FMF - Friends of Minerals Forum, discussion and message board

[James Catmur]

So what is the rarest mineral? ( https://www.mineral-forum.com/message-board/viewtopic.php?t=1324 )

James

[alfredo]

James, there are a few accepted mineral species whose actual existence in nature is doubted, so I guess those would all be tied as the "rarest" ;))

Apart from those, there are several that exist only as single microscopic grains, so no chance for a collector to get any.

But before anyone goes out and spends a thousand $$$ on a tiny grain of some extremely rare species, remember that rarity status can be temporary, and an extremely rare mineral can suddenly become common. One example: the tourmaline species povondraite, which for more than a decade existed only as one polished probe mount in a museum until I went to the type locality and spent several days hunting for more, eventually filling a whole flat with povondraite.

Conversely, something can get rarer than it was before. "Aramayoite" was thought to come from several counries... until most of it turned out to be the new species baumstarkite, leaving aramayoite as very rare again.

This is what makes collecting rare species rather exciting, like gambling or playing Wall Street... When considering how much to pay for a species, you have to try guessing whether it will get rarer or more common in future. ;))

[Peter Megaw]

As you point out Alfredo, this is a race to the bottom that no-one can ever win and unlikely to be a satisfying collecting strategy for long. Unlike having the only surviving example of a stamp or coin, a revist to a type locality, or a new find in a different place that resets the bar (Tombstone Utahite for example) can put you way back in the pack very quickly.

Interesting to consider if "Desautels Law" = "the best usually comes out first so get the best you can from the first find" operate here as well? For flashy species It is easy to point to the high-profile cases where the first was totally overwhelmed by later finds (cavansite would be a wildly true example) but the flashes in the pan (szenicsite, buergerite, etc) are much more the normal state of affairs.

Rarities have much more limited demand, but even in the case of your povondraite, does a flats worth swamp the world market and make the species no longer rare? It is true that many species/rarities collectors do not upgrade when better material appears...once the box in Fleischer is checked off there seems little reason to revisit..and conversely, I suspect most do not dispose of a species when it ceases to be rare.

Does the fact that most rarity/species collectors are "serious" mineralogists rather than trophy hunters factor in here as well? Or are their ideas of what qualifies as a trophy just different?

For serious species collectors does the market really matter?

More fundamentally, does market value really have anything to do with