Brand new week, brand new box of nitriles, more really old junk.
I'm going to start titling these threads "Bruner Collection" from now on. I figure I ought to give some credit to the stiff who collected all this junk in the first place.
Atrypa reticularis. Upper Helderburg Group. Devonian.
>>2155960
Underside.
There's a note in the box this came from that's been folded for so long it's sort of fused together. I can't get it open with tearing it, but from what I can read of it this was actually a gift to Mr. Bruner from a Mr. E.H. Raymour, who found it near Jeffersonville.
>>2155961
Hinge.
This fellow has been posted already, but I now have a species and locale: Calymene celebra, Dayton Ohio 1930.
>>2155985
Calymene niagarensis. Lockport NY. Silurian.
Never knew these things were carnivores.
I took this for a model when I first saw it, but the locality is listed as Silica, Ohio in the notes and I can't think of a reason to cast bits of trilobites instead of a whole animal, so I suppose its a genuine specimen that he just prepared the hell out of.
The label describes it as "Trilobites at play", which I must call BS on. One of the damn things is a head. Just a head. The rest of it is who knows where, and the other one is rolled up to protect itself, sitting there hoping that Anomalocaris or whatever was coming at it doesn't gobble it down like a crab puff. Neither one of these things was having fun when they got buried.
Please for the love of Neptune keep posting more. These are some of my favorite animals, and you really have me interested here.
Tell me anything that's on your mind
More or less fully intact phacops of unknown provenance. Note that though the last few segments on the ass end of fallen away, they left rather clear impressions on the matrix.
>>2156095
Glad you're enjoying yourself.
>>2156109
Head from a larger specimen of Phacops. These guys might be one of my favorite trilobites. The eyes are really cool, as is the whole "almost-perfect enrollment" thing.
"Niagrensis Canadens" (Doesn't seem to be a legitimate name anymore, these look like Calymene niagrensis to me). Keokuk, Iowa, collected 1925-1928.
>>2156134
This one looks like it had a rougher time of it.
Ammonite segment.
>>2156166
rather large crystals on both ends
>>2156171
Opalized baculites. Nebraska-Montana.
>>2156227
Also
Hickory hickory dock the girl was sucking my
Internal view of a cephalopod (baculites?) shell
Fossilized sand dollars.
Rhyncotrema capax. Richmond.
>>2156276
Side.
Spirifer bownockeri. Hamilton Shale-Devonian. Silica, Ohio. Collected 1933.
There's about a dozen of these in the drawer, this is the largest.
>>2156283
Side.
>>2156285
Back.
Anyone else sort of get the feeling that these things would have been delicious cooked in white wine with some pomme frites and aioli on the side? Maybe a little toasted baguette to soak up some of that broth?
>>2156286
This is labelled the same as the others, but it looks more like Mucrospirifer to me.
>>2156299
Wrapping up for the day with some crap you get in museum gift shops: a penny-sized sliced ammonite with druze in the cavities.
>>2156319
Super neat! Please come back tomorrow!
>>2156333
I hesitate to really put a schedule on this, but my approximate plan for both cataloging the whole collection and sharing the good stuff here will be Mon-Thursday, starting at around noon. The threads seem to fall off over the weekend pretty consistently, so we'll probably have a new one each week.
Here's one of my own specimens:
Death assemblage of Crassatella and Turritella, San Francisquito Conglomerate-Tertiary, Big Rock Creek Area, California. Based on the age of the formation and its location, the Crassatella might be meganosensis or uvasana, but I've been advised that the only way to tell for sure would be to get the tools out and start cutting, and I kind of like it the way it is.
>>2156413
Underside. Pretty good side-on view of a Turritella.
>>2156416
Another angle on the clam. You'll probably notice some gaps around the edges. The specimen was actually in two pieces along with a few fragments of shell when I found it (possibly related to the fact that I was literally standing on it a few seconds before I noticed it). I collected as much fossil material as I could and bound it back together, but the matrix that fills those gaps is either sitting in my map bag or still on the hillside out in Big Rock.
