Gordon Jackson collected his first mineral sample in 1956, when he was 13 years old. But if you’re looking for the moment it became clear he was destined to join the Capital Mineral Club, you have to fast-forward more than three decades.
“I got back into it in 1988, helping my kids with a science project,” Jackson, the group’s current president, said. “I said instead of doing bugs or butterflies, let’s do minerals.”
Minerals are indeed what Jackson and the other 80 or so members of the mineral club do. The group hosts monthly meetings, contributes scholarships to local students in the field of geology, puts on one of the largest mineral and gem shows in the Northeast and generally shares knowledge about a passion that can fly under the radar.
Even in the Granite State.
The Insider couldn’t tell you jack about a rock, though. So we pulled up a chair with a few members of the mineral club to find out what we were missing out on.
Turns out, the club doesn’t own any rocks at all. Or any gems or minerals. It once had an expensive microscope, but that went missing, Jackson said. It also had some other equipment and a handful of samples, but those, too, vanished.
Rather, each member has his or her own collection, which can vary greatly. Jackson estimated that he has samples from as many as 25 countries besides the United States and Canada, and Bob Whitmore of Weare once had a collection of more than 30,000 minerals before selling it off.
The Smithsonian in Washington, D.C., has since purchased some of the minerals that once belonged to Whitmore.
Though the group holds its meetings and the annual show in Concord, only a handful of its members actually reside in the city. In fact, there are participants from all over New Hampshire, and even a few from each of the other New England states.
“It’s made up of people that are interested in microminerals, mineral collections, and it ranges from the occasional to the hardcore,” Jackson said. “I think the social aspect of it is where a lot of people come together.”
Added Whitmore, a former president of the group: “It’s kind of nice to meet with other people with the same interests, and you learn from them. The club was a good place for me to start and get involved with other people that have been collecting longer than I have, and I learned through them how to be a good mineral collector.”
Whitmore joined the group in the fall of 1961, which was only months after the organization’s first official meeting, which Jackson said took place in January of that same year. Membership has fluctuated, though Jackson said they’ve “been able to count up to 100” at times.
The group’s signature event is the annual Capital Mineral Club Gem, Mineral and Jewelry Festival, set for Aug. 25 and 26, 2012, at Everett Arena. The first such show was held in Sunapee in 1964, and remained in that location until Everett Arena hosted for the first time in 2007.
Members will often frequent other similar shows around the country – Tucson, Ariz., hosts the largest show in the world, Jackson said, and Springfield, Mass., boasts the largest east of the Mississippi – but the Capital Mineral Club has made something of a name for itself.
Jackson said the group’s displays are probably as good and as large as anyone in New England.
“We get compliments that outside of a commercial show, we’re about as good as it gets [around here],” he said.
The annual festival provides the thrust of the year’s fundraising, which is used to sponsor talks and, perhaps most significantly, scholarships and other educational donations.
Whitmore said the group regularly provides a $1,500 scholarship to a New Hampshire student, most often at the University of New Hampshire, who is interested in geology. This year, the group also made several donations totaling as much as $4,000 to Kristen Kamp, a student from the University of New Orleans who is doing a master’s degree study on minerals in New Hampshire’s White Mountains.
The organization may have grown from humble beginnings – an Antrim club on the verge of becoming defunct teamed with some Concord-area enthusiasts to get things started – but the ball is most certainly rolling now. Jackson and Whitmore both touted the educational and social benefits of working in the club, which has come a long way since the winter of 1961.
“We’ve been at it ever since,” Jackson said.