have top qualityselections and who make us feel com-fortable while we spend time with them.Since time is the “scarcest resource” of all, it should be spent wisely. We do tryto keep track of pricing trends, which we temper by our own views on beautyand future value. Since Gail and I bothhave experience “doing the deal” (espe-cially in the oil and gas financial world),we find the transaction end of the hobbyto be a fun challenge. We have also con-firmed that “cash is king” and can oftenlead to deeper discounts. We find thatdealers that enjoy working with us andknow that they will get paid on time

Twinned phosphophyllite, 2.4 cm high.Unificada mine, Potosi, Bolivia. G. and J.Spann collection. J. Scovil photo.

Group of weloganite crystals, 5.2 cmhigh. Francon quarry, Canada. G. and J.Spann collection. J. Scovil photo.

Shelves with specimens exhibited inSpann’s house. Upper shelf with “blue-cap” tourmalines from California, USA;size up to 9.8 cm. Lower shelf with nativecopper specimens from Michigan; size upto 16 cm. USA. G. Spann photos.

Sperrylite on chalcopyrite, 3.2 cm high.Norilsk, Siberia, Russia. G. and J. Spanncollection. J. Scovil photo.

Rhodochrosite, 5.2 cm high. Sweet Homemine, Colorado, USA. G. and J. Spanncollection. J. Scovil photo.

Carrollite, 4.8 cm high. Kamoya, D. R.Congo. G. and J. Spann collection. J. Sco-vil photo.

Beryl var. aquamarine with quartz, 9.6 cmhigh. Erongo Mts, Namibia. G. and J.Spann collection. T. Spann photo.

Hemimorphite, 4.3 cm high. Santa Eula-lia, Chihuahua, Mexico. G. and J. Spanncollection. J. Scovil photo.

Chrysoberyl var. alexandrite photographed in daylight (left) and artificial light (right)showing great color change, size 2.7 cm. Malyshevo, Urals, Russia. G. and J. Spanncollection. J. Scovil photo.

Liroconite, 2.9 cm high. Wheal Gorland,Cornwall, UK. G. and J. Spann collection.J. Scovil photo.

C O L L E C T O R I N T E R V I E W M I N E R A L S I S S U E # 5

are more likely to bring a great piece to us first, which occasionally turns outto be a “world’s best”. We have severalnow, as a result, without having to chaseup “auction” prices to win them. Havinga good eye and knowledge can help inthat instance, so that we can step up con-fidently and feel good about the outcome.

TP: Do you sometimes feel over-whelmed by the dealers, do you seethat as a problem? Do you think thatthis might be the reason why so manyhigh-end collectors are so “private”?

GS: I can't answer for many other collec-tors, but have heard from a few that se-

curity is an issue, or being constantlybarraged by pushy people. I don't feeloverwhelmed, and I know Jim doesn't ei-ther. We are grown up enough to handleanyone that comes on too strong. Some-times you just have to tell people theyare too aggressive and they usually backoff. I think this is why being a couple in

the mineral market works well for us. Wehave each other to talk things over with,to bounce ideas off of or to vent aboutbothersome issues.

JS: Absolutely. As prices and values haveclimbed, so has the focus on security andprotecting what you own. We have con-sciously elected not to have a lot of goldand silver specimens for this reason. Welike to spread around our mineral acqui-sitions among a large number of dealers,which can often lead to disappointmentwhen we run out of time or money at ashow. I do wish that we were not in sucha transparent “fish bowl” at times, whichcan lead to bickering and ill-will amongthe dealers.

TP: You are actively involved in the collecting community, organizingevents, supporting projects, etc. Gail

is very active on-line as a photogra-pher and contributor to several forums. Why do you do that? So few people have the desire, let alonefind the time to do something morethan just collect – why are you differ-ent?

Rhodochrosite with pyrite, 10 cm high.Mexico. G. and J. Spann collection. J.Budd photo.

Pyromorphite from Bunker Hill, Idaho,USA. 10 cm high. G. Spann photo.