>>2156413
nice one.
I've always wanted to acid wash one of these death assemblages. I have a bunch of material laying around but haven't had the time to do the thing right.
Chiastolite. Madera Co. California. Collected 1934.
"From Geode Hill, Land of the Goblins-Worthen Jackson"
I have no idea where this Land of the Goblins might be but I can't very well refute its existence when I'm holding a piece of it.
Phenocryst-rich lava rock.
>>2156968
>>2156972
Large almandite garnet. Gore Mountain, New York.
Native asbestos. Quebec, Canada.
Don't breath in.
>>2157005
>>2157007
All three are chrysotile.
Crocidolite. Griguiland, West S. Africa.Collected 1931.
>>2157018
Moh's hardness scratch test kit assembled by Ward's Natural Science Establishment, Inc. of Rochester New York.
Last one for today.
Teleocrinus. Keokuk Iowa. Collected 1933.
Fluorite, Roseclaire(sic) Illinois.
This might have appreciated in value somewhat since he bought it. The mines in Rosiclare were the most productive fluorite producers in the country for a long time before Chinese imports edged them out of the market.
Daawww...
>>2158427
>>2158428
Tourmaline. Newry Maine.
Thanks anon, this is pretty great
Fluorite. Spring Mountain Mine, Harding Co. Illinois. Collected 1934.
Love the texture on this one.
Silica sinter, Yellowstone.
>>2158427
that's beautiful
>>2158468
>five men died to get this sample
Amazonite microcline, Pike's Peak.
Pink opalite conglomerate. Stauffer, Oregon.
I actually just googled Stauffer, it's a ghost town now, nearest inhabited town is about 50 miles away. Seems people are free to waltz right in as they please. Nearby Glass Butte is likely where the iridescent obsidian from the last thread came from.
>>2158481
I know a guy that mines rainbow obsidian from a claim near there and sells it on ebay. I think he does pretty good for a hobby miner. He doesn't tell anyone where his claim is exactly though.
Large turritella
>>2158495
That sounds pretty cool. I've thought about getting into hobby mining myself.
Another one from Leadville. Octahedral galena.
>>2158564
Damn, that's a nice piece.
Looks like maybe Black Cloud Mine.
>>2158564
Interesting texture on some of these.
>>2158579
yeah, our lead gets some interesting hopper faces.
it also forms a solid solution with silver in Leadville ores. The larger galena crystals have less silver admixture, the smaller ones have more. But you sometimes see a dark rainbow tarnish on our galena samples, presumably from the silver.
"Vertebral Centrums-These appear about the size of large fish vertebra-They were on a string of about 10, which had been used as a rattle by Indian dancers."
Botryoidal goethite. Cleveland mine, Ishpeming Michigan. Collected 1927.
>>2158590
looks like shark centra
>>2158620
e.g.
>Blue Groper
kek
"Optical Halite"
I'm puzzled by some of the stuff I see in here. I've encountered a few specimens already that have suffered from severe pyrite bloom, so this cabinet must have been in a humid environment for some time, yet this specimen has retained great clarity, and the chalcanthite specimens haven't been harmed much either.
>>2158636
that's nuts.
when you posted the chalcanthite I just kinda assumed there was some desiccant packed in there somewhere.
Coral from SW Kauai. This isn't that much to look at but its interesting for other reasons. One: it was collected in 1994. The man must have been ancient, but he was still running around looking for stuff to put in his cabinet.
>>2158662
Plus it was packaged in this. He wore bespoke shirts. Must have been flush with cash. That's how he could afford to traipse all over the world to build this collection.
>>2158667
Kukui nut shells from a lunch break he took on the same beach. He must have been REALLY excited to take that trip
Vein of opal. No locale listed.
Last for today. Tourmaline w/ a rather interesting texture. No locale listed.
