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Where Has Mineral Collecting Gone?
By Sam Nasser
Field collecting seems to be disappearing as an amateur hobby. What will be it's future? As more and more collecting areas and mine sites are absorbed by the current federal administration's natural resources policies, collecting may become limited to minerals sales and shows.
The majority of new minerals are coming to the market through professional mineral miner/dealers such as The Collectors Edge in Colorado or the Haucks in New Jersey. This is not to say that professional collecting is bad, as these folks are preserving sites and minerals that might otherwise would be lost through government interference or nature's infidelities. However, the costs of professional mining may be one of the factors that put the hobby beyond the reach of beginners and average collectors.
The prices of minerals, even common Quartz, is escalating at an alarming rate. Where will the hobby be in the next decade if domestic resources dry
up and all supply has to come from foreign mines? Foreign mining is subject to unstable governments and local economies.
After W.W.II, the hobby was wide open to GI's returning home and looking for an outlet for their energies. There were many less government restrictions, and many mines that had been producing strategic metals were closed or in decline, offering a great collecting opportunities. Over the next 20 years, collecting in these localities became more and more difficult. Only those with the financial resources have been able to put together the manpower and equipment to produce minerals of any quantity and quality. The time for the amateur collector seems to have past. It is no longer likely that an individual might go out on a weekend and expect to come home with a flat or several flats of high quality minerals. It is on rare occasion that a
collector can find minerals of quality on their own. Mineral collecting in the field has become a professional business due to all of the environmental
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and other government restrictions and interference. Mineral clubs and other earth science organizations should work together to preserve some of the
historical mines and collecting sites through the claim process or outright purchase of the sites, as the various gold prospecting clubs have done.
Mineral collecting clubs should be a able to preserve mines and collecting sites for use by their members and guests. If some type of action is not
pursued, the federal and state governments will close off most of the areas where collecting has been possible. A good example is the Escalante
Staircase National Monument Park. Recently, a group of collectors was caught digging selenites in this area an prosecuted. Here in Central Arizona is the Bloody Basin National Monument /Wilderness. I was not aware of the ruins in this area until they were shown on TV. This is the area where the Piedmont mine is located, as well as a number of other mineral and gold localities.
This is real. Our Eastern politicians and those wayward, confused politicians in Washington, in particular, those from Arizona, wish to close off all Western lands to prospecting and mineral exploration. It is up to everyone involved in this hobby to put an halt to this disturbing process or there will be nowhere to pick up a rock.
There is an organization that is dedicated to preserving our right to mine and collect minerals and fossils. It is the American Lands Access Association. They need support as they try to get Congress to understand our rights to collect and preserve our mining and mineral heritage. You can contact them by e-mail through jonspe@pacifier.com or Sen Bob Cranston at cranston@gj.net. Their web site is at:
http://www.collectors-mall.com/ALAA/
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