Within the Bancroft Area, the Tory Hill vein-dikes have produced superb specimens of many minerals, including titanite, fluorapatite, fluoro-richterite and ferri-fluoro-katophotrite. Many now grace museums and private collections around the world. This article is an introduction to these exceptional occurrences and the adventures of collecting there.

I’ve added more great U.S. specimens in this new Pete Richards Collection Update. These include beautiful specimens from classic American localities from across the country.

I’ve added super new specimens in this latest US Update, including a great Vesper Peak grossular, a top quality rutile from Graves Mountain, a Bisbee malachite after azurite, new lightly-amethystine quartz from North Carolina, and Colorado amazonites with excellent colour.

I’ve added some super specimens from Mount Malosa in this new Malawi Update. These include excellent crystals of aegirine, arfvedsonite, smoky quartz with epididymite inclusions, microcline and zircon. Under shortwave ultraviolet light, the microcline is a striking deep pink-red colour, and the zircons exhibit various hues of yellow.

Excellent new specimens from Mont Saint-Hilaire. The specimens in this update are from finds 1988-2007. This selection of specimens represents several different unique finds, including beautiful serandites, terminated elpidite crystals, twinned rhodochrosite, sodalite var. hackmanite, narsarsukite, leucophanite, analcime and more.