The Collector's Book of Fluorescent Minerals
By Manuel A. Robbins
Why this book?
The Collector's Book of Fluorescent Minerals is the first illustrated book on the subject. It came out in 1983 and is by Manuel Robbins. The book originally sold for $45, but now it fetches $175 or more when you can find it (Amazon sometimes has it available - the latest price was over $300). It is a great reading book with stories about the miners and the early discovery of the fluorescence in rocks in the Franklin and Sterling Hill mines. An arcing electric spark caused the stones on the sorting table (called the Picking Table) to glow in colors. The miners found that the rocks that glowed green contained zinc while the rocks that glowed red did not. A fellow named Tom Warren obtained a barrel of rocks from the Franklin mine and perfected his company's UV lamps to become portable mineral UV lamps. This improved the mine's ability to find high-grade ore and dump the low-grade ore. It also helped to introduce the field of collecting fluorescent minerals to many collectors. I really like reading this book. It is not too technical and has loads of information. Some of this information is updated and appears in Manny Robbins' second book and my second recommendation,
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