>>2158581
I'm going to have to pay a visit to Leadville someday. Samples half as nice as these would be great to have in my collection
>>2158769
I had a nice silver/lead sample I found on the A.Y.-Minnie properties last year. A one inch cube with hopper faces that looked like black and purple bismuth. Just amazing. But like a few of my best rocks it seems to have disappeared.
it's possible I accidentally tossed it in the yard when I was trying to clean all the lead ores out of my living space- the back of the sample just looks like boring galena.
I have so many rocks around my house, garage, yard, and truck it's impossible to say though. If you know where to look there's some outstanding mineral specimens to collect here. I've had 30 years to learn where to look though. If you ever get up my way and I'm still lurking /an/ I'd love to give you a tour or at least a map to some of the better spots.
>>2158769
we have a couple silver pseudomorphs that aren't found anywhere else in the world, but not much hope of finding those on a mine dump. It'd be like winning the lottery. Could happen, probably won't.
a lot of what they mined here was almost solid metal, but they didn't throw a lot away. Well, except for the two major gold mines in the district. They were so rich they probably left a couple tons of gold on the dump just because they were only going after the richest part of the vein. I know several places where there's easily half a million dollars in gold sitting out on the surface. Not my property though.
>>2158769
Here's some of the more typical ores you're likely to find here. Silver, lead, pyrite, cerussite, chalcopyrite, and sphalerite.
Leadville mining district.
Mostly Black Cloud and Ibex properties. Cerussite from the Wolftone Mine.
>>2160223
>Cerussite from the Wolftone Mine.
for more detail, lenticular cerussite on Leadville blue limestone, jackstraw cerussite in jasperoid vugs, and cryptocrystalline cerussite with galena and silver.
All from Wolftone and surrounding properties. Wolftone and neighboring mines started off as silver mines during the initial Leadville boom and then found massive zinc ore bodies that sustained them through the depression years and past WWII. All were closed to production by the 1950's though when the price of metals dropped and the costs of pumping out the stopes rose.
None this week?
>>2162298
Took some time off for Independence Day. Let's get started.
(This is why I was hesitant to try and do a schedule for this. The second I laid it out I started deviating from it.)
buuump
Trio of calcite samples here, all from Lecanto Florida. He seems to have really valued these, each one is in its own padded box with a lid.
This first one I think is an example of what's called dogtooth spar habit.
>>2162628
Most of it is toothy, but there are some portions with interesting sprays of platy crystals.
I wish I could provide a better picture of it, the camera doesn't like this one.
Twinned, with secondary crystals.
>>2162639
End-on view of the twinning.
>>2162645
It's hollow inside. A 2-mineral stalactite whose interior has dissolved away?
Uhhh....
>>2162656
End-on view of the "flower", note the growth lines.
>>2162656
Penis or jeebus?
>>2162658
Pushed the contrast on this one so you can see the growth lines on the side better.
>>2162661
I honestly couldn't tell you what's going on with this one. Very much beyond the limit of my ignorance. It could be a hollowed out stalactite like the last one, but that cup structure has some sort of hopper thing going on I guess.
I live right near Claremont actually. There hasn't been a pharmacy at 1st and Yale for as long as I can remember.
>>2162734
Oh jeez, that's intense.
Why just the head? Why not preserve the whole thing?
Native copper, Grand Canyon.
Next up: assorted "fossil leaves" from Creede Colorado, all collected 1934.
Pine Cone
>>2162765
That one is in two pieces, but he affixed it to some stiff linen to hold it together. This one wasn't so lucky
>>2162767
Nor was this one, though it is a lovely impression.
>>2162771
>>2162778
Last one worth looking at. The thing on the left might be another pine cone, but I know nothing of paleobotany.
Chrysocolla. Very nice texture and color. My min prof would have called it "velvety".
>>2162783
Pretty.
>ywn have a collection like this
$50,000 prize to the first person to guess what these are.
Oh wait.
The note accompanying this DA is written in Bruner's illegible chicken scratch, but what I can make out is that the deep imprint is from a pelecypod, possibly Ostrea (an edible oyster), from the cretaceous period. Collected somewhere that starts with an A, sometime in 1939.