Smithsonite, 3.9 cm high. Tsumeb, Nami-bia. G. and J. Spann collection. J. Scovilphoto.

Polybasite, 4.6 cm wide. Husky mine,Yukon, Canada. G. and J. Spann collec-tion. J. Scovil photo.

Superb huge aquamarine and feldsparspecimen from Shigar, Pakistan. Size30x19 cm. G. Spann photo.

Fluorite with muscovite from from Gilgit,Pakistan. Size 12.4 cm. G. Spann photo.

918


GS: I ask myself that often. Why are wedifferent? The mineral world is ourhobby, our place to enjoy good friends,good minerals and we want to see morepeople enjoy what we enjoy. I also knowthat you need to be involved if you wantto see something continue, or to changethings. You cannot rely on others tomake things happen because they needhelp too. It was John Veevaert's show re-ports that inspired me to do mine. I justcouldn't get enough of his photos andwrite ups, so I started the “Gail Spannshow reports” for others who can't get tothem, who can live the experiencethrough my photos and quips. The manythank you notes I get make it reallyworthwhile. We should all contributeback to the community.

JS:We are both high energy people thatare always looking for the next adven-ture or new experience. We only have somuch time on this earth, so we want tolive it to the fullest. Gail is gifted in manyways and her photographing “peoplehaving fun” is one of her talents. She isthe consummate “organizer” and likes tomake things happen. Gail is constantlythinking about interesting new projectsand about how to share our experienceswith others as encouragement for themto try it themselves. We both have signif-icant conflicting demands on our time(building my business and her bicyclingadvocacy), so we work as a team to man-age the stresses and temper the con-flicts.

TP: Tell us about any mineralogicalprojects in which you are involved.

GS: I am the current coordinator for the Mineralogical Association of Dallas(MAD) and this is my second time to doso. I am a Moderator on Mindat.org forthe Women's forum as well as a Manager.I am active in the Friends of Minerals

Forum (FMF) and moderate a number ofthe threads. I am about to do some in-terviews for publications and have beenasked to be a guest speaker for the Tuc-son Gem and Mineral show, along withJim, for 2013 and 2014. I sit on the advi-sory board of the Perot Museum of Na-ture and Science and Jim and I serve onthe Mineral Hall committee. We aremajor donors to the Museum as well.

JS: I support Gail’s activities and I amproud of what she does for the commu-nity. We jointly assembled a competitioncase in 2008 and won the Paul DesautelsTrophy at the Tucson Gem & MineralShow, which we are considering doingagain. We also provided numerous spec-imens for the American Treasures andArizona Treasures exhibits in 2008 and2011. We are going to be long-term con-tributors of specimens to the China min-

eral exhibit at the University of Arizonamuseum next year. We are sending agroup of minerals to the Africa exhibitionat the Munich Show this November by in-vitation. We have agreed to a long termloan of numerous top quality specimensto the new Perot Museum of Nature andScience in Dallas, Texas that will beopening in December, 2012.

TP: The collecting “disease” hasspread within your family. Your sonphotographs and sells minerals, does

Bastnäsite-Ce, 2.2 cm high. Trimouns,France. G. and J. Spann collection. J.Budd photo.

Smithsonite, 3.8 cm high. Tsumeb, Nami-bia. G. and J. Spann collection. J. Scovilphoto.

Epidote with hairy byssolite, 7.3 cm wide. Knappenwand, Salzburg, Austria. G. and J.Spann collection. J. Scovil photo.

Cyclic twin of chrysoberyl, 3.4 cm wide.Itagua˜u, Espírito Santo, Brazil. G. and J.Spann collection. J. Scovil photo.

Baryte, 11.4 cm wide. Frizington, Cum-bria, UK. G. and J. Spann collection. J.Scovil photo.

Fluorite with aquamarine, 22 cm high!Chumar Bakhoor, Hunza Valley, Pakistan.G. and J. Spann collection. J. Scovilphoto.

