In his own words
My first mineral – I had neither looked for it nor found it myself – was handed to me for analysis in Stuttgart in the spring of 1962, on the day of the practical examination in “special analysis” for the state examination as a chemical technician, my first profession. A few milligrams of an opaque white powder that could not be brought into solution by wet-chemical analysis through the entire classical separation procedure. That meant: after many hours of work, nothing found! The white powder kept its secret to itself as an insoluble residue in the filter. So “fire and brimstone” were called for: ignited in a platinum crucible, then a bath in dilute caustic soda, to which hydrochloric acid was then added (Freiberg decomposition). And then, at last, the proof of magnesium as magnesium ammonium phosphate crystals under the microscope. The test mineral was unambiguously pure dolomite – and so, in a special way, it became my first find of my own at the same time!
From time to time I give lectures on topics concerning materials and substances in connection with the New Testament. My contribution “Apokalyptische Geologie – Die 12 Edelsteine des Himmlischen Jerusalem” (“Apocalyptic geology – the twelve gemstones of the Heavenly Jerusalem”) appeared in the anthology “Ich sah den Himmel aufgetan – Wege zur Apokalypse” (Verlag Urachhaus, ISBN 3-8251-7529-4).
My most frequent collecting partner is my wife, who cultivates her own collecting style, proves a considerable source of support on all our excursions, and to whom I owe a number of fine finds. Since 2010 we have both been happily involved in the micromounter group of the Münchener Mineralienfreunde.
For many years we photographed micromounts through our Zeiss stereo microscope, in analogue and digital, with increasingly unsatisfactory results. After futile attempts to acquire a used Leica Wild M420 macroscope for photography, we decided in 2012 on a Leica Z6 APO A photomacroscope, which has been integrated into a StackUnit by Rainer Ernst (Stonemaster) since 2015. I manage the collection, the images and the literature in a FileMaker database that I programmed myself.