>>2162792
Found a letter underneath that one. Seems the fossils were collected by a student and sold to Mr. Bruner.
>>2162798
Now that I actually look at this one...
>>2162800
...I'm pretty embarrassed I didn't spot this little sawfly here. Thank god Allan specifically mentioned it.
Vanadanite, Glove Arizona.
>>2162801
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore_Dru_Alison_Cockerell
Dr. Cockerell seems to have quite a resume.
Think it's still good? The label looks pretty new.
Labradorite. Labrador Canada.
>>2162830
This one really shows good labradorescence.
>>2162658
>>2162647
The holes on these are very clearly artifacts of them being normal stalactites. I don't know why I came up with that overcomplicated explanation. I've had dissolving minerals on the brain since I found another rattlestone.
>>2162815
The scotch was indeed still good. That'll be all for today.
I have nothing beyond a passing interest in geology, archaeology, paleontology, and the like, but I must say that these are some of the most interesting threads I've found on 4chan. Fascinating stuff. Thank you for sharing.
>>2162834
I get a 40 year old bottle of that stuff every year for Christmas. It doesn't go bad.
that one lacks the red import stamp and seal though. Probably newer than ~1982.
>>2162842
Glad you're enjoying yourself.
>>2162863
After getting a mouthful of it I'm wondering why I don't drink more scotch. It's like a mouthful of the best parts of dried fruit, nuts, and smoked meat all at once.
Here's another ugly little rock from my personal collection. It is composed almost in whole of andradite variety garnet of various crystal sizes and degrees of euhedralness, formed when a basaltic dike cut into a body of dolomitic limestone. The limestone meta'd into garnet, the basalt into an epidote-rich metavolcanic. In this sample, you can still see some relict carbonate.
>>2162888
Secondary minerals found in the area include hematite (pictured) and sphalerite (couldn't find any). The "deposit" is not of a viable grade in the current economy, but during WWII, when it was get metal or die, the area was mined for both iron and zinc.
The area (White Mountains, California) is really quite pretty. As the garnet metacarbonates weather, the finer garnets deteriorate away, leaving behind a bright orange glittering sand composed of the coarser garnets
>>2162889
Piece of the aforementioned metabasalt. Note that here the hematite is in the form of a mass of coarse(ish) crystals, unlike the broken-off botryoid in the garnet.
>>2162896
Forgot the picture like a dope. It's been a long day.
>>2162815
Sure, it's only 12 years old
>>2156286
It does look yummy.
I've also wondered how anomalocaris would taste like. Predatory crustaceans are usually pretty delicious.
>>2162798
>I'm sending you some nice fossils
>Pay me $5
>>2163328
I imagine that was alot of money back then.
Pottery Fragment. From Bruner's notes: "Dec. 1925. From the ruins of Old Panama, destroyed by the pirate Henry Morgan."
You know that guy on the spiced rum bottle? He was real, and he was a real bastard apparently.
Top.
>>2163340
Side
>>2163341
Underside.
Bird feathers in volcanic ash. Creede Colorado. Gotta figure that this is also part of
>>2162798
collection and that they're all associated with the even that formed the Creede Caldera.
>>2163347
There was also another insect in the same box. This one doesn't look like a sawfly to me.
Dendrites in sandstone.
>>2163355
Opposite side.
>>2163355
mmmm, pyrolusite
>>2163347
this would seem to be a rare item I think since iirc the fossils of the Creede Formation are in lacustrine limestone and the ash is confined to extreme-temperature flow deposits. I think the views on the geology of the caldera have changed quite a bit in the last century though.
>>2163359
Well, it's exactly what it says on the tin.
>>2163340
yeah I did the math, it was about $75 in 1935.
>>2163365
based on gold prices it would've been about $194. Gold was at $35 then so $5 would buy 1/7th oz. troy.
that much gold right now would sell for $193.71
>>2163372
So he could have afforded drinks and dinner at Don the Beachcomber's is what your saying.
Coral. Unknown locale. Big though.
