Latest / PlanetGeo: The Geology Podcast / How Museums Get Their Gemstones: Preview to Interview with Dr. Gabriela Farfan (GeoShort)

Transcript

How Museums Get Their Gemstones: Preview to Interview with Dr. Gabriela Farfan (GeoShort) · PlanetGeo: The Geology Podcast

• 0:03
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to Planet Geo, the podcast where we talk about our amazing planet, how it works, and why it matters to you.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_01: Before we start, we want you to do one thing for us.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_01: Go give Planet Geo a rating and write us a short review on your podcast app.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_01: These matter a lot and we would really appreciate it.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_01: This week we have yet again a special treat for you.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_01: We had the honor of interviewing one of the top people in our field.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_01: Man, how lucky are we! We got to talk with Dr.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_01: Gabriela Farfan, a Gemin mineral curator at the Smithsonian Museum, the United States National Museum, about her research, her job, and her path into the geosciences.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_01: The full interview will come out next week, but for now, enjoy the short discussion with Dr.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_01: Farfan about how the Smithsonian Museum actually obtains the gems and minerals in its collection.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_01: It's super interesting.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: And we also get to make the fun decisions about what new minerals we're going to add to our national collection.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: And we get to decide what we put on display for the general public to see in our iconic exhibits.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_02: Is that an ongoing process then in terms of cataloging and so on, or is that already done?
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, it's an ongoing process.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: It's always happening, especially as we add new specimens in the collection.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: It takes a lot of time to go through all the paperwork and make sure that we have, you know, the proper space and storage for every single specimen.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, we're always cataloging.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: I that's actually the collection managers do the actual cataloging.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_01: So I mean, you always hear, I want to go back to the acquiring new minerals.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_01: That's an interesting idea.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_01: But what like you always hear these terms of like, oh, museums have, you know, whatever.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_01: The public gets to see 10% of the whatever.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_01: But if I went around and walked through the public spaces in the Smithsonian, what percent is that of your total collection that you're kind of in charge of?
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: So the exhibit has a relatively small percentage.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know the actual percentage, but I can tell you that our mineral collection has approximately 350,000 mineral specimens.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_02: Oh my gosh.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: And our gem collection, get this, has approximately 10,000 gemstones.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's a massive collection.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: It's one of the largest collections in the world.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, so 350.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, can you kind of explain the difference there between a gemstone and a mineral in the sort of museum language?
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: So gemstones are minerals.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it's a mineral that a person has taken and cut and polished into a gem object.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: So it's actually in a way, it's an art form.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, interesting.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: But they're both minerals.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, okay, cool.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_02: So, Gabriella, um, about acquiring new minerals, can you describe that?
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_02: How does that happen?
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_02: How do you acquire new minerals?
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_02: Do you buy them?
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_02: Do you go get them, collecting that kind of thing?
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_02: How does that happen?
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: So we uh technically we're allowed to get minerals in any way that they come to the collection.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so a cool fact is that our National Gen Mineral Collection is made up entirely of donations, technically speaking.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: So all of the specimens have either been donated directly by someone, it could be a researcher that was working on a project and then decides to deposit their research specimens in our collection.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: It could be someone who has an iconic piece of jewelry that has a famous gemstone in it, and they decide that this is the proper home for it to be long term.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: Or sometimes we get uh endowments or gifts of money that then we as a curators can use to purchase specimens.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: And so we usually purchase specimens at the Tucson Gem and Mineral Show, which is the largest uh Gem and Mineral Show in the world.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: People come from all around the world.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: So you get miners and gemstone dealers, and we all congregate there during the month of February and get to see the best of the best that's been found that year.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_01: And so you just show up with like a pocket full of cash, and like, you know, you might be buying like Chris Bullice's minerals that are in his basement or something, or like what's going on here?
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, like, how does this work?
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_01: How like how do you decide what you're gonna buy?
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_01: Like, that's a cool gig right there.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_01: That sounds good.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: It is a very, very cool gig.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: So we actually we work as a team.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: So we have several curators and several collection managers, and we work mostly by consensus.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: So if we see something really, really special, uh, we make sure that the other people in our team are also on board.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: So we have we we can check each other a little bit because I might like something, but my colleagues might hate it.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_01: So can I sort of go into that or double-click on that a little bit?
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_01: Like special.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_01: Like, is it is it just something that's sort of, oh, you think this looks really cool?
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_01: Or like how how do you decide what special means when you have the biggest mineral collection maybe in the world sitting at home?
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_01: What are you buying that's new, I guess?
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well, believe it or not, even though we have so many specimens, there are always holes to fill.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_01: So we always try and make sure that we cover tell that to Chris Bois' front yard because there's a new rock there to uh I don't think he needs any more out front.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_01: I do, I do.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_01: You always need more.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: You can never have too many minerals, right?
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_02: Gabriella, what what kind of money are you talking about?
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_02: Can you can you tell us about that?
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_02: Like how when you go to the Tucson show, uh how much you what are you equipped to spend?
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I can't talk about that.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, bummer.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: But I can say that we are broke.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: We are broke compared to most people going to the show.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: So no way.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: Things have gotten very, very expensive, especially in recent years.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: So most mineral dealers realize that uh we we do not have the cash funds that we would like to have in order to buy sometimes the best of the best.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: So we really do depend on donors for our very best stuff.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_02: Sure.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_02: Interesting.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_02: And then so you don't, your team, you and your team, do you don't do a lot of collecting yourself then?
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_00: No, so it's it's very difficult to do collecting when we're trying to cover all of our bases.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: So every year, new mineral deposits are discovered and new gemstones come on the market, and it would be impossible for us to physically go to all of these places to get examples.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's actually a lot easier and more cost-effective for us to go to Tucson and cover everything at once.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I mean, technically we could.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: So let's say that I have a particular interest in a particular mine, I could go there and collect my own specimens and bring them to the national collection.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: But it just makes more sense typically to go to Tucson or other gem and mineral shows.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, that makes sense.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_01: All right, that's it.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks for tuning in.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_01: And as usual, you can find us on all the social medias.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_01: We are at Planet Geocast, that's Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, or send us an email at planetgeocast at gmail.com.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_01: Stay tuned next week for the full interview with Dr.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_01: Gabriella Farfan.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_01: Take care.