Boston Mineral Club

Welcome to the Boston Mineral Club website! If you have suggestions, questions or comments about the site, please use the Contact page.

You do not need a college degree in earth sciences to join the club! We are open to all. We welcome and encourage new members to join the club. Membership 

What We Do

The Boston Mineral Club (BMC) was founded in 1936 to "promote the study and collecting of rocks and minerals, to encourage friendly cooperation among mineralogists and collectors, [and] to promote the study of mineralogy and related arts and sciences coming within the purview of earth sciences..."

In the pursuit of these goals, the BMC offers educational programs at club meetings, mineral collecting field trips, a newsletter, and access to our mineralogical reference library.

The Boston Mineral Club is a member of the American Federation of Mineral Societies and the Eastern Federation of Mineral and Lapidary Societies.

Field Trips

The Boston Mineral Club is proud of its long tradition of conducting field trips to collecting localities throughout the New England area. Information about trips planned for the current year is published in our newsletters which can be found in the members only area of the website. 

The club also organizes occasional trips to localities outside of New England. Previous destinations have included Nova Scotia, Kentucky, Georgia and Arizona. You can view photos of our 2009 trip to Nova Scotia here: recent trip to Nova Scotia.

Regular Meetings

Information about the regular monthly meetings of the club can be found on the meetings page. 



Members can Download the June
Newsletter   HERE

 The Next BMC Meeting

BMC Meeting Announcement

Tuesday, June 3rd – 7:15 PM

Note - Early Start Time!

Speaker: Kevin Downey

Topic: Cave Minerals

7:30 PM - Business Meeting:  Vote on the new Articles of Organization, Constitution and Bylaws that were discussed at the May meeting and printed in the May newsletter.

8:00 PM - Program: Cave Minerals  Presented by: Kevin Downey

  Kevin Downey will be the speaker for the June meeting of the Boston Mineral Club. Kevin is well-known to most of us as a local mineral dealer specializing in high quality specimens. His mineral business, “Well Arranged Molecules”, can be found at selected mineral shows including the Tucson Gem and Mineral Show in February, the East Coast Gem and Mineral Show (Springfield) in August and several local club shows. Kevin began collecting minerals at age 9, had his first exhibit course at an AFMLS show at age 12. He eventually financed some of his college degree by selling his collection. After studies in Geology he began a long avocation exploring, mapping, documenting and helping preserve caves worldwide. Professionally, Kevin owns and runs a photographic studio specializing in advertising and commercial projects.

In 2013 Kevin gave a presentation to us on his adventures acquiring mineral specimens in China. In a previous year he introduced us to some of the most magnificent caves found on Earth and described the difficulties associated with entering them and generating enough light to photograph them. If you saw either of those presentations you will know that the June meeting is one that you won't want to miss. As you might expect given his background, the photography will be stunning and Kevin is very knowledgeable about his subjects. I'm looking forward to seeing some more fabulous cave photos and learning more about the types of cave minerals he has encountered and how they are formed. Some example cave photos from Kevin’s website are included in this meeting announcement. 

Due to a special event being held in the Harvard Mineral Museum, the museum will not be open to BMC members and guests before our meeting.

Our meeting will be held in Haller Hall as usual.  Refreshments will be available starting at 7:15 PM and the meeting will formally begin at 7:30 PM with an important business meeting before starting the presentations. The primary item of business will be a vote on the new Articles of Organization, Constitution and Bylaws that were discussed at the May meeting and printed in the May newsletter. These changes will establish the direction for the future of the BMC as a recognized educational organization and it is very important that we have a quorum to conduct that vote.

Please review these documents prior to the meeting by reading the May newsletter or downloading them from the BMC website at  www.bostonmineralclub.org/files/bmc_organization.

We also will be introducing our summer field trip plans as part of the business meeting. After the presentation, the evening will end with our traditional mineral specimen raffle.

This should be a great meeting. I hope that you can attend. Also please remember that visitors are always welcome at our monthly meetings.

- Nate Martin, BMC President

 We Welcome Visitors & New Members!