Kevin Brown I had my first experience with minerals at the age of nine, when my parents gave me some books on Alaskan gold mining. Included was an actual “gold� specimen. My parents further strengthened my interest in natural wonders with family trips to the Cleveland Museum of Natural History. But a school trip to the Smithsonian Institution when I was 13 really started my drive for minerals. After being primarily a field collector through college and my early 20s, I started attending mineral shows and acquiring finer specimens in the mid-1980s. My initial collection consisted of specimens from world-wide locations, but in the late 1990s I decided to focus my collection exclusively on minerals from the U.S. I currently strive to collect finely crystallized minerals with great form and color. I look for those pieces which are unique examples from both classic locations and the more obscure localities rarely represented in most mineral collections. Support from my family and fellow MAD members has greatly enhanced the mineral collecting experience. Their enthusiasm has made being a mineral collector fun.
Fluorite with barite and sphalerite, 34.8 cm, Elmwood mine, Carthage, Smith County, Tennessee. Jeff Scovil photo.
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Supplement to The Mineralogical Record, January–February, 2009