>>2163377
End-on view
So what the hell do we call a sawfish that ain't got no saw?
>>2163377
>he could have afforded drinks and dinner at Don the Beachcomber's is what your saying.
maybe.
I eat at the one at Royal Kona Resort when I'm in Hawaii. Dinner and drinks for the wife and two kids usually runs me about 1/5th oz. troy in gold.
they do a nice cheap breakfast too. Or at least they did when I was there last.
>>2163388
Looks like it would have been within his price range.
>>2163391
This menu from a few years later suggests an app and an entree would have been an option as well.
>>2163394
that's awesome!
here's the menu at the Kona location. Looks like prices might be about 10-20x now?
>>2163400
Actually, converting those prices to modern money, DtB's and Trader Vic's were more expensive than that place. Dinner at Don's in 41 would have run you about $85 modern from start to finish, and that's without drinks. Polynesian palaces were the most ritz of all dining experiences in their day. "Oriental" food was almost unheard of in the US at the time, and complex, multi-rum drinks were stunning, one-of-a kind novelties to people who had just come out of prohibition and were used to drinking 2 or 3 ingredient whiskey and gin cocktails.
Anyway, here we have what appears to be a pipe fashioned from a reed and a thin bowl of metal. Part of a bag of four.
>>2163409
top
>>2163412
Bowl end.
>>2163415
Reed end. Bamboo maybe?
Wasn't sure what the deal with this one was for a second.
>>2163424
But if you look closely you see that the sedimentary laminations have been offset by tiny faults.
I think it's cool anyway.
This one has me puzzled. The label reads "Buxton's Delight. Maryland. 1932."
It's foliated and has a dull micaceous luster, so I figure it's a phyllite. The question is who's Buxton, why is he so delighted by this thing, and why was such a common rock worth adding to the collection?
More chickenscratch labeling on this one. Looks like orbicular jasper to me. Collected somewhere on Catalina Island on February 22, 1905. This is the nicest looking one in the box.
>>2163449
Some are coming apart in layers, leaving behind smaller cores.
>>2163441
Buxton's was a farmer in Maryland, "Buxton's Delight" was his property. So that's the location. Doesn't answer your question of why, though.
>>2163459
Looks like they may have been strung on a necklace at one point. Were there ever any native civilizations on Catalina? He seems to have had an interest in native cultures as well.
>>2163461
I see. Maybe a geologic map of the area where his property lay might help us determine what the deal was.
Finishing off with a few excerpts from the Ward's Mineral Catalog, April of 1935.
>>2163476
>>2163478
Old gadgets for fluorescent minerals
>>2163479
Meteorites section.
>>2163480
Here's the page where
>>2157024
was listed
>>2163409
>Actually, converting those prices to modern money, DtB's and Trader Vic's were more expensive than that place
I probably didn't notice because of my penchant for fresh seafood and vintage port.
anywho, I love your threads.
Here's a jumble of junk from my cabinet as a token of my appreciation.
>>2163553
Great stuff. Those fossils are really nice.
So are all people who fill cabinets with natural curiosities required to drink Chivas? If so, I'm way behind.
>>2163554
I'm finding some of the similarities between myself and your guy pretty amusing. My collection isn't nearly as nice as his, but we've been a lot of the same places and like a lot of the same stuff.
Yeah, I think drinking Chivas might be a requirement. Have to maintain the correlation between geology and alcoholism, and we might as well drink something that tastes good.
Smoking is traditional as well, but I'm pleb-tier. I do Marlboros, my grandpa smoked a pipe.
Thanks for compliments on fossils. Fossils are my real passion but my personal collection is half-hearted. The best stuff I've collected is sitting in museums around the state, I'm ambivalent about private collections and most of what I have personally is store bought or of no scientific value at all. I keep a bunch of marine inverts, but they're all extremely common species good mostly for biostratigraphical reference.
