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Volume 4 Issue 7

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Talks are scheduled from Thursday evening through Sunday morning.  When there is no lecture, the dealers’ rooms are open for purchasing minerals.  Dealers are not allowed to have their rooms open during the presentations (most of them are listening to the talks anyway).  This does make for late nights, however to look at all the minerals and discuss minerals with collectors, dealers and professional mineralogists.

 The symposium began in 1974 with presentations from many well-known figures of the mineral world.  Mineral museum curators, mineral dealers, professional mineralogists and mineral collectors all have given talks.  For example in the past few years talks have been given by: Dr. George Robinson (Seeman Mineral Museum), Dr. Carl Francis (Harvard Mineralogical Museum), Dr. William Simmons (University of New Orleans), Bryan Lees (Collector’s Edge Minerals),  Dudley Blauwet (Mountain Minerals International), Ernie Schlichter, Bob Whitmore and Dr. Frederico Pezzotta (Natural History Museum, Milan, Italy) to name a few.

 In addition on Friday there is a good part of the day used for contributed papers in mineralogy.  These presentations are 15 minutes long and are given on many topics including recent discoveries, mineral investigations, localities and the like.  Presenters here can be from professional mineralogists, collectors and students of mineralogy.  Members of the Capital Mineral Club have established with Dr. Joseph Mandarino, a cash prize awarded to the best presentation from a mineralogy student. Saturday Morning is reserved for “What’s New in Minerals.” This is a fine slide presentation by Jeff Scovil of what has shown up on the mineral market for the past year.  It includes new discoveries and new production from mines and mineral localities as well as occasional classics that have shown up on the market from old collections.

 Saturday night features the Symposium Banquet and Auction.  The auction has two parts: a silent auction and live auction.  The live auction can be very spirited with much rivalry to acquire certain items.  People are bidding against each other and sometimes can’t even figure out who they are bidding against.  On occasion it has been known that, unbeknownst to the “victim”, an item has found its way into the auction and the owner had to win the bid to get it back.  It’s all in great fun and the proceeds help to support the Symposium.

 After the talks on Sunday morning it is time to pack up and go home and get ready for field collecting.

Mineral Clubs - Meeting Dates

Saco Valley Gem and Mineral Club : 3^rd Thursday of each month at the Albany, NH Town Hall – 7:00 PM

Keene:  1^st Saturday of each month at Keene State College, Bldg. 18, Keene, NH – 7:00 PM

Nashua:  Last Wednesday of each month at the Nashua public Library, Court St., Nashua, NH in the downstairs Theater Room – 7:00 PM

North Shore (MA):  3^rd Friday of each month, St. Paul Episcopal Church, Washington  St., Peabody, MA – 7:30 PM

Boston Mineral Club:  1^st Tuesday of each month, Harvard University Geological Lecture Hall, 24 Oxford St., Cambridge, MA – 7:30 PM

Southeastern NH Mineral Club:  2^nd Wednesday of each month, St John’s Methodist Church, 28 Cataract Ave., Dover, NH – 7:00 PM