Mineral Auction Experiences

Unknown Mineral to me sold for $190 (11x3")

With winter firmly entrenched over the Rocky Mountains and temperatures dropping down to -35F in the mountain valleys, I decided to go rock hounding at a local auction house. While the auction itself was on the internet, the minerals were available for viewing locally. The pictures of the minerals displayed on the Internet site were for the most part poorly depicted. Some of the pictures were pixelated when zoomed in on, viewing angles of the minerals were not taken to best show off the specimens and nearly all specimens had only a single picture taken. I decided to go to the small-time auction house and check the minerals for myself. While I intended to get a better look at the crystals there were side bonuses of noting some minerals were misidentified, other minerals had tags with them that weren't mentioned on the internet site. Old price tags are helpful as well. With camera and magnifying glass in hand I closely checked out the minerals. Many unidentified minerals were easily identified as Wulfenite, Citrine, Barite and Pyromorphite. One piece of botryoidal fluorite had a Collector's Edge tag that stated it was fluorite (botryoidal), found in a mine in China and sold for over $100, ten years ago. I turned over a specimen of Wulfenite and found it was from the Red Cloud mine in AZ and sold some time ago for $145. Still yet another specimen had a price tag from 2003 identifying it as Citrine from the Ural Mountains and originally sold for $80. I picked up each one of these minerals for about $20. One consideration when buying from an auction house was the surcharge and state taxes. If the specimens had been properly identified with a little more care I'm sure I would have had to pay much more. It definitely pays to check out small-time auction houses for items they are probably are not used to dealing with. Bargains can be had, treasures enjoyed and profits made. Prior to bidding on any of the specimens I did some homework on the internet and found similar specimens. This allowed me to corroborate mineral types as well as suggested retail prices before putting in any bids. While a few desirable specimens got away from me, the minerals I purchased should easily garner a 400-500% profit for me when I decide to sell them. Below are a few specimens from the internet auction.
 

Wulfenite

Amethyst

Citrine from the Ural Mountains

Fossils in the Pierre Shale of Colorado Springs

I'm not sure fossils have a place in a rock hounding blog, but I guess they are rocks after all.  Today was too nice to sit home (55F) and study, so I decided to try my hand at finding baculites (late Cretaceous) and anything else preserved in the Pierre shale see:(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Shale). As I recall from High School Latin class the word for stick is Baculum. My magister threatened me with a baculum or made me bring crustula the next day if I got the answer wrong in Latin class. Latin must be the origin of the naming convention for baculites as they are long slender stick-like fossils. I have found baculites in outcrops of shale along Fountain Creek before, and having not visiting this favorite site for over a year I decided to give it a try. I have a couple sites that I let erosion do the work and I just stop by once a year hoping to collect some fossils. The creek is usually quite low this time of year, so I can get access to spots that are otherwise difficult. The particular shale cliff I visited today faces west and north. The west side is dry and crumbly but the north side is moist and almost impossible to get anything out of the shale whole(shady and wet). As I approached the site I noticed someone had been busy tearing down the shale. A fellow fossil hunter left me a nice metal sign post to do some tearing down of my own. Care must be taken when peeling back the shale so as not to bury yourself.  This particular site had an overhang of about 15 feet, so I used some care so that I wouldn't become one of the resident fossils. Not all of the shale has fossils, but this particular spot seems quite fossiliferous. Despite others working the area, I soon found a prize in the shale wall about 9 feet off the ground. I used the metal sign post that someone else left and helped myself. I used to gather a few of these specimens every time I visited this site and then put one or two up for silent auction at our club meetings. When nice 75M year old specimens enclosed in their original nacre sold for less than $5 I decided I'd rather keep the fossils than let them go for that cheap. A friend of mine has gone to Baculite Mesa NE of Pueblo, but he has never found any baculites with the nacre shell still in place. In past years I've found Jeletzkytes here as well. Cleaning the baculites is always a dance between getting rid of the dirt to see the nacre and sutures for identification and preserving the nacre, as it is very crumbly. Here are my pictures of today's hunt.

Geese enjoying a warm December day

Baculite fresh out of the Pierre Shale, about 7 inches in length

Cleaned baculite with nacre

A Jeletzkyte encased in Pierre Shale

Not sure what this is, maybe a coral or worm burrow

Another Jeletzkyte, not sure of exact name

Shells and other oddities found in the Pierre Shale

End of Year Rockhounding at Lake George

Having not found much lately I decided to redig a hole someone else had worked a few years ago. I talked to the claim owner about the hole and he had no recollection of digging it. After digging out the old hole I noticed there was considerable quartz in the pegmatite wall in front of me as well as shards of quartz in the bottom of the dig. After not digging too long I began finding big quartz crystals. Unfortunately all of the crystals were covered or shrouded with a veil of quartz. While most of the specimens were covered in lumpy quartz overgrowth, a few just had a brownish rusty sheen (keepers). I supposed it is iron enriched quartz. Below are a few pictures of me digging. My digging buddy thought he would use these pictures as blackmail in how not to dig a hole, but I survived the experience. I wasn't too concerned as the surrounding pegmatite, was quite firm, at least after a few bangs with a crack hammer it appeared to be stable. I think I'll call this my "Waste of Time" pocket. It showed real promise, but the crystals were not really collectible. Maybe the guy who worked the pocket prior to me knew when to quit. Evidently I don't know when to quit! The frost is slowing me down, so this may be my last entry for 2012 unless I go petrified wood hunting.

Where my hardhat and miner's light?

