An emerging community project in Tasman, Aotearoa New Zealand
Wells Collection
The Wells Collection is a world-class assemblage of microminerals from Aotearoa New Zealand and around the world, alongside hand-collected New Zealand rock specimens. Built through decades of dedicated fieldwork, exploration, and exchange, this collection reflects both scientific significance and deep personal knowledge of place. It offers a rare opportunity to encounter mineral specimens that are often unseen by the public due to their scale, rarity, and precision.
About Philip Wells
& The Wells Collection
Philip Wells has been involved in mineral collecting and lapidary work for over five decades, beginning in the mid-1970s alongside his father, Cyril Wells, whose encouragement and shared curiosity laid the foundations for a lifelong passion.
What began with school-age fascination, sparked by time spent with local collectors and early exposure to rock club field trips, grew into a deep engagement with mineralogy, microminerals, lapidary arts, and community knowledge-sharing.
Through the Nelson Rock and Mineral Club, Philip and his father explored field collecting across the Nelson–Tasman region and beyond, learning cutting, polishing, jewellery making, and stone setting. Philip became particularly drawn to microminerals after first viewing specimens under a microscope—a focus that would shape much of his later collecting. Over the years, his interests expanded through national and international symposiums, where swapping, gifting, and shared field trips formed an important part of building the collection.
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Philip’s specimens include many locally collected New Zealand minerals—hand-gathered during decades of field trips—as well as international micromounts and specimens acquired through symposium exchanges, club shows, and collector networks around the world. Highlights include award-winning microminerals such as cuprite cubes with malachite sprays and chalcotrichite from the Champion Mine and smelter area, as well as fluorite and barite from sites like Thompson’s Hill. While Philip undertook