In his own words
Well, how did the boy come to collecting? To be honest, I can’t remember exactly any more. I think several factors came into play at the same time: reading the book “Die Micromounter” by A. Kipfer, visiting a few mineral fairs in Duisburg and Oberhausen, and first curious examinations of the siliceous gravel outside our front door at the time and at a civil-engineering site near Velbert – with the very first puny and stunted quartz crystals, but quartz crystals all the same! All of this, of course, with only a hand lens.
I had married in 1976. Collecting began around the early 1980s. It took about two and a half years until I had saved up the money for a stereo microscope. But at the fairs of those days it was still quite possible to buy a really good micromount specimen for 20 pfennigs. Some time later I could afford a three-armed fibre-optic cold-light lamp by Schott as well.
The stock was built up mainly by buying micromounts and by swapping with other collectors at home and abroad; excursions of my own played a far smaller part. That was due on the one hand to lack of time because of work, and on the other to what I then saw as limited access to dumps. Apart from a few coal-spoil heaps in the Ruhr area and some holidays in the Black Forest, on which I visited the Kaiserstuhl and of course the Grube Clara, there were never any excursions. Even so, the fascination was great every time. Even when nothing was found: the hours of an early Sunday morning, alone on a dump, always gave me an indescribable feeling of happiness.
The second, highly productive possibility is swapping with other collectors. Today (2005) the internet offers such an abundance of ways to make contact that one could call it paradise. Around 1983 that was by no means the case. If I remember rightly, there was an “International Board of Micromounters”, a printed list of members that you had to buy. Over time, excellent swapping friendships developed, most of which lasted many years. My oldest swapping friend lives in Sun City, Arizona, and has just turned 90. Both of us always had very high standards of quality. I never swapped by the rule of “one for one”, and my friend didn’t either, and that is precisely why we found time and again: the more you give away, the richer you become.
What fascinates me about collecting is the aesthetic beauty of the specimens. During the first years I collected everything beautiful that came my way. In 1985 I then decided to concentrate on the following mineral species: gold, silver, copper, cuprite, proustite, dioptase, pyrargyrite, bournonite, azurite and chalcotrichite as a variety of cuprite.
The motto “small but beautiful” always suited me better than large formats. Looking at a new, still unknown specimen under the microscope is like stepping into an unknown landscape and wandering through it. I never really cared about mounting my specimens. The usual fixing with putty in the box was always enough for me.
At the end of the 1980s, together with my cousin, an enthusiastic amateur photographer, I tried to photograph a few of my specimens through the microscope. That was laborious and expensive. The results were not bad, but did not in any way meet the high standards we had set ourselves beforehand. In the 1990s my hobby mostly lay dormant, because other interests had pushed in front of it: a trip by camper van through Canada, model helicopters, a pilot’s licence for ultralight aircraft and another camper-van trip, this time through New Zealand.
In 2003 I met my cousin again after many years; he had put some excellent pictures and useful tips on the internet. It did not take long before I had acquired a Nikon Coolpix 4500 and an eyepiece adapter and was happily photographing parts of my beauties.
In conclusion, I would like to express my gratitude to the Münchener Mineralienfreunde e. V. and here especially to Manfred Seitz and his micromounter group for creating the Lithothek. Here I know that the parts of my collection that were taken into the Lithothek are preserved for posterity. Personally, it means something like the preservation of a cultural asset in our so fast-moving times. I also have the certainty that one specimen or another will find appreciation from people who are really interested. In a museum with other emphases, where minerals play only an incidental role, that would certainly not be the case. I am sure that in a few years the Lithothek will be a very first address of reference for micromounters worldwide.
Addendum by Manfred Seitz
Our group had no direct contact with Klaus-Dieter Bausch. He had learned of the Lithothek through our society’s homepage and had spontaneously decided to take part in this undertaking. As leader of the micromounters I met him in person only once: when, in 2005, he flew to Munich at his own expense to give us a first part of his specimens together with the associated photographs. The “chemistry” was right from the first moment.
There were no further personal meetings, but we remained in constant contact in writing and by telephone. He wanted to hand over further specimens only after he had photographed them. Klaus-Dieter called himself an “order maniac”. After learning of his serious illness at the end of 2006, he used 2007 to put his affairs in order. In this context, in the middle of the year we received a large parcel with the rest of his collection. On 23 December 2007 he phoned me once more to say goodbye. He died on 26 December 2007.