Onlineminerals.com is an internet mineral dealership. We sell Southern African minerals specimens and we also
stock minerals from international localities. We are located at Fourways (about 25km north of Johannesburg),
South Africa.
I am Allan Fraser, welcome to my website. Please feel free to e-mail me at
info@onlineminerals.com or call me on my mobile phone at +27 76 758 1310 should you have any questions or
comments. See Contact us.
Prices
I try to be fair with my pricing. See Articles for an article on the subject
of pricing of minerals. All prices quoted on this website are in United States Dollars.
Labels, Minerals Identification and Localities
A label accompanies each specimen you buy from Online Minerals. As a mineral collector and dealer, I feel
very strongly on supplying accurate information on the specimen as far as name and locality are concerned. If
I am not sure of what the mineral is, I will get an opinion from experts. If there is any doubt as to the ID
of a mineral, I will mention that in the description or place a (?) next to the possible ID (my own identification
of the mineral). That also goes for localities. I am reliant on the miners and dealers that the localities are
accurate. I also strive to give a description of the mineral and any other interesting or aesthetic features
of the piece for sale. Often both sides of a mineral specimen are aesthetic and I will take pictures of
different viewpoints on the specimen and you can find these extra pictures by opeing "click here for more pics".
Dimensions of Mineral Specimens
All specimen sizes mentioned on this site are in centimeters. Here is a general size definition:
| General Dimension | Max. Inches | Max. Centimeters |
| Thumbnail (TN) | 1 1/4 | 3.1 |
| Miniature (Min) | 2 | 5.0 |
| Small Cabinet (SCab) | 3 3/4 | 9.4 |
| Cabinet (Cab) | >3 3/4 | >9.4 |
Photography
I use a Sony Cybershot DSC-S75 digital camera and an Olympus 360L digital camera. I used the Olympus
for many of older pictures on my website before I purchased the Sony. The Olympus is great for
cabinet specimen pictures but not suitable for macro photography which is so often required for
mineral photography. The Sony is ideal for macro photography. I strive to capture the natural colour
of a specimen therefore all of my photography is done in natural light - I very seldom use special or extra
lighting. I have found a convenient spot in my study where the sunlight streams in at the 'right' angle for
natural light photography. I do add a coloured background in some cases, such as red or blue, so as to help
with the lighting or decrease reflection as needs be or just to make the background more interesting. Usually
I use a light tan coloured paper as background that gives a neutral effect behind the specimen. I am by no
means an expert photographer, so if there are any experienced mineral photographers out there I would appreciate
any comments or suggestions.
I use a 68mB memory stick in the Sony and transfer the pictures to my laptop. From there I save the pictures
into a file and go through them and discard any poor pictures and then transfer the best ones onto a CD. The
pictures are then uploaded onto the website. I also use a Nova microscope to assist me in mineral
identification and to search for any unusual features in the domain of the microscopic. The Nova is very
suitable for mineral viewing and as it has a 10x and 30x magnification facility. I have found that above
30x one starts to run into 3 dimension veiwing problems. Usually 10x is suitable to view enough detail
for most specimens including micromounts.