Part II of Love in the grotto of the red hot mineral collector
The Albert Kersten museum in Broken Hill houses some amazing specimens, including a few international super stars who’ve been photographed for magazines the world over, and others who’ve been loaned for display at the biggest and most prestigious mineral shows across Europe and the US.
Among the glamor and glitz, also sits the first ever mineral collection to be put together in the city. Collected by one time publican of the Duke of Cornwall Hotel Teddy Aldridge, the story goes he used to trade specimens for spirits (or beer)… which undoubtedly built up an incredible collection - but was probably not very health and safety orientated, adds current museum assistant John Fadden...
“If they’ve been put together properly, then lots of them are valuable collections, very valuable,” says manager Angela Bailey.
“It really does range. For years you might do some very skilful swapping of minerals and various buying, so you’re getting the best specimens of that type. Bear in mind that Broken Hill is the top mineral locality in Australia, so you might have a collection that’s worth $2,000-3,000 or you can be up to the one or two million dollar mark.”
It would be fair to estimate Milton Lavers’ collection is closer to the latter category, but he’s modest in his assessment, not too keen to brag… and it’s an effort to drag it out of him: “It’s quite a nice collection now, yes,” he says.
“There’s some good collections in Broken Hill, I could give you the names of them, if you want to go and look… But I do have a lovely collection. And… I think that... all over... my collection is the best.”
From the outset, as a young child running and playing over skimp piles in the city’s south, Milton says he decided to collect “like a museum.” While some collectors pick and choose their minerals to match in size or variety… “I didn’t want that, I think that’s monotonous,” he says.
“So I collected little ones, big ones, the whole lot of them, and it’s paid off because of it. This collection has got what other collections haven’t got – it’s good.
“I collected minerals in the time that you could buy collections for say $4,000-$5,000, those same collections now would be worth at least $50,000-$100,000.
“And we used to have miners come down here every night after work with minerals; they didn’t want them, they just wanted a few bob to go down the pub… especially on a hot afternoon. So we got the reputation of buying minerals.”
Of the thousands of minerals lining the glass shelves, and storage boxes, of Milton’s sheds, some he has owned since childhood, while others he acquired last month. He has 20 or 30 most liked pieces, but can’t name favourites. And overall he enjoys the collection for its technicolour variety, and each individual specimen for its sheer beauty.
“Every mineral here I am not attached to them as regards to value, how much they’re worth. No, I’m attracted to the beauty of the mineral. Such as these here, I love the brown and red one there… and see that green anglesite over there, looks like a little green diamond doesn’t it? They are very, very rare,” he says.
Some boast so many colours and patterns it’s like looking down on veins of rivers, rainforest and desert from thousands of feet in the air... Or marshmellow clouds floating on a silver lining.
“The sheer beauty of them, I think that’s what gets me, the sheer beauty of the different colours, the unusual shapes and the thrill you get if you find a vug [deep rock crevice] yourself that’s full of rare mineral,” he says.
“Every time you come onto these vugs it’s like fairly land… you can walk in quite easy, and they’re lined with minerals, and the sheer beauty of it, when you’re underground and got a lamp there that is shining, and all the colours reflecting, it’s absolutely beautiful.
“Like for example, rhodonite is covered with these ruby red garnets, different sized, and they could be up about 45, 50 feet from your level so you climb the ladders up, and as you poke your head over the last ladder you look around and all you can see is these gleaming crystals and all the little red lights, oh a magnificent sight!”
In his 20s Milton worked in the mines as a “rough, roving underground plumber,” which gained him easy access to minerals fresh from the find. He admits luck plays a big part in what he says is now an addiction; each time he went underground, he came up with minerals.
“The miners would tell me where they were,” he says. “The funny part about it is that the miners were not interested in minerals in early years, all they were interested in is working hard with a shovel, and really work hard, all day, for their four and thruppence, about 42 cents, a tonne… and all the miners are dead now because, boy they used to work hard.
“They were not educated to know what specimens were good; I woke up quite fast when I bought a few and they were darned expensive.”
With the way mining has changed from muscle power to explosives, underground deposits are now incredibly rare, or simply blown to pieces. Most minerals are now swapped or bought – though Milton says selling is “a bit taboo.” It stands to reason, as he explains: “When you sell a mineral, that’s one less that you’ve got. But if you swap it, you’re getting back one the same.”
But Milton’s collection has got to the stage, he says, where he cannot physically fit any more into his already extensive storage space. It’s comical when he voices his confession, “I must admit I like getting minerals, swapping or buying…
“But at the present moment I’m stagnating because I just can’t put them anywhere, I’ve got boxes everywhere, minerals here in boxes, minerals out in the back shed.
“I have two children and the children don’t want it. None of my family know anything about it, about how to handle them or care for them… So there’s negotiations going on now to sell it,” he says.
“It’s not about the money - although I won’t be giving it away - it’s purely and simply that I want to find a home for it in Broken Hill. If I could find a home in Broken Hill I’d be laughing all the way...
“So sooner or later I’ll be selling this collection here, and you know what I’ll do, I’ll start collecting again.”
In Milton’s own words, Broken Hill is a mecca for mineral people. If you collect minerals, sooner or later you have to come to this desert oasis, where the earth is lined with splendour.
“I think it’s the array of different minerals that makes the area special; it’s like a rainforest of minerals… they’re just so diverse and beautiful,” says Angela of Broken Hill’s underground allure.
John adds: “I think the advantage of this place is that it was left alone and untouched for so long. It’s only 150 years ago that mining started in this far west region. Thousands of years ago the Egyptians were using minerals like we do today, in things like make up… there they are, the Egyptians, going out to mine their copper and they just brush away the seam.
“We have to go so far down to find our minerals now, but we have to remember, before we went far, far down, these things were available on the surface, or we wouldn’t have discovered them, or how to use them.”
A little bit like children playing with glistening stones in the street…
Have often though about how it is that all that beauty is hidden away under the earth and how the areas that yield them are the most desolate destinations and rather inhospitable places to be. Especially if you want to be out fossicking.