Welcome to my collection of mining artifacts. My name is Hal Post and I’ve been collecting mineral specimens, mining books and mining artifacts for over 20 years. I’ve added descriptive text and a little history to each of my artifacts so I hope you enjoy the pics and perhaps find them educational as well. I love old mining supply catalogues so I will continue to add scans of mining items from these catalogues as they become available. If you have comments or questions, like the site or don't like the site, or have some suggestions to make it better, please let me know with an email. Thanks and Enjoy!
Check out some of my favorite early photos of Colorado and Utah mining history. These photos are from the USGS photo library coming from the early (1880s to 1920s) USGS studies conducted by such icons as Emmons, Spurr, Cross, Lindgren and Ransome. Some of these photos found their way into early USGS professional papers, monographs and bulletins but most did not.
NEWEST UPDATE! Several new and interesting items have been added to my site. These include three carbide lamps: a rare patented Anton square-top cap lamp; a Justrite No. 528 cap lamp with the elusive gun metal finish; and, most recently, a heavy brass carbide cap lamp marked Daylight that was manufactured by the English firm of Powell and Hanmer Ltd. The Anton is the only known example that includes the strap cap braces as shown in the patent drawings. This lamp by John Anton is at the center of an interesting patent suit with Justrite’s The Buddy lamp that resulted in both lamps becoming scarce and highly desirable to collectors. Justrite only offered the gun metal finish on a couple of lamps and then only for a very short period of time. The gun metal finish against the brass reflector and spiral water control makes for an attractive contrast. The Powell & Hanmer No. 72 lamp is extremely well made and another hard-to-find item. A couple other hard-to-find carbide items including a carbide flask marked Guy-Dropper and a brass triangular shaped three-bottom carrier marked Grier Bros. were also added. A marked Ensign-Bickford blasting tool and the Harry Prince patented brass cap crimper tool were added to the blasting items. A mining anemometer from the venerable Philadelphia firm of Queen & Co. was also recently added. The additional stamping of Everhart Brass Works of Scranton on the anemometer makes it a very interesting piece of history. Lastly, a rare fancy candlestick that features a Maltese cross thumb tab and beautiful workmanship was also added. This candlestick is shown in Wilson & Bobrink’s A Collector’s Guide to Antique Miners’ Candlesticks as No. 130. You might also wish to check out a couple seldom-seen carbide burner tips compliments of my good Alaskan friend Neil Tysver. These include the patented Shanco tip cleaner and the Justrite self-cleaning tip located in the Other Carbide Items section. Thanks to Neil, the Shanco No. 88 tall carbide can was also added to this section. I hope you enjoy the site and find it as interesting as I do in putting it together.
NEWEST UPDATE! I collect mining books so I thought I'd share selected image scans of some of my favorite obscure out-of-copyright titles covering mines, miners and their history. The newest additions cover mining histories from two classic localities: Tonopah, NV and the Yukon Territory. The 1911 Annual Report of The Tonopah Mining Company presents several early photos of Tonopah mining properties including the famous silver producer, the Mizpah Mine. A few miles north, the Yukon Territories booklet of 1907 presents a comprehensive status of mining methods and locales. This rare booklet published by the Canadian Ministry of the Interior includes a number of early mining photographs covering placer mining, dredging and hydraulicking. Another recent addition is an important piece of history related to the founding of the well-known mining town of Victor, Colorado by the Woods' family in 1893. The Woods Investment Company prepared a promotional booklet for the 1901 Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, NY describing the mines of Victor and Cripple Creek along with seldom-seen photographs of these mines and the town. The Woods' family holdings which included much of Victor are described in this very early history of the Cripple Creek mining area. I hope you enjoy them.
NEWEST UPDATE! I just acquired Catalogue #52 (1919) of Denver's The Mine and Smelter Supply Company and have added selected scans of mining equipment and supplies. There are now six editions of the Mine and Smelter Company catalogues on my site covering the years of 1902, 1912, 1919, 1926, 1929, and 1937. Another new catalogue recently added is an early 1907 Coal Field Directory by the Keystone Consolidated Publishing Co. This is the fifth issue of the directory which later led to the well-known Keystone Mining Catalog series. While the format of the directory differs substantially from the mining catalogs, it too is full of neat ads including my favorite, a full page color ad for the Everhart Brass Works in Scranton, PA, an early American manufacturer of safety lamps. Have fun checking them out.
I'm often asked about how to get in contact with other collectors and information on upcoming mining artifact shows. Check out this link to Eureka Magazine to participate in a collectors' forum and information on upcoming events. The next mining shows are scheduled for:
Feb. 4, 2012 in Tucson, Arizona
Mar. 24, 2012 in Carter Caves State Resort Park, Kentucky (Show details at Eastern Mining Collectors Association ) and
June 23, 2012 in Nevada City, California
NEWEST! Here are photos from past mining shows. I just added new photos from the 2011 Socorro Symposium room crawl. Also check out photos from the 2011 Ouray show along with a tour of the Ouray Museum and pics in and around Ouray that arguably makes Colorado's San Juans the most beautiful mountain scenery in the US.
2008 Sutter Creek Show
2008 Tucson Show
2009 Tucson Show
2009 Ouray Pre-Show
2009 Ouray Show
2009 Johnstown Show
2009 Socorro Symposium Room Crawl
2010 Tucson Mineral Show
2010 Tucson Mining Show
Empire and North Star Mines
2010 DR Open House
2010 Nevada City Show
2010 MN Open House
2010 Bodie Ghost Town Tour
2010 Socorro Symposium Room Crawl
2011 Ouray Show
Ouray Museum Tour
Pics In and Around Ouray
2011 Socorro Symposium Room Crawl
All content on this site copyright Hal Post 2007