Rhodochrosite with manganite, 4.8 cm wide. N’Chwaning II mine, RSA. G. and J.Spann collection. J. Scovil photo.

20 C O L L E C T O R I N T E R V I E W M I N E R A L S I S S U E # 5

he also collect? Is this a competitionfor you, or do you get parental firstpick in lieu of cutting him out of anyinheritance?

GS: Oh boy, these are tough questions!Ha ha! We are thrilled our son is active inthe mineral world. He is an excellentphotographer and he has a very smallcollection. Mostly he sells minerals. Wedon't believe in family competition, so noworries there! So far, he is safe in the in-heritance department as long as he be-haves himself and keeps bringing hislovely wife and gorgeous children aroundto see us once in a while!!!!

Our three other children are appre-ciative of minerals and they have a nicecollection as well.

JS: I prefer to call it the collecting “gene”that you either have at birth or not. It

runs in the family. Gail and I both had itlong before we met (for example, wewere both collectors of bicycles and ourcombined “collection” is well over 40bikes!). I am proud of our son, Tom’s, in-terest in minerals, dealing and photog-raphy. He caught the bug by studying ourcollection early on and it appears thathis children also have the collecting de-sire, as well. Tom will often point out aspecial piece for us to consider acquir-ing, since most of his capital goes intobuilding his business rather than into hiscollection.

TP: In the history of collecting therehave been, and still are, very few

women. In recent years you are one ofvery few women actively involved inminerals. Why do think this is a maledominated hobby?

GS: It's hard to go back and figure it outas much of the domination simply bafflesme, but I do believe anything scientificwas aimed at men, by men. The societieswere all male and women were simplynot expected to be a part of it. Evenseven years ago I found a lot of pushback when I would roam around on myown.

JS: In addition, many male dealers justdon’t know how to talk to women or howto create a non-threatening environment.(Two burly men in dirty tee-shirts scowl-ing at the door is not an invitation toenter.) They often assume that womenare not informed. As Gail’s partner I wasable to help her through some roughspots, which kept her from giving up onthis hobby more than once. I have alsoseen that certain men will try to beratewomen if they are less knowledgeable,rather than try to inform them, espe-cially if they are opinionated as well.

TP: Is it a patriarchal/sexist familymodel that hobby/collecting is onlyboys' domain – “playing with rocksand dirt is not for women”?

GS: Oh, some of that might be true, butyou have to be a person who "gets it"whether male or female. As you know, I"get it". I think with the Earth Sciencesbeing taught in schools that there are nogender boundaries.

JS: In our community I have noticed a lotmore young girls expressing an interestin mineral collecting than young boys.Not sure why, but there has been a grow-ing number of enthusiastic young womenthat are being encouraged by their par-ents to develop their knowledge and

skills. Gail and I try to reinforce an in-terest in mineral collecting among theyounger folks, regardless of gender, andalways try to send-off young visitors witha mineral sampler.

TP: Or, in your opinion, is there a psy-chological difference between manand woman?

Liddicoatite, 12.5 cm wide. Minh Tien mine, Luc Yen, Vietnam. G. and J. Spann collec-tion. J. Scovil photo.

Chromian uvite, 2.4 cm high. Arusha,Tanzania. G. and J. Spann collection. J.Scovil photo.

Hematite and ettringite on calcite, 6.5 cmwide. N’Chwaning II mine, RSA. G. and J.Spann collection. T. Spann photo.

Silver, 12.4 cm high. Kongsberg, Norway. G. and J. Spann collection. J. Scovil photo.

Chalcocite, 4.5 cm high.Bristol, Connecticut, USA. G. and J.Spann collection. J. Scovil photo.

Benitoite with joaquinite and neptunite, 7.1 cm wide. Benitoite Gem mine, California, USA. G. and J. Spann collection. J. Scovil photo.

Bastnäsite-Ce cut and rough, specimen2.9 cm wide, cutstone 1.2 cm wide. ZagiMountain, Hammedabad, Pakistan. G.and J. Spann collection. J. Scovil photo.


