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The label

What a label has to carry

Updated

On this page5

A specimen label is a small, fixed set of fields. Writing more is rarely the problem; writing fewer is.

The six fields

Species. The mineral name, spelled as the accepted species name rather than a trade name. Associated species listed alongside, in order of prominence.

Locality. As precise as you can honestly be, and no more precise than that. Mine or quarry, then district, then county or region, then state or province, then country.

Collector or source. Who found it, or who you bought it from.

Date. Collected, or acquired.

Catalog number. Your own, tying the specimen to your catalog entry.

Size or weight, which is the field most often skipped and the one that makes a catalog searchable.

The four that are optional and worth it

Prior collection, if the specimen carries provenance. That is value and it should travel.

Identification basis. Visual, XRD, a named authority. A label that says how confident you are is worth more than one that asserts.

Treatments or repairs. Anything done to the specimen after it came out of the ground.

Hazard note, for anything asbestiform, radioactive or arsenic-bearing.

What not to put on it

A price. Prices change, labels outlive them, and a label with an old price attached is awkward at best.

A guess dressed as a fact. "Probably from the Tri-State district" is an honest label; "Tri-State district" when you are not sure is a false one that will be believed for a century.

And nothing that only makes sense to you. Labels outlive collections.

One label, two copies

The convention that survives: a label in the box with the specimen, and a catalog entry elsewhere with the same number.

A specimen separated from its box still has a number written on it; the catalog reconstructs everything else. That redundancy is why catalog numbers exist at all.

References

Canadian Conservation Institute. Caring for natural history collections, preventive conservation guidelines. Covers relative humidity, harmful volatiles emitted by cabinet materials, and the specimens most at risk from each. canada.ca
US National Park Service. Conserve O Gram 11/11, Health and Safety Issues with Geological Specimens. Asbestiform, radioactive, arsenic-bearing and lead-bearing material, and the handling and storage precautions each requires. nps.gov
Natural Sciences Collections Association. Care and Conservation of Geological Specimens. Storage environment, materials and the named decay mechanisms. natsca.org
Written from the federal land-management rules, the conservation literature and the agency guidance named on each page. Collecting rules differ by agency, by unit and sometimes by parcel, and the land manager for the ground you are standing on is the authority on it, not this page.