>>2163564
A great deal of my specimens came from dealers as well. I like to have nice sized specimens displaying characteristic properties of minerals I either have a personal interest in or are of general interest. Index minerals of the Mohs scale, hand samples of minerals I worked with in petrology classes, unusual mineral assemblages, "families" of minerals, etc. Pic related: rubellite from brazil. The crystal is nowhere nearly of gem quality, but it's quite euhedral, displaying that classic elongate trigonal prism you see in tourmalines.
>>2163566
Man that's a nice one! I love the material coming out of Brazil, their crystals are just incredible. Is that one from Minas Gerais?
So far the stuff you've posted from your personal collection is at least as interesting to me as what you're cataloging. I love it when someone has rocks they really enjoy and know all about.
>>2163575
Yeah, Minas Gerais. Great locality for tourmaline.
>>2163360
Not sure how I didn't notice your post earlier. The label indicated that the ash was deposited into a lake, but I have no idea of the current consensus regarding the history of the area.
Bump for next week
>>2165148
Your enthusiasm is appreciated sir.
Starting with 3 samples of sheet silicate, traded to Mr. Bruner by Mr. Roy D. Miller for "3 pyrite [illegible]s"
First off, a biotite group mineral. This one isn't particularly photogenic. It's got great luster, too great in fact; I had a hard time getting a picture of it that wasn't just pure white from how shiny it is.
>>2165713
Next up, a thin but high quality book of muscovite. Notice how you can see my fingers right through it. Not hard to see why this was once used for windows instead of glass.
>>2165715
Not sure about this one. Never seen its like before. Based on the color and the way a few flakes of it in the bottom of the package break i'd wager it might be a chlorite group mineral.
For once there's some semblance of logic to the way these things were stored. We've got a bunch of cupric minerals, all from Bisbee Arizona here. First up, some common ore, composed of malachite and azurite.
>>2165789
Compare that to these large azurite crystals and malachite botryoids
>>2165792
More azurite.
>>2165789
Man that's a washed out photo. I need to watch where I stand.
>>2165794
"Velvety" malachite, with a few flecks of azurite.
>>2165814
Malachite with calcite.
>>2165816
Malachite -under- calcite.
>>2165817
Side view. Can see the layering pretty clearly.
>>2165794
Washed out photos are the best photos.
https://youtu.be/4LbOIG_8GNg
>>2165818
Slice of stalactitic malachite.
>>2165851
Right now, somewhere in the world, someone is using a whole one of these as a dildo.
>>2165851
Chrysocolla in jasper. All of these are from 1927.
Can anyone familiar with the lifestyles of the age of mandatory smoking and rotary phones tell me what this thing is?
>>2165891
Very thin, opens on a latch. A business card holder? Seems like it would be a bit of an ordeal to give someone your card. Plus its kind of fruity for my tastes.
>>2165894
>business card holder
You got it.
Looks like some more Egyptian crap here. I'll have to call the anthropology people again.
Seems Mr. Bruner was also a member of the Mineral of the Month Club.
No documentation on this one. They appear to be fragments of earthenware with a gold finish on them.
>>2165915
back
>>2165916
Well that's the image limit. We'll have to get a new thread going tommorow.
Sorry today's pictures weren't that interesting, this drawer was a bit mundane.
>>2165891
as the other anon confirmed- business card holder.
These things were really common from the 1880's up into the early 1900's. I find them metal detecting fairly often. They were dual use depending on the habits and tastes of the owner. I find some with wooden matches still entombed inside. Sometimes I find them with scraps of paper rotting away in them. Business cards and calling cards. Seems every common ditch-digger and prostitute had a pocket full of business cards to hand out. Weird since they presumably didn't have telephones and many of them didn't have addresses that could be found on a map. As Victorian personal effects go, they were almost as common as pocket watches and somewhat more common than pocket knives and corsets.
>>2165919
>this drawer was a bit mundane.
the Bisbee samples had me drooling.
very much appreciated.
>>2165814
Oh man this look beautiful. It looks like moss.
I want some!
>>2165977
Interesting. Makes the rubberband my father keeps his cards bundled up in seem crude in comparison.
>jpg files
>3MB size
kys
