[Rockhounds] How San Benito County, California, became ground zero for a rare gemstone

Tue Jul 20 13:49:42 PDT 2021

The Collins dictionary mentions several meanings of the term 'rare';

1. ADJECTIVE
Something that is rare is not common and is therefore interesting or valuable.
Synonyms: priceless, special, unusual, out of the ordinary
2. ADJECTIVE
An event or situation that is rare does not occur very often.
Synonyms: uncommon, unusual, exceptional, out of the ordinary
3. ADJECTIVE [ADJECTIVE noun]
You use rare to emphasize an extremely good or remarkable quality.
Synonyms: superb, great [informal], fine, excellent 
4. ADJECTIVE
Meat that is rare is cooked very lightly so that the inside is still red.

Option 4 is probably not what was meant here :>)))

My conclusion:  the term 'rare' is so ill-defined, that you can use it to your own liking. What is rare to one collector, may not be rare at all to another.
What's more: a rare specimen may not be rare eternally. In the seventies I have known a Flemish collector who bought a loose boleite crystal of 7-8 mm (at that time a real rarity) without matrix for (at that time!) 8000 BEF (about 200 EUR, or 220 USD); at that time that was almost half of a month's salary. A few years later I had a lot of boleite crystals of 5-7 mm at... 1 euro each. The term 'rare' is IMHO indeed very relative.

Regards to all,

Rik Dillen
rik.dillen at skynet.be
Mineralogische Kring Antwerpen - www.minerant.org
Lid worden van de MKA ?  www.minerant.org/MKA/lidworden.html
MINERANT 2021 - ATTENTION : NEW DATE!
25-26 September 2021 - Antwerp Expo

-----Original Message-----
From: Rockhounds <rockhounds-bounces at rockhounds.drizzle.com> On Behalf Of Doug Bank
Sent: Tuesday, July 20, 2021 21:54
To: Rockhounds at drizzle.com: A mailing list for rock and gem collectors <rockhounds at rockhounds.drizzle.com>
Subject: Re: [Rockhounds] How San Benito County, California, became ground zero for a rare gemstone

Herwig,

I respectfully disagree with you. Let me argue it backwards. 

If benitoite, which is only really found in 2-3 locations in the entire world, is classified as “fairly limited distribution”, that implies that for something to be rare, it has to be at fewer than 2-3 places in the world. That doesn’t leave much room for extremely rare… 

When Rob Lavinsky or any other dealer says something is rare, I take that with a grain of salt. But if there are multiple terms for rarity, then they have to have objective definitions to be useful. I do not think that saying that only items from a single location can be extremely rare or rare gives much wiggle room and isn’t helpful. 

What would you say for charoite? Is it rare? What about tanzanite?  I see them all the time, so I wouldn’t think so, but they really only come from one site/regional locality on the planet, so they do strike me as being rare in the evolution of minerals on Earth. 

To pick on Rob a bit more I looked at the latest MineralAuctions and find the word rare used, well, not rarely…

Morganite is listed as rare, but it looks to me like there are hundreds of localities on all continents. 
Cookeite is listed as rare, but seems to be found in even more locations than morganite. 
Schorl with Cleavelandite is listed as rare, which just seems silly. I’ve got a couple specimens that I got for free!
Calcite!!! that fluoresces from Ohio is called rare. In this case, the specimen isn’t even that fluorescent, but fluorescent calcite is hardly rare no matter how you spin it. 
Faden Quartz is listed as rare from Arkansas. Quartz certainly isn’t rare there, but is faden quartz? 
Tourmaline is listed as coming from a rare locale. What does THAT mean? If I look at that mine, almost all the pictures are of tourmaline, so why is it rare? 
Turquoise is listed as being RARE from Arizona. REALLY? How do they write that with a straight face? There are ~40 localities for it in Arizona. How is that rare?
Magnetite! is listed as being rare from California. Mindat wont even show me how many places it is found, but it is listed as being found in 17,794 localities. How can it be rare anywhere?
Colemanite - this one is also called a rare locale, and it might actually be correct since it is on National Park Land and no one can actually extract any more. But is it really rare? doubtful. 

Forget Rob, what about my own specimens? 

Tunisite? 5 localities listed. Seems rare to me, but it is on 3 continents. Fairly limited? bah. 
Lobanovite? There are at least 6 localities, but they are all within 30 km of each other… Zdenĕkite? 4 localities, plus the name has funny characters in it. Seems pretty rare. 
Shkatulkalite? 2 localities. Have we reached extremely rare yet? 
What about Chlorophoenicite? It is only found at Franklin/Sterling Hill, and it is pretty hard to find even there. Is that extremely rare, because I have 5 specimens of it… Just because I can buy it doesn’t mean it isn’t rare. What about esperite? It was really only found in one spot in the Franklin Mine, but again, if you want it, it is out there to buy. 

I guess my point is that when dealers say something is rare, it probably isn’t. But when *you* say it is rare, it is probably restricted to a single place and isn’t common at that place. I personally don’t think that either definition is particularly useful. (Although if someone can call calcite rare, and they aren’t talking about a moon rock, I don’t think I trust them) I agree that esperite and chlorophoenicite are rare, possibly even extremely rare, but I still think the others I listed are rare in the grand scheme of things. 

