Part of the Australian Museum’s Albert Chapman Mineral Collection has gone on show at Bathurst’s Australian Fossil and Mineral Museum, for an extended loan period of two years.

Bathurst is already home to the Warren Sommerville collection, also owned by the Australian Museum, making the local museum a fitting place for the Chapman collection to be housed. “Albert Chapman and Warren Sommerville were friends and they used to go out fossicking together,” Australian Museum director and CEO Kim McKay said at the launch. “In fact, Albert Chapman really taught Warren a lot about fossicking and minerals in the first place, it’s very nice to have the collections reunited here.”

Bathurst Regional Council is well known for its support of museums, with the latest, the new Bathurst Rail Museum on track to open in December this year. “This extended loan shows the confidence that is displayed in our city wide professionalism and capacity to host significant and valuable displays” said Mayor of Bathurst, Clr Graeme Hanger.

Albert Chapman assembled one of the finest mineral collections in the world. This exhibition is a tribute to his passion for minerals and quest to collect to the highest standards of perfection. Some on show are considered the finest of their type in the world.

Warren Sommerville met Albert while studying Geology at Macquarie University in the 1970’s, beginning a long association leading to yet another reason to visit Bathurst!