Minerals on Stamps

Stéphane Gigandet writes to let Round-Up readers know about his new Mineral Stamps Web site. Stamps and first day covers featuring minerals, crystals, gems, rocks, fossils and meteorites are nicely displayed.

Stéphane currently lives in Paris, France, but also spends a lot of time in the San Francisco Bay area.

He says, "I'm a big fan of rockhounding (an activity that consists in keeping my eyes to the ground in all the beautiful places, high mountains, clear lakes, sandy beaches etc. I go to), and my suitcase is always full of rocks on my return business trips to California (I go there for two weeks every time, so that leaves some time for digging up rocks and crystals in the week-end). The problem with rocks is that they tend to take up a lot of space. So I turned to collecting mineral stamps, which is a more space-savy hobby. "

There are now more than 200 stamps representing 101 different minerals from 43 countries referenced on MineralStamps.com.

Stéphane would be interested in getting high quality scans (600 dpi, full color) of stamps and first day covers featuring minerals he does not currently own. He's especially interested in those issued before 1950.

He can be reached at biz@joueb.com.

To check out his Minerals Stamps Web site, click here.

Shown above, a single from a new set of stamps featuring minerals from Terres Australes et Antarctiques Françaises (French Southern and Antarctic Lands).

As a side note, The American Federation of Mineralogical Societies (AFMS) is trying to convince the US Postal Service to issue stamps featuring birthstones (one gem for each month: garnet, amethyst, aquamarine, diamond, emerald, moonstone, ruby, peridot, sapphire, opal, topaz, turquoise).