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Unfortunately, there was no searching for minerals for many years after that trip: I did not know any active collectors who could take me with them and my family did not encourage my interest. Minerals were still interesting to me, so I purchased books about minerals and where to find them, and occasionally visited minerals stores.

 

Twenty years later I was lucky to have a friend take me on one of his trips to collect minerals. That experience rekindled my enthusiasm. Nothing could stop me anymore. I started searching systematically in the side trenches of the Zederhaustal. I had no experience and only knew clefts from books. For three years I was more or less without success. (As I was a young father, I also didn’t have very much spare time.) In April 1999 I discovered, at last, my first calcite cleft, and in the following year I discovered my first quartz cleft. From that moment on, luck was on my side; in the following year I was blessed with magnificent clefts and wonderful finds.

 

In spite of many years of mineral collecting, my passion is still as strong as on the first day. Even a minute sign of a cleft gets my enthusiasm fully aroused and snaps my senses into a high-state of alertness. And once I pull the top of a rock crystal out of the clay (even a small one), happiness kicks in. On very special days, when I am lucky enough to find multiple specimens, my passion and happiness combine to provide a form of ecstasy that only other collectors can understand! It is therefore also a pleasure to share these experiences with my collector colleagues. Fortunately, my wife Maria has accompanied me many times and also my sons join me every now and then. So having enjoyed beautiful moments themselves, they can appreciate my enthusiasm and the substance when I tell them of my latest exploits in the field. I am indeed a lucky collector.