What ex coll. means on a mineral label
Ex coll. is short for ex collectione, from the collection of. The abbreviations old labels use, and the three-part test for whether a label is worth anything.
Ex coll. is short for the Latin ex collectione, from the collection of, and it names a previous owner rather than the finder. A label written before 1900 can predate the naming of the species on it. The Mineralogical Record's label archive draws on roughly 4,500 labels from about 1,000 sources.
In short
- Ex coll. names an owner, not a collector. The person who found the specimen is normally given by leg., from the Latin legit, and the two are frequently different people.
- A label is part of the specimen. Separating them permanently reduces what the specimen is worth, and no amount of re-labelling puts it back.
- Old labels carry old science. A label may give a species name that has since been discredited, a locality name that has since changed, or a determination made before the analytical technique existed to check it. None of that makes it worthless — it makes it dated evidence.
- The value is in traceability. A named collection that appears in the literature, with a catalogue number, is evidence. A handwritten name nobody can identify is decoration.
- Never write on the original. Add your own label alongside it, and keep both with the specimen.
| On the label | Stands for | What it actually tells you |
|---|---|---|
| ex coll. / ex. | Ex collectione — from the collection of | A previous owner. Not necessarily the finder, and not a guarantee of identification |
| leg. | Legit — collected by | The person who took it from the ground. The strongest form of provenance there is |
| det. | Determinavit — identified by | Who made the determination. Valuable when it names a mineralogist or an institution |
| fide | On the authority of | The writer is reporting somebody else's identification rather than making one |
| cf. | Confer — compare with | A provisional identification. Read it as an honest 'probably' |
| A question mark after the species | The writer was not sure | Take it at face value. It is a virtue in a label, not a defect |
| TL | Type locality | The locality from which the species was originally described |
| pseud. after / after | Pseudomorph after | One mineral has replaced another while keeping its shape |
| var. | Variety | A named appearance, not a species — campylite, Blue John, wood copper |
| No. / cat. / a bare number | Catalogue number | The single most useful thing on a label, because it may connect to a surviving register |
The three-part test for whether a label is worth anything
Provenance is not a binary. A label is worth something in proportion to how much of it can be checked, and there are exactly three things that can be:
- A locality precise enough to verify. Wheal Gorland, St Day, Cornwall can be checked against what that mine produced. Cornwall cannot. A mine name is provenance; a county is a hint.
- A person or institution that can be traced. A named collection that appears in the mineralogical literature, or a dealer whose labels are documented, or a museum with surviving registers. A first name and a surname in an unknown hand is not traceable and does not carry weight, however old the paper is.
- A fixed point in time. A date, or a catalogue number that ties to a register, or — the elegant case — a species name or a locality name that was only in use during a known period, which dates the label without the label saying so.
Three out of three is documented provenance. Two is decent trade provenance. One is a nice piece of paper. That is the whole test, and it is worth applying before paying a premium for a label rather than after.
Why old labels are evidence even when they are wrong
A nineteenth-century label may name a species that is no longer valid, a mine that has been renamed twice, or a determination that modern analysis would overturn. Collectors sometimes conclude from this that the label is a curiosity and the specimen is what matters. That gets it backwards.
The label is frequently the only surviving record that a particular workings produced a particular species at a particular date. Where a mine closed in the 1800s and its dumps have since been landscaped, a dated label is the primary source. Labels can predate the naming of the mineral they describe, which makes them evidence about the history of mineralogy as well as about the specimen. And where an old identification turns out to be wrong, the fact that it was made — by whom, and when — is itself information about what was understood at the time.
The Mineralogical Record maintains a biographical and label archive precisely because of this: the combined Bideaux and Bentley collections alone run to roughly 4,500 labels from about 1,000 different collections and dealers, and for some of those dealers the label is the only tangible evidence they existed. If you find a label you cannot place, that archive is where to look before deciding it is worthless.
What to do with a label when you buy the specimen
The handling rules are simple and they are the same ones museums use:
- Never write on the original, never trim it to fit a box, never glue it to anything, and never stick it to the specimen.
- Keep it with the specimen, in the same box, ideally in an inert sleeve rather than loose where it can abrade against the mineral. If the specimen is a decaying sulphide, keep the label physically separate, because sulphuric acid destroys paper — see pyrite decay.
- Write your own label and put it alongside: your catalogue number, the species as you determine it, the locality as given, the date and source of your acquisition, and any test you performed.
- Photograph the old label the day it arrives. Paper is the part of a specimen most likely to be lost.
- Record the chain. If a piece comes with three labels from three previous owners, all three stay. The sequence is the provenance; any one of them alone is not.
The single most common way provenance is destroyed is not carelessness with the paper, it is tidiness — somebody re-cataloguing a collection onto uniform new cards and discarding the old ones. Do not do it, and leave a note in the collection saying why.
When a label adds to price and when it does not
We do not quote market rates, but the mechanics are consistent. A label adds when it does one of three things: it establishes that a specimen came from a locality that can no longer be collected, which is most of the classic British ground; it establishes age, which matters because pre-1900 material from a famous mine is a finite population; or it associates the specimen with a collection whose taste is a form of authentication in itself.
It adds nothing when it merely repeats what is obvious from the specimen, when the collection named cannot be traced, or when it is a modern label asserting an old provenance without evidence — which is a fair thing to ask a seller about directly, and an easy thing for an honest one to answer.
The awkward case is the reproduction. Labels are copied for legitimate reasons, most often because the original was disintegrating, and a copy that says it is a copy is fine. A copy that does not is a problem, and it is the same category of problem as an undisclosed repair, which we cover under how to tell if a specimen is repaired.
Doing your own provenance research is realistic and rewarding: the archives are largely public, old dealer catalogues are increasingly digitised, and mine histories are well published in Britain. What it costs is time, per specimen, and it does not compress — a cabinet arriving from an estate is weeks of work. If you are looking for material from a specific old collection or a specific closed mine, that is worth saying out loud on the wanted list; we hold no stock, but knowing what a label is worth is most of the job.