68 pages, full colour.

This edition of the UKJMM begins with a correction. In the previous issue we wrote that Mick Cooper’s papers, manuscripts, research documents and dealer label collection was to be placed in the library at Oxford University. They are in fact at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History. Apologies go to any readers who were inadvertently directed to the wrong place and to staff at the University of Oxford.

The pages that follow are somewhat unusual in that we have chosen to devote almost the whole of the issue to a single article. There can be few collectors who are unfamiliar with Richard Barstow, perhaps the most famous British mineral dealer of modern times. Brilliant, determined, obsessional and secretive, he assembled an unrivalled mineral collection through a combination of fieldwork, collection purchase and exchange. His untimely death in 1982 at the age of 35 was the end of an important chapter in the history of British mineral dealing. More than 1000 specimens from Barstow’s 4000 piece collection were acquired by Plymouth Museum in 1986, the rest are dispersed in collections across the world. Surprisingly few details of his life, acquisitions and collecting exploits have been published, an omission we address in this issue in an article begun by the late Mick Cooper and completed by Roy Starkey.

Steverustite from Frongoch with crystals to 1 mm. Steve Rust collection.

Richard William Barstow (1947–1982) was perhaps the most enterprising British mineral dealer of the twentieth century. He was a successful and energetic field collector who thoroughly researched the sites he visited. His field collecting skills were supplemented by a remarkable ability to track down and acquire collections. He maintained friendly relations with curators and exchanged specimens with museums on a regular basis. Dick began a geological career in the sampling office at South Crofty Mine and subsequently worked in the same capacity at Geevor Mine. He started his mineral business in December 1972, trading at first by mail order from his home at Tregeseal, near Botallack, Cornwall, and later from Drakewalls House, Gunnislake. He died in September 1982, at the young age of 35, from cancer of the liver. Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery purchased part of his remarkable personal collection of minerals from Cornwall and Devon in 1986. His hall-mark green card labels are still commonly seen at mineral shows. The coveted white labels from his personal collection are much rarer and add significantly to the value of the specimens they describe.