Spiga Giorgio

Capoterra (CA), Sardinia

Italy

   My name is Giorgio Spiga, I was born in 1942, somebody says I am sixty nine, but it is just a malignant murmur.

Different to most collectors and rockhounds, my attraction to Minerals began after I’d finished my degree in Chemistry at the Cagliari University in 1966. Until then, my time was divided between study and Sports. After a short and not very successful experience in Athletics, at 15 yrs. I began Greco-Roman Wrestling and three years later, I was selected as a reserve in the Italian team for the 1960 Rome Olympic Games. The following year, I became the 52 kg. Italian champion and successfully fought for the first time in the national team versus Hungary.     At the end of 1963, I gave up top-level wrestling. Due to a training accident that year, I failed to participate in the Naples Mediterranean Games, which was a sort of passport for the following Tokio Olympics, so from then on I dedicated all my efforts to getting my degree in chemistry.

   My first mineral sample was a gift in 1964, (a superb Smithsonite pseudomorph after Calcite from the Campo Pisano mine,) but at the time I was more attracted by organic and biological chemistry, so the gift remained on my desk for many years as a nice unusual paperweight. Only when studying to pass the exam in Mineralogy did I begin to consider inorganic chemistry and physical-chemical analysis, not only as sterile subjects, but as one of the most  important and interesting part of the cultural background of any chemist. Studying Mineralogy and looking both at the paperweight on my desk and the pictures of minerals in my textbooks, I started to be attracted to the beauty and fantastic geometry of the crystals.

  After getting my degree in June 1966, I spent eighteen months in Sweden and England, obtaining a scientific and professional formation, and in 1968 returning to Sardinia, I began my professional life teaching Analytical Chemistry at the Iglesias Mining School, and as a researcher in the field of airborn dusts in the mining environment, at the Institute of  Occupational Medicine at the University of Cagliari. The mining school had a very good mineralogical collection, even though confined to Sardinian Lead, Zinc, Copper and Fluorine mines and to Sicilian sulphur mines, with a good laboratory where, apart the didactics, an analytical activity supporting local explorations used to be performed. Very soon, I was involved in both activities of the school, that could be easily coordinated with my research work at the University.

   My presence was frequently required in the Iglesias area mines and together with some colleagues, I began my activity as rockhound and mineral collector.. During the following ten to twelve years, I spent most of my weekends and vacations digging in the tail dumps of the old mines and around vulcanites and granites in Sardinia. In those years I happened to be lucky in my rockhounding, with several  findings of minerals never before discovered in Sardinia, such as Garnets at Campana Sissa, Zeolites in Pula and Monastir, and Hyalite in Sant\' Antioco. This way, I could start increasing my collection. In the first two years, I had no idea of the market in mineral samples. In Cagliari there was only one dealer and my sole possibility was trading the samples I could find, with him or with the very few dealers who periodically came to Sardinia to visit local rockhounds. I didn\' t know the commercial value of the samples I was finding, and I thought that a collector was supposed to build his collection by just trading the fruit of his rockhounding. Selling samples would have been a terrible sin! So reasoning, I used to give a whole box with ten to twenty samples, in exchange for a desert rose, a broken pyrite or (the maximum I could get) a quartz from Madagascar. The idea was that the more exotic the provenience, the higher the price of the sample I was having.

In 1971, for the first time in my life, I took part in a Mineral Show in Milan and in that occasion I had the chance of verifying   that the samples I used to be given, could have been purchased for less than L.10,000, while the samples I used to give, were for sale at not less than L.20,000 each (about $9 at todays rate of exchange). At the time, with L.100,000 it was possible to buy a top class sample. Attending the Show. and talking to older and more experienced collectors, I realized that   the only way to build a a high level collection  was by buying and selling. After the show, with my friend Luciano Floris (who is now an important dealer of hard and semi-precious stones), I started buying stocks of samples directly from miners and other rockhounds, keeping the best for our own collections and selling smaller stocks to dealers, or single samples at the shows  directly to other collectors. Working this way till 1981, I built a collection of about two hundred good or very good quality samples, basically dedicated to Sardinian Mineralogy with many top class regional samples and several high quality samples from other Italian regions. Only very few non-Italian samples were part of the collection. At the end of 1981, I started my professional activity with a small laboratory for commercial analysis, that fully absorbed all my time and energy up until the end of 1994, when the last pocket with Anglesites and Phosgenites was opened in the Monteponi Mine. The mine was going to be closed and that would be the last chance to acquire some good samples of Phosgenite. On that occasion, together with another collector, I purchased a stock of more than two hundred samples, directly from miners. We took out the best twenty specimens, making two suits of superb samples for our own collections and sold the rest. From that time on, I started again with revived enthusiasm. In late 1999, I bought the best samples of one of the most important collections in Sardinia. The following year, I bought another collection with some top class Sardinian samples and with my son Bruno\'s cooperation, I opened the website www.bestminerals.com It was a good opportunity to return to another neglected hobby: photography. Now I dedicate all my spare time to my collection and to photographing mineral samples Once again I\'m attending the most important mineral shows, increasing my collection and selecting samples to improve the quality, as well as quickly improving the quality of my pictures.

In 2006 I officially ceased my professional activity  and now , apart  occasional  consulting jobs, I dedicate my time to minerals,  photography and gardening. Photographing fluorescent minerals is one of my favourite activities.

In 2008 I was in Tucson and, visiting the American Mineral Treasures Exhibition, I realized that  inside my collection, apart a small group of top class specimens, only  the Barite suit had an  international relevance.  Back home, after a not very long meditation , I decided to carry on collecting only worlwide barite  specimens. Nowadays I have in my collection morethan   200 barite samples, 50 % from sartdinian locales, including severald world class specimens, unfortunately I am realizing that acquiring US or UK barites is very often over my economical possibilities.