GS: Oh now that's a loaded question! I think the proper question should be isthere a psychological difference betweencollectors and non-collectors. Some peo-

ple are born to collect, I know I was. Minerals are just another “passion forcollecting” episode in my life. It allstarted with dolls from around the world

and I have never slowed down. With Jimit was stamps and baseball cards. We arelifelong collectors.

JS: I think that it is more sociologicalthan psychological. There are manywomen ranked among the top mineralo-gists in the world who are greatly respected for their knowledge and con-tributions to science (as an example, thenext lead author in Dana’s prestigiousManual of Mineral Science text book se-ries will likely be a highly respectedwoman, who co-authored the 23rd edi-tion). Women who are encouraged topursue their mineralogical or geological

aptitudes can excel in the field just aswell as the men.

TP: There are many female art collec-tors, why not female collectors of nat-ural art?

GS: I owned and operated an art gallerymost of my life. Art is everywhere, in peo-ple's homes, offices, on T.V. and we teachit in schools. Natural Minerals are notseen everywhere. People don't know thatyou can own minerals, they think theyare just in museums. We need to let peo-ple know that you can actually buy min-erals to bring home. When we "package"

the desire to own minerals for theirbeauty, their rarity, their value…just asin art, we will finally reach the multi-tudes of women who will see the joy ofowning such amazing minerals.

JS:Well said. One way that we have dis-covered to kindle that interest in womenis through “cut and rough” gemstone andmineral crystal displays. We often havemale collectors visit our home with theirspouse, who is often disinterested untilshe sees the beauty of the gems and re-alizes that their genesis is a mineralcrystal. Before you know it, she is look-ing through the mineral cabinets for another gem beauty and is asking ques-tions about the minerals and suddenly“gets it”. It never fails.

TP: Do you see any parallel betweenthat problem and a lack of collectorsin certain cultures?

Cuprite, malachite, 8 cm high. Emke mine, Onganja, Namibia. G. and J. Spann collec-tion. J. Scovil photo.

Topaz with quartz and albite, 17 cm high.Gaoligong Mts, Yunnan, China. G. and J.Spann collection. J. Scovil photo.

Wulfenite, 5.8 cm high. Helena mine, Me-zica, Slovenia. G. and J. Spann collection.J. Scovil photo.

Rhodochrosite, 4.3 cm high. Uchuccha-cua mine, Lima, Peru. G. and J. Spanncollection. J. Scovil photo.

Cubanite, 1.8 cm wide. Chibougamau,Quebec, Canada. G. and J. Spann collec-tion. J. Scovil photo.

Whewellite, 2.5 cm high. Dalnegorsk, Pri-morye, Russia. G. and J. Spann collection.

Shigaite with rhodochrosite, 2.2 cm high.Wessels mine, RSA. G. and J. Spann col-lection. J. Scovil photo.

Twinned cerusite from Tsumeb, Namibia.13.3 cm wide. G. and J. Spann collection.G. Spann photo.

GS: I really don't have enough experi-ence to know the answer to this, but Isuppose the money spent on anythingthat doesn't feed, or clothe, or offer a roofover the head might not be readily avail-able for such things.

JS: I had to chuckle, because that is thesame complaint I hear from male collec-tors in the USA that tell me about howoften their spouse objects to a new ac-quisition! It may be less cultural andmore disposable income oriented, withpriorities driving the issue.

TP: Any thoughts on how to expandthe hobby to include both genders?

GS:We should do more to show how min-erals are part of the home. We should ad-vertise that minerals are like art, andwhen minerals are sold they should

come with a story. People like to show offtheir knowledge on a beautiful piece ofart hanging on the wall, why not a min-eral in a cabinet? Many of the ads in pub-lications show a wonderful mineral justsitting there, well photographed, butalien to being in a household. Why not

show that mineral in someone's livingroom, or study? It brings the idea thatminerals are integrated into the decora-tion of someone's home. This, as far as Iknow, has never been done before. For-give me if I am wrong.

