After a year of research, Keith Corrie, as a lighting consultant, has established the optimum LED lighting in display cabinets, specifically for mineral specimens. With this exactly neutral white light, displayed objects such as minerals and other collectables can be exhibited with their true colour and not drenched in the insipid yellow washed tungsten or the cold fluorescent blue tinted lighting normally used.

The difference between the two light sources is quite dramatic, which is even better in reality.

The LED multiple point light sources illuminate more evenly, casting virtually no shadows. The close proximity of the light sources gives a more pleasing effect, adding a “sparkle” to any multi-faceted objects.

The LED lighting strips are extremely low wattage, 3 watts per 300mm (1 ft). So one standard sized display shelf would use 9 watts of power, compared with 100 watts traditionally. This low power consumption has the added benefit that nearly no heat builds up in cabinets, as compared with tungsten lighting. The fingertip can touch the LED sources, as they are only slight warm.

The examples of other collectables under tungsten and LED lighting exhibit how versatile and beneficial the LED lighting can be. These photos can been seen on our www.cmcit.co.uk webpage and have been taken and used as the camera has produced them, without any colour editing. Video clips can be seen on our YouTube.com page, CMCITCO.

A selection of the recommended minerals books.

The Mineralogical Record magazine is a bimonthly publication, written by and for mineral enthusiasts, worldwide. Its first issue was published in early 1970. The original goals professed in the first issue were to serve the needs of mineral collectors by supplying timely, pertinent information about minerals, mineral localities, and all related topics including new mineral data, book reviews, show news, reports on well known mineral localities on a worldwide basis, data on newly discovered as well as old, well known localities, biographical sketches of personalities within the science and hobby, and so forth. Each year the Mineralogical Record magazine has increased its size and has become known, worldwide, as one of the top specialty magazines in its field (this is actually a modest statement -- we believe it is No.1 in popularity, worldwide!). Through the years, the magazine’s staff has persevered in their original goals, always providing a bigger and better magazine, always striving for higher quality articles. A phenomenal increase has been seen, in the past 25 years, in the number of special issues devoted to important mineral localities or other important, related topics (one issue is dedicated to the history of mineral collecting, another covers historical mineral books, and several issues are devoted to the presentation of color photographs of major mineral specimens on exhibit in famous mineral museums). Indeed, the Mineralogical Record magazine has become a legend in its own time, and the back issues are in high demand as sources of information on important mineral finds, localities, etc.