UA Home to $7 Million Mineral Collection

At age 9, Hubert Charles de Monmonier discovered a box of minerals under his uncle’s porch in Pearce, Arizona. It changed his life. Though he grew up in Los Angeles and worked there as a school groundskeeper and steel worker for 40 years, he never lost his passion for minerals. An avid collector with a sharp eye for value, Monmonier acquired 871 specimens, including a dinner-plate-sized piece of gold from a pocket near the mine that started the1849 gold rush. He quietly willed this remarkable collection – now worth over $7 million – to the UA Mineral Museum, making it one of the best university-owned collections in the nation.