About Toni Wieland
Toni Wieland was a collector friend of the Munich Micromounters group to whom we owe a number of guided tours and the answers to many specialist questions. We knew him as “Zeolite Toni”, which says everything about his special field.
Toni was born in Bonn in 1936 and lived in Troisdorf. He was married and had been retired for some years. When we asked how he had come to collecting, he wrote, short and to the point: “In my school days, c. 1950–53, through the geography teacher Sehmer and Professor von Philipsborn in Bonn.”
What collecting meant to him, he answered in three key points: broadening his knowledge, a leisure activity (by now!) and passing on experience of collecting in the field and of geological and chemical-physical relationships.
He listed his approach to collecting as follows: zeolites, above all in the form of hand specimens; Eifel minerals and minerals of volcanic origin; systematics in the form of micromounts.
Obituary by Manfred Seitz
In the spring of 2007 Toni fell seriously ill. He dealt with his illness in an admirable way, led us on a collecting excursion through the Eifel, visited us at the Mineralientage and spent the time that remained to him very positively and actively. At the end of January 2008 he phoned me to say goodbye. On 1 February 2008 he died at home, surrounded by his family. We have lost a good friend.