> There are a few species you can sometimes find in washes when they get buried during massive floods, but other than that most museum quality specimens are impossible to find for rockhounds.

Well, that's kinda how it has to be, right? If art museums displayed the artwork anyone can paint, they wouldn't be interesting to most people. Most museums are about displaying the stuff you otherwise wouldn't be able to find, buy, or make. It's still fun to learn to paint, even if you're no Rembrandt.

To be fair, there are some museums that go for depth instead of scarcity and I personally find them more interesting. The Computer History Museum does this pretty well. They have some truly unique items, but also plenty of stuff you can buy on eBay, just presented and explained well.

I live in the northeast USA, there are very few public collecting spots around me. It makes me really sad listening to people who have been in the hobby for a long time talk about all the amazing collecting sites they used to frequent before they were paved over with parking lots or condominiums and whatnot. There isn't a whole lot of "wild open space" left around here to poke about in. Another big factor for keeping the public out of collecting sites that do still exist is that some people can't be bothered to be respectful in their collecting.

The Loudville lead mine in Easthampton MA, which used to be open for public collecting, recently closed due to irresponsible collecting and severe erosion. They closed off the entire recreational trail system, which has far reaching affects far beyond the rockhounding community.

I'd collected once at Loudville shortly before it closed and found a couple scraps of Pyromorphite, some tiny Wulfenite you need a microscope to see, and some Malachite. I am sad that I can't go back, now.

You can read more about it here: https://newenglandforestry.org/newsroom/recreation-on-the-ro...

I don't expect, or really even want to find museum-quality specimens, I just want the ability to explore the minerology of my home region on a physical and personal level.

It isn't that difficult to find excellent mineral specimens, some boulder-sized, on National Forest and BLM land in the mountain West. There are many places where people have never been or where a fantastic-looking mineral deposit was ignored because they were too small (common with e.g. copper minerals).

Most of the ones I've found were incidentally discovered while hiking around off-trail in the boonies. I do always bring my Estwing with me just in case though.

"The best most of us can really hope for is some small piece from tailings."

Just this past weekend I pulled a plate full of rare tellurides out of Otto Mountain for a Caltech PhD. You have to be very observant to find a good spot to acquire minerals out of the ground, but excellent large specimens are still out there to be pulled.