In his own words
In 1974 I took a holiday on Elba with my family. On outings one could find beautiful green and golden “stones” again and again. There were more and more of them. By now I knew: green is malachite, greenish-blue is chrysocolla and golden is pyrite. Everything had to fit into this scheme.
Sometimes a lorry driver would stop us and pull a lump of ore with pyrite out from under his seat. Naturally I bought them. One thing I particularly remember is a Vespa rider who offered us bluish pieces of “pisanite” wrapped in damp newspaper. I had no idea that this was chalcanthite. In our holiday flat my sister-in-law washed her pieces under the tap – good heavens, how quickly they were gone! I was more careful with mine; I still have smaller pieces, by now somewhat discoloured. That is how it all began.
In the first years everything was collected indiscriminately; it only had to be big and beautiful! Heavily laden and somewhat poorer we came home from the Munich Mineralientage every year. We also brought material home from nearer and farther afield. Looking back, a lot of it was just rubble.
It went as it does for many others: the display areas became too small, everything crammed together and therefore unaesthetic. It could not go on like that. In effect the only alternative left was to join the “fuzzelite” collectors I had hitherto smiled at, and become a micromounter. That was in the early 1980s. That is not to say, of course, that I spurn a larger specimen or trim it until it fits into a little box! But it has to be self-collected. Actually nothing is bought any more, except occasionally single micromounts for information or to round off a deposit.
My only worry was the future of my many large and small specimens. It was clear that my son had no interest in them. On the horizon appeared the bogeyman: skip or flea market. Thank goodness my proposal of a “society Lithothek” found supporters, and since then working with minerals has been fun again: the beloved little stones are not thrown out and will have a new home.