How the Lithothek came into being – told by Manfred Seitz
It was at the Munich Mineralientage in 1999. Our working group was running its own stand for the second year. A gentleman spoke to me and introduced himself as Klaus Fleck. The name meant nothing to me at first. He said he had been in the mineral trade and wanted to withdraw from that business. At home he still had an extensive stock of goods left over from the mail-order trade in systematic minerals. As he wanted to free up his private rooms, he saw only two possibilities for this material: throw it away or give it away. I recommended the second – and ourselves as those who would gladly accept the donation. Two weeks after the end of the show, I set off with Andy Steinberger, a collector friend from our group, to collect the specimens.
The quantity of material exceeded all our expectations. We had to drive twice between Heimstetten and Pullach, and each time we loaded an estate car and a VW bus with flats full of carefully boxed, identified and labelled little specimens. There must have been 30,000 little boxes altogether, about 1,500 different mineral species from localities all over the world – trivial minerals and downright rarities, aesthetic material as well as systematic specimens that must not be judged by their beauty. The slatted cellar storeroom in my second flat was full; you could barely still open the door.
A few days later was our next group evening. I put two questions up for discussion: at the fair we had made modest takings from selling donated little specimens – what should we do with this money? And: what should we do with the material we had stacked in my cellar in the days before?
As so often, the answers were far more complicated than expected. The longer the discussion lasted, the more clearly the following considerations emerged: such a stock of minerals is an excellent starting point for building up a reference collection along systematic lines. If one wants to build up such a collection, funds are needed for it – the money taken at the fair could finance it without our having to go “begging”. All of us have micromount collections at home, many of them of a very high standard, often with pieces of unique quality or from exhausted localities. Each of us will one day stop collecting, and only a few have someone who takes an interest in the collection with love and expertise; so there is a danger that these irreplaceable little specimens will end up in the rubbish. One could therefore use the group’s own reference collection to preserve such collections, at least with their representative and best pieces. The pieces not needed, as far as they are transferred to the group, could be sold at the fair; the proceeds would serve long-term financing, and these pieces, too, would remain in the hands of knowledgeable collectors. And last but not least, the donors themselves, with their personalities and collecting achievements, can be preserved in such a collection.
In several “brainstorming sessions” all the pros and cons were discussed. To many questions we found no answer at first. But the most important ones were settled: many of us were enthusiastic about the idea, we had a stock of minerals, we had funds that were sufficient at least for the start, and in my second flat, the “Stufenheim”, we had a room in which we could work together and keep the collection.
Despite all the unanswered questions, we began work on our reference collection. The Lithothek was born. We know that this is a project that will never be finished – and see that as an advantage. A group is recognised by its shared activities and projects. At a time when everyone thinks more and more only of themselves, the start of such a joint project seemed to us more than sensible.
In a first phase of work we sorted the whole “Fleck material” into little heaps, each of one mineral from a single locality. From each heap the two best specimens were set aside for the future Lithothek. The rest was halved: the better half went to sale at the next fair, the other was distributed among interested group members. In this way my cellar storeroom emptied again by the Munich Mineralientage of 2000.
Our Lithothek grows and grows, and we think with great joy of its true initiator, Klaus Fleck.
Obituary
Klaus Fleck died on 29 November 2015 after a long illness borne with patience. We will always remember him.