Years ago when I was a young guy I started with my mineral collecting hobby. The start was right away with fluorescent minerals when my parents took me to a mineral fair in a place called Zutphen in the Netherlands on a rainy day, whose main theme was fluorescence. I had (of course) never heard this of and just like all other children it made a magical impression on me. This feeling has never left and my father quickly built a display cabinet for me which one 8W Blacklight fluorescent tube. At the fair I bought my first pieces of fluorescent minerals for a few dutch guilders (that was before we got the euro, 1 euro = 2,2 dutch guilders):

Wernerite and Tugtupite (a purchase that I'm really happy with, did not know what tenebrescense was back than)

 

Of course the hobby grew and after several years the 8W cabinet really became too small and the UV-C minerals were starting to become interesting enough to get displayed. After some research I bought 2 Philips PL-S 11W UV-C tubes and a 18W blacklight. The greatest search was for the UV-C pass filter. I made my first international online purchase from Don Newsome (UVSYSTEMS.COM) and bought a few longwave and 1 expensive shortwave filter. Very exciting at that time, online purchases were not nearly as common as today, and certainly not international purchases. Fortunately, Don helped me very well and a week later I had them at home.

 

After some tinkering I finished my 1st diy UV cabinet with UVC inside! This cabinet has given me years of fun and has gone over some cosmetic changes over time. Years later, I decided to take up the hobby again and have built my 2nd fluorescence cabinet based on a transilluminator (used in laboratories)

 

This is where the idea came to life to start making these cabinets commercially. Currently they are available in the webshop

 

In the meantime the hobby also got some side braches and I also tumble some rocks in my rocktumbler. The rock tumbling tasted for more and I purchased a vintage cutting / polishing machine which I completely refurbished into a fully operational rock cutting/polishing machine. I now also make jewelry and have decided to offer my creations in the shop (coming soon).

 

Take a look around and if there are any questions I be happy to answer them.

 

Sincerely,

 

Wim Bruines