Going in for the kill, I dug this out about 6 feet down

Time to pull out the crystals

This is the best I found, too bad the smoky is covered in a coat of reddish quartz

This one has white and reddish quartz over the smokys

Talk to you all again next year.

Onegite at Lake George

Onegite is somewhat of a misnomer. Onegite was a name given to a mineral when in fact it is a specimen composed of quartz and goethite needles. Originally described from Lake Onega, Wolf Island, Karelia Republic, Northern Region, Russia. We still use the name Onegite locally instead of saying quartz with goethite inclusions. The onegite varies in color from near black, brown, yellow (citrine) and purple(amethyst). I believe this color change is primarily caused by the amount of goethite needles imbedded in the quartz. Last week I made another prospecting trip to Lake George in search of crystals and stumbled on a pocket of smoky quartz and onegite. Unfortunately many of the smoky quartz have a mottled appearance and are spot covered in additional quartz coating. The onegite are however somewhat unusual and the nicest I've ever found. I've shown smaller specimens to old timers who were quite impressed. These onegite handily beat those. Studying the crystals I believe the onegite and goethite balls formed after the original pocket was formed. Much of the goethite with onegite crystals seems to have formed around existing smoky quartz crystals.

Close up of Onegite

Large grouping of onegite on goethite

Onegite on matrix with goethite

Onegite crystal mass

Largest onegite crystal found about the size of a nickel

I should add the smokys from this pocket cleaned up fairly well

Quartz crystals also found, dig is in lower left

Microcline In The Lake George Intrusive Area

When I prospect the area north and east of Lake George I'm normally either looking for amazonite, fluorite or smoky quartz crystals. One of the indicators I use to know I'm onto something is microcline. I figure if there is microcline crystals present, then I'm probably rooting around in a pegmatite that might also produce quartz crystals or other desirable specimens. Normally I leave the microcline at the dig. While they are crystals, they are rather plain when compared to their brilliant blue/green cousins amazonite. When I'm having a slow day prospecting, I might take home an occasional well-formed microcline specimen. Last month I was digging out some fairly nice smokys when I hit some microcline crystals. These microcline crystals were rather odd in shape, so I dug them up, pursuing them 6 feet into the ground and took them home and cleaned them up. While cleaning I noticed they were twins. I knew they were both manebach and bevino twins. The easiest way to detect twins is to look for V-shaped reentrys between crystals. You can also detect cross hatched banding on the crystal faces indicating where one crystals starts and the other leaves off. I didn't think a lot about the crystals, but took them to my mentor, Ray Berry, who has been digging out pegmatites for over 40 years. Ray likes odd things and these seemed out of the ordinary to me. Ray was quite impressed with the crystals. Ray thought some of the microcline crystals might be double or even triple twins. He told me a feldspar collector would kill for these, so I decided not include my home address in this blog ;-)

Bevino and Manebach (V reentry on bottom)

V-Reentry clearly visible with Bevino hanging off side

Bevino twin on lower right, albite on left side

Lake George Smokys and more

Since it is a rainy day today I thought I might catch up on my blog. I had a fairly nice find on 31Aug with crystal extraction and cleaning continuing til today. I was prospecting north of Lake George and found some quartz fragments with faces. Looking around for any recent digs, I did find one but it was below the float quartz I was finding. After a few shovel fulls of dirt, I started finding small but gemmy crystals. These smaller crystals also had albite and/or cleavelandite (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albite) around the bases of the crystals attached to the pegmatite. I also found some grainy fluorite pieces. Some of the crystals also had small phenakite (see http://www.reference.com/browse/phenakite+?s=b) Phenakite is Greek for deceiving. I guess it can be mistaken for quartz or topaz. As I dug down through reddish dirt the crystals become more frequent with considerable quartz shards. I finally hit some firm quartz about 4 feet down and followed this for a few feet til I hit some plates pictured below. While the plate came out in pieces it is still quite a find (at least for me). Since I found these plates on 31 Aug, the second full moon of the month (colloquially described as a blue moon) I will henceforth describe this find as my blue-moon pocket. Perhaps you only find something this nice once in a blue moon. Next blue moon won't occur til 2015. Hope I find more nice specimens before that ;-)

A sign of good things to come a very nice chubby crystal

Carefully scrapping dirt away reveals the beginning of a nice plate

Blue Moon plate washed and ready for reconstruction and further cleaning

Cleaned and stable, needs a little more TLC

Crystals reattached and cleaned.

Extracted these crystals for later reconstruction

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Crytals with albite or cleavelandite near bases

Phenakite on smoky

Smoky Quartz at Lake George

This year has been a poor one for collecting crystals at Lake George. The Waldo Canyon fire, Lake George fire and continuous temperatures in the 90s have made it difficult to prospect this summer. Persistence is a desired quality when rock hounding. The difficulty lies when persistence becomes stubborness. I believe I went through a period of stubborness in July. I thought there were crystals present in a certain area due to quartz float, but just couldn't find the source. I finally decided/reasoned that the source of the quartz was eroded away and I was able to move on after a month of looking for crystals in one area. Now that I've moved on, and temperatures have cooled a little, my prospecting is ranging further and I'm once again finding crystals. The other day I stumbled on 3 pockets of crystals in one day.  One pocket had amazonite and smokys, but the amazonite was very pale. The second pocket had small plates of quartz crystals which were very small. Finally in the 3rd pocket I hit paydirt. Though not the desirable smokys with amazonite, the smokys are sizable with good luster and sharp form.

Nice chubby smoky with side crystal attached

15+cm Nice luster, biggest smoky I've ever found

15cm of smoky bliss