WHY I COLLECT
by Chris Wright

*

Many people have asked why I collect minerals. Minerals to me are more than just objects- they are gentle souls that ease my pain through their beauty and symmetry; they are lovers by their passionate colors and soaring shapes that seize my heart and soul; but most of all, they are friends that have come home when I obtain a specimen. I, like the Indians, feel that minerals are part of the "earth force" and have a spirit of their own. Metaphysical, perhaps, but I am 53 and is impossible for me to remember not being drawn to or collecting minerals.

Do they have value? In the thirty years that I have been in business and the fifty-two years that I have collected, I have seen specimens that I purchased for $10.00 sold for $15,000 twenty-five years later. This is one of the reasons that I have such a large inventory.

To pursue the elusive specimen takes us over 600,000 miles a year. It is more than a business, it is a quest. A quest to find the new, the old, the beautiful, the rare, the good buy, and the rapidly vanishing hoard. It has been more difficult this year than any other to find "good" minerals. Fewer people are mining and even less areas are producing. The great mines of Tsumeb, Illinois, Bisbee, Kongsberg--gone..... memories with just occasional friends being seen.

Then one day, your heart stops; you can't breathe; your throat constricts. You've just found a mineral never before seen by human eyes. Your very own find-new-beautiful. Being able to field collect is another major reason that I love minerals. There are few things that you can find in nature that can be kept and collected. A spectacular sunrise, mountain vistas, glorious deserts, and sparkling lakes can be enjoyed, but not taken home--minerals can.

That is why I collect and deal. It is a passion, a life force, and almost a biological urge for me. Minerals resonate internally with my soul, my very being, and I love to see the same light in others.

 

---

Web design by Chris Hughes - crhughes@yahoo.com