James Wellman Minette was born in 1936, graduated from the Colorado School of Mines and worked for 44 years as a mine geologist and mineralogist for the U.S. Borax mines at Boron, California. During that time he and his wife Dawn built what is probably the finest collection of thumbnail-size (1 x 1-inch) mineral specimens ever assembled, as well as a major collection of borates and many fine miniature and cabinet-size specimens.
The video you are about to see was filmed by Wendell Wilson, with the kind cooperation of Dawn Minette, a few months after James' death in 2002. This is the ONLY footage ever made of the Minette Thumbnail Collection and, as such, the historic value of this film is priceless.
A big thanks to thumbnail collector Kyle Kevorkian for being the catalyst for BlueCap Productions to retrieve this film from our archives, re-render the film from the original sub-SD quality to full HD and upload here for all to learn from and enjoy. Kevorkian is carrying on the passion and tradition of thumbnail collecting and you can see many of his pieces in his annual thumbnail exhibit case that he puts in, with Rika and Will Larson, at the TGMS Show in Tucson.
If you would like more information on the collection of Jim & Dawn Minette, Gloria Staebler - and her company Lithographie - released a wonderful book on the collection in 2010 which can be purchased here:
www.lithographie.org/bookshop...