Collecting & Investing in Fine Minerals

Fine minerals are specimens of naturally crys-tallized beauty that mesmerize those of us who collect them. They are regarded for every reason that a fine Rodin sculpture might be: provenance, condition, context and rarity. These are beyond mere 'scientific objects' to be put on a shelf and they are millions of years old.

- BY DR. ROBERT LAVINSKY

TRACING THE HISTORY OF MINERAL VALUE

The shocking reality is that they exist at all to enjoy given the rigors of survival. In the days of the Europe-an Royalty's 'Grand Tours' around the Continent, fine mineral specimens were gifted as a matter of course, between educated members of the royal class. Cabinets of 'natural curiosities' were in many palaces of the palaces of the times, and some even survive to the present. The Archduke Stephan von Habsburg-Lothringen (1817-1867) was one of the greatest collectors of all time. In the early 1900s, the action in the mineral collecting world shifted to the United States, following the energy and dynamism of technology and new wealth. Notables such as Thomas Edison, Andrew Carnegie, and J.P. Morgan (the gemstone ‘Morganite’ was named in his honor) were among the top collectors of the early 1900s, spending millions in inflation-adjusted dollars. J.P. Morgan's collection still forms the core of the American Museum of Natural History in NYC to this day. However, after his donation, the era of fine minerals and the appreciation of these treasures of nature withered.