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[July 06][Aug 05][april 05][Aug 04][May 04][May 03][aug 02][jan 02][oct 01][june 01]
THIS UPDATE: APRIL 2005
It was a quiet winter for the most part in the Thomas S. Warren Museum of Fluorescence. Snowstorms repeatedly blanketed the building in white while the minerals reposed peacefully inside, awaiting the return of visitors in March. This is not to say that museum staff were not busy – they simply were busy elsewhere. Nevertheless we have made progress in the Warren Museum, as you’ll see by reading on.
Hesselbacher Room Dedication
The Hesselbacher Room was opened to the
public in March 2004, but it was not until September that we finished installing
the last of the displays and held the formal dedication of this newest addition
to the Warren Museum. The Florida hurricanes nearly scuttled our plans, but
fortunately several members of George’s family were able to make the trip to New
Jersey to attend the dedication and the Franklin Mineral Show. Pictured below
are (from left to right) Michael Hesselbacher (George’s grandson), Sean
Hesselbacher (another grandson), Judy Hesselbacher (daughter-in-law), and George
E. Hesselbacher, III (son).
Photo by Maureen Verbeek
Oreck Mineral Gallery
No, this isn’t part of the Warren Museum, but there is a connection. The Oreck Gallery is part of our main exhibit hall, where more than 500 museum-quality mineral specimens are on display, most of them donated by the Oreck family of vacuum-cleaner fame. Naturally there are some wonderful fluorescent pieces in this exhibit, and with time a few of them might just wander over to the Warren Museum for a while. Don’t expect them soon, however — for now you’ll just have to imagine what that big scheelite crystal, that six-by-six inch brazilianite specimen, or the globular cluster of brucite crystals would look like under ultraviolet light.
Lapidary Items
Many visitors to the Warren Museum are familiar with the lapidary items created by Ralph Kovach of Stanhope, New Jersey. Most of the cabochons, obelisks, and polished eggs in that exhibit are examples of his handiwork. Over the winter Ralph invited us into his home to select for exhibit his very best pieces. This was “kid in a candy store” time as Ralph opened drawer after drawer to reveal many hundreds of freeform cabochons, mosaic cabochons, obelisks, and pendants. We departed with two boxes containing several dozen specimens each. Maureen Verbeek prepared the best of these for display and installed most of them in the lapidary case in February. The rest will soon follow.
Greenland Case
A significant specimen of tugtupite from the type locality of Tugtup agtakorfia was acquired early this winter from Mark Cole of Miami, Florida. This specimen, together with others acquired earlier and temporarily placed in storage, have been added to the Greenland case in the Hesselbacher Room. Maureen Verbeek took charge of arranging the specimens in this display, which is now much more colorful than before, and also contains fluorescent species not previously on exhibit.
Dehumidifiers
Three large dehumidifiers have just been installed in the Warren Museum. These are sure to conquer the occasional humidity problems that we have been experiencing. Early visitors to the museum probably remember the area as quite humid – so humid at times that water collected in drops on the painted ceiling and streamed down the windows as it condensed. To combat that problem several portable dehumidifiers were purchased two years ago, and these worked wonders, lowering the humidity to the point where we were able to install displays of such items as fluorescent woolen rugs without fear of damaging them. The new, much stronger dehumidifiers should now let us exhibit items we dared not display before, such as halite and other hygroscopic minerals, and artwork done on paper. We have gradually been stockpiling such items for future display and can now make concrete plans for them.
Warren|About
us|What's Here|How
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Fluorescence|Educators|Search|Links|Contacts