Printable collection labels

Labelling your collection: the mark of a true collector

An undocumented mineral collection loses half its value — and not only its market value. A specimen without a label is a stone whose origin, date of discovery and very identity have been forgotten. Our generator lets you create printable collection labels in the Lapidem style: ivory background, gold border, careful typography, ready to cut out and slip into your specimen boxes.

What belongs on a label

The conventions of museums and serious collectors retain four essentials, which our tool follows: the mineral's name (with its variety if known: “quartz, var. amethyst”), the weight — in carats for gems, in grams for rough specimens — the provenance, by far the most precious of all: record the most precise locality you can, ideally the mine, quarry or deposit, not just the country — and the date acquired.

The “note” field lets you add whatever seems useful: measured hardness, the nature of the specimen (geode, druse, single crystal), the dealer, the price paid, or a personal observation.

The advice that is worth gold: never lose the provenance

Dealers and collectors will all tell you the same thing: a fine specimen without provenance is worth markedly less than an equivalent one whose source mine is known. This is true commercially, and it is true scientifically. The classic beginner's mistake is to buy a stone at a mineral fair, assume you will remember where it came from, and have forgotten six months later. Label it the same day.

And to keep a digital record, Lapidem's showcase lets you save your identifications with their photo, straight from the AI identification tool.