I am 49 and have been collecting minerals since 1976. My job as an industrial designer has no connection with mineralogy. Right from a young age I felt a real enthusiasm towards nature, which led me to start collecting minerals.
My collection is made up of just over 3000 models. I am interested in minerals from all round the world, with me paying a particular interest to minerals of the Iberian Peninsula.
My priorities above all are aesthetic rather than systematic. The size of the pieces varies from 10x15 and 5x5 cm. Among my Iberian collection, the fluorites from Asturies (more than 300 models) are quite noteworthy.
Origins of the pieces in my collection :
Purchased, around 35% of the pieces. The best purchases and prices have been obtained at the international exhibitions of Sainte-Marie-aux-Mines in France and Munich in Germany.
35% of the models have been exchanged. During the nineties I made a lot of exchanges abroad : from 1992 to 1996, with American and Australian collectors, and between 1996 and 1998 with collectors from the United Kingdom
My own finds for the 30% that remains. They are not necessarily the most beautiful of pieces but they are the ones that make me the most proud.
The collection is classified according to the chemical crystal by H. Strunz with the exception of quartz that I have put with the oxides.
During recent years more than 500 pieces in my collection have been photographed for publications, 300 of them by my friend and great photographer José Manuel Sanchis.
The collection is available to anybody interested in mineralogy.
