In his own words
My interest in minerals was awakened as a teenager in the early 1970s, because my father, Hans Erich Bluth, was a keen collector. It began with the usual collecting and swapping of hand specimens from localities around Frankfurt. When space in the cellar eventually ran out, new ways had to be found. Through the VFMG Frankfurt I made my first contacts with micromounters – a “hobby within the hobby” that came from the USA and was not yet widespread in Germany at the time. So my father and I were among the few micromounters in the Rhine-Main area, and we built up an extensive collection.
Collecting was interrupted by the opportunity to dig for fossils in the Messel oil-shale pit in 1974 and 1975. My father and I could not resist the “gold-rush atmosphere” among the amateurs and found some beautiful pieces. Together with other amateurs we developed the “transfer method” for conserving the Messel fossils, long before they passed into professional hands.
In 1976 I began to study mining at TU Clausthal, then went into my career and no longer had so much time for micromounting. My father continued the collection until the 1980s. After his sudden death in 1999 I took over the collection “head over heels” from the estate. Only now, after retiring, do I again have the time and leisure to look after the collection.
The collection contains a good 5,000 individual specimens with around 1,130 different mineral species from localities worldwide, housed in a micromount cabinet with about 60 drawers. In the meantime I have donated a good number of micromounts from it to the Lithothek; as I work through my collection, further pieces will follow.
As well as pieces from my own collection, I also photograph specimens for the Lithothek. Since November 2023 I have used a Panasonic Lumix DC-FZ1000 II with focus bracketing for this; for stacking I use Helicon Focus. I would like to enrich the Lithothek with contributions of my own by going through my collection and adding minerals, fossils or localities that have not yet been recorded. I am also glad to get in touch with other collectors to exchange information.