Massive Find - Storage Auction Buyer

[Nicklion]

Recently got in contact with a guy that buys storage units and ended up picking up a set of over 100 rocks wrapped in newspaper from the 80s.
My wife and I are amateur rock collectors, and we couldn't pass this up.
The really cool thing about this collection is it seems to have belonged to a museum curator and there is all kinds of information written down on little cards. The information is dated but there is some really interesting stuff in there. The cards are obviously old.
One card reads 40oz silver in calcite
Another reads "vanadinite - fine specimen, this is one of the 10 best specimens in the world (about 4th or 5th) value $2000"
And there are tons of other cards.
Some specimens are pretty small and others probably weigh about 30+lbs
The collection was in such a horrid mess that we ended up reorganizing it into Tupperware boxes.
Next point of order is to start matching all the rocks to the cards we can find for them.
Anyhow, figured I would share some of the collection here and the progress of organizing it and putting it all in order.
Ill be posting a lot of pics of rocks through the process... not sure how many we may not have information for.

 

Amazon Forum Fav 👍

A History of Mining on the Kenai Peninsula, Alaska - Grab it through Amazon!

[Kray Gelder]

Nice hoard of mineral specimens. Congrats!

 

[vpnavy]

1st - I noticed this was your very first post - so, Welcome Aboard Nicklion! You didn't list your state (or country) in your profile. So, you might consider jumping over to Sub-Forum: Select Your Area.... for information (i.e., clubs, hunts, finds, legends, maps, etc.) directly related to your state (or country).

2nd - Great score! Thanks for sharing...

 

[fuss]

Was there a name on of the collector on any of the labels by chance?

 

[Red-Coat]

Looks like it will be fun researching those. Looks more like a lovingly assembled rockhounder's collection than museum stuff though.

The magnificent vanadinite specimen came from Gary Hansen of Hansen Minerals. The business wasn't established until 1971, but Gary was a well-known collector before that:

https://mineralogicalrecord.com/labels.asp?colid=1713

 

[Nicklion]

Awesome! thanks for the advice. I collect a lot of different treasure so will be happy to share with the forums now that Im finally on here!

 

[Nicklion]

Yes, and there were a few other business cards from places like the smithsonian in there. We called around a bunch and ended up figuring out her name is Jean Ruth Pitts and she was chairman to the Florida Panhandle Gem & Mineral Society in the 70s i believe.

 

[Nicklion]

Yes, it took an insane amount of time just to carefully remove the collection and cards from the old cardboard/newspaper it was in. Looks much better now. Unfortunately, due to the way everything was packed a handful of specimens we are but dust.

And yes, thanks for the link to Mr.Hansen's site! Love that almost all the cards in this collection have who they were purchased from or where they were collected- gonna equal out to a whole lot more "digging" on my end. lol... lame joke i know.

 

[Red-Coat]

You may find biographical and other details about the sources for some of your specimens at the link below. Well-known collectors and mineral suppliers are listed alphabetically by surname in the drop-down box at the top:

https://mineralogicalrecord.com/labelarchive.asp

They entries also include a pictorial record of label types known to have been used by particular collectors/suppliers, but unfortunately you can't search the records unless you already know the name.