JS: Sometimes male collectors are theirown worst enemy. Gail wrote a rather hu-morous article a few years ago thatlisted the top ten things that a man

should never do if he wants his wife tolike minerals. One example was to neverput a flat full of dirty rocks wrapped intoilet paper on her spotless kitchencounter! In hind-sight, these are obviouspoints, but most men don’t consider theconsequences of these actions.

TP: What are your plans for the fu-ture? Are there any thoughts of chang-ing your collecting focus?

GS: Plans… hmmm. I know I plan tokeep collecting for as long as possible. I take such joy in each piece we add. I think it is natural for people to changetheir collecting focus over many years, it keeps the collecting fun and special.We'll just have to see where we go fromhere.

JS: We have accumulated more speci-mens than we have room to display, evenafter our house expansion project that is

under-way. Gail keeps talking aboutwanting a 5-inch gap between specimensin our cabinets, rather than the ½-inchpresently! We plan to sort through ourminerals and to either trade more withdealers or to sell them via our son’s min-eral business (MineralMasterpiece.com).He has developed a good clientele thatappreciates fine minerals and perhapsthey would enjoy them as much as wehave.

GS: I would love to go to the ConnecticutValley to collect in the area I grew up in.I would like to go to Namibia also.

TP: Thank you for the interview, at the end I wish you many great ad-ditions to your collection, excitingcollecting trips, and many great mo-ments with all your mineral friends.

C O L L E C T O R I N T E R V I E W M I N E R A L S I S S U E # 5

Crystallized gold from the Round Mountain mine, Nevada, USA. Size 5 cm. Miner’s Lunchbox specimen. J. Callen photo.

Miner ’s LunchboxR. Scott Werschky, www.minerslunchbox.com

5655 Riggins Court, Suite 15, Reno, Nevada 89502, USA

tel: +1 (775) 829-6881;e-mail: [email protected]

Specializing in high qualityspecimens for the discerning

collector, with extra focus oncrystalline and nugget goldfrom world-wide localities.

22

Kutnohorite on doubly twinned calcite,4.6 cm high. Wessels mine, RSA. G. andJ. Spann collection. J. Scovil photo.

Fluorite, 4.3 cm high. Aguille Verte, Mt.Blanc massif, France. G. and J. Spann col-lection. J. Scovil photo.

Tourmaline from the famous Jonas mine,Brazil; 4.5 cm high. G. and J. Spann col-lection. J. Scovil photo.

Celestine, 9.4 cm high. Sakoany, Maha-janga, Madagascar. G. and J. Spann col-lection. J. Scovil photo.

23A D SI S S U E # 5 M I N E R A L S

The biggest mineral

event in Eastern Europe

Special exhibit "Colorful world of the copperminerals", mineral fair, agate cutting,

private collections, slideshows, lectures,agate field trips, concerts and many others !

Organising office: Cultural Centre of Lwówek Âlàski e-mail: [email protected], www.lla.lwowekslaski.pl

XVI Lwówek Agate Summer

Crys ta l Days12-14 July 2013

Lwówek Âlàski, Poland

Find us at the mineral shows, on the inter net , or in the f ie ld !

We travel around the world to bring you

great specimens directly from the mines !

Tom (Spirifer Minerals) with self collected specimen in Rogerley, UK.

Erythrite, Bou Azer, Morocco. J. Scovil photo.

Vanadynite pocket, Mibladen, Morocco. J. Gajowniczek photo.

www.SpiriferMinerals.com

Spirifer Minerals (Poland)www.spiriferminerals.come-mail: [email protected]. +48 507 038 876

Beryls from Volodarsk Volynskii, Ukraine. M. Bieƒkowska photo.

Minerals-5

Documents

high tourmaline queen

localitythe tourmaline

tourmaline queenmine

fine tourmaline crystals

thetourmaline queen

si s s u e

e c t o r s n e w s

famous bluecaps