Collecting

Practical guidance for buying and keeping specimens. Thumbnails fit a box of about 2.5 cm, miniatures run 3-5 cm and cabinet pieces 8-13 cm. Most British material is 100 years old or more, so labels carry provenance and disclosed restoration is normal. Cleavage, not hardness, is what breaks a specimen in storage.

• Specimen sizes, and what the trade terms meanSize categories are conventions, not standards. Knowing them stops you buying something far smaller than you pictured.
• Buying old collection materialMost classic British material is old. That makes labels part of the value and restoration a normal question rather than an accusation.
• Handling and storing specimensMost damage to a collection happens in a drawer, not in the field. What actually threatens specimens, and what to do about it.