Doug

> On Jul 20, 2021, at 11:52 AM, Herwig Pelckmans <herwig.pelckmans at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Dear Andrew,
> Thank you for sharing your point of view.
> There are not many books that indicate if a mineral is to be 
> considered "rare" or not. One that I know is "The Complete Mineral 
> Index for Collectors", printed by Lapis (first edition in 2015). They 
> use x = fairly limited distribution, xx = rare, and xxx = extremely rare.
> If you know of others, please let me know.
> 
> Regarding benitoite, I'm afraid I have to disagree. Check the locality 
> list on Mindat: https://www.mindat.org/min-624.html#autoanchor23
> More specifically, in San Benito County, benitoite used to be common 
> at the type locality. Meanwhile, that locality has been collected & 
> mined for a long time and extensively, so most likely benitoite is a 
> rare find there and now. But at the other Mine you mentioned, it can 
> still be found today, by all who go there, because it's almost 
> everywhere (I've been there a few times myself).
> So contrary to what certain people (dealers?) might want to make you 
> think, benitoite is a common mineral there. Consequently, IMHO you can 
> not call it rare on a locality basis, and considering the number of 
> specimens found to date, neither on a worldwide basis. I would call 
> the status of benitoite as "fairly limited in distribution", even though the Lapis book has it as xx.
> 
> More in general, I think it is better practice to specify why 
> something is being called "rare". If one only takes into account the 
> number of specimens known for a mineral species, that is a whole 
> different approach than saying "calcite is rare at that locality" 
> because it is the wrong geologic setting for calcite. I fully agree a 
> statement like "calcite is extremely rare at this location" is valid.
> 
> I assume we all agree that minerals only known by one specimen; are to 
> be considered extremely rare in any way.
> On a worldwide basis, at what number of specimens a mineral changes 
> status from extremely rare to rare, and from rare to a "fairly limited 
> distribution", and further down to "common", is something that is open 
> for discussion, of course.
> Cheers, Herwig
> 
> 
> 
> Op di 20 jul. 2021 om 16:23 schreef Andrew Turner <turnea55 at hotmail.com>:
> 
>> Typically, when mineral collectors discuss something being "rare," 
>> they are referring to the mineral only being found in very few 
>> locations or being found in several locations but not being very common at any of them.
>> 
>> In both instances, benitoite would be considered rare.  It is only 
>> found really at 3 locations, the Benitoite Mine, an adjacent mine 
>> (where it is very rare), and an abstract locality in Japan where it 
>> is very small.  Even at the Benitoite Mine it is rather difficult to 
>> find (I've collected at the
>> mine) and the mine is small.  So, yes, many mineral collectors have a 
>> specimen from there, but it is essentially a one locality mineral which
>> makes it rare.   This isn't much different than red beryl which is found in
>> 3 locations in the Thomas Range, 2-3 locations in the Wah Wah 
>> Mountains to the south, and an abstract NM location.  Taaffeite would 
>> fall into the other category, it is found in several locations but 
>> exceedingly rare to find at any of them.  In all those cases, it is 
>> different than something like Okanoganite or Tiptopite which are not 
>> only one locality minerals, but they are exceptionally rare even at that one location.
>> 
>> Oftentimes, collectors also call something rare if it is a fairly 
>> common mineral but phenomenal specimens are only found in 1-2 
>> locations.  I have heard adamite from the Ojuela Mine referred to as 
>> being rare.  Adamite is found in many arsenic bearing lead and silver 
>> deposits, but the specimens from Ojuela are probably the best in the 
>> world.  Only other place that is even close to that quality is Gold 
>> Hill, UT.  So, yes, you can collect adamite everywhere, but nothing of the quality of the Mexican pieces.
>> 
>> Andrew Turner
>> Salt Lake City, UT
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> ________________________________
>> From: Rockhounds <rockhounds-bounces at rockhounds.drizzle.com> on 
>> behalf of Herwig Pelckmans <herwig.pelckmans at gmail.com>
>> Sent: Monday, July 19, 2021 8:20 PM
>> To: Rockhounds at drizzle.com: A mailing list for rock and gem 
>> collectors < rockhounds at rockhounds.drizzle.com>
>> Subject: Re: [Rockhounds] How San Benito County, California, became 
>> ground zero for a rare gemstone
>> 
>> Talking about exaggerated ... benitoite being one of the rarest 
>> minerals on earth?
>> Most mineral collectors have at least one specimen in their 
>> collections, so I would not call that rare!
>> 
>> On the other hand, it was neat to see that old newspaper clip 
>> advertising the newly found gemstone!
>> Cheers, Herwig
>> 
>> Op di 20 jul. 2021 om 05:00 schreef Paul <etchplain at att.net>:
>> 
>>> How San Benito County became ground zero for a rare gemstone 
>>> Published 07/17/2021 BenitoLink Reporter, Robert Eliason
>>> 
>>> 
>> https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fbeni
>> tolink.com%2Fhow-san-benito-county-became-ground-zero-for-a-rare-gems
>> tone%2F&data=04%7C01%7C%7C51f6213deabf41618af308d94b2d7898%7C84df
>> 9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C637623480937397284%7CUnknown%7
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>> EJ0M%3D&reserved=0
>>> 
>>> A chance discovery in 1907 yielded a unique precious mineral; now 
>>> the public can go look for samples on Saturdays.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> Yours,
>>> 
>>> Paul H.
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