Breakage and handling loss

More specimens are damaged by people than by chemistry, and almost all of it is avoidable.

Most damage is handling

Chemistry is slow and visible in advance. A drop is instant and total, and the specimen that gets dropped is usually the good one, because that is the one being shown to somebody.

The moments it happens

Lifting a specimen to read the label underneath it. Which is why labels go where they can be read without moving anything.

Passing a specimen hand to hand, where both people let go at once. The fix is to set it down and let the other person pick it up.

Over-packed drawers, where retrieving one piece means shifting three.

Shows, where material is handled by strangers all day.

Transport, which has its own page and is where whole boxes fail.

Handling rules

Two hands, and support the matrix rather than the crystal.

Never lift by a projecting crystal, even a robust-looking one. That is the part that snaps and it is the part that carries the value.

Over a padded surface, so the fall distance is small.

Nothing on the edge of a bench.

And gloves for anything that skin oils will mark, which includes many sulfides and native metals, balanced against the fact that gloves reduce grip.

Designing it out

One specimen per compartment, so retrieving one does not disturb another.

Enough space that a hand fits in beside the piece.

Heavy material low, both for the shelf and for the person carrying it.

And a photograph of every good specimen, because that is the only thing that survives the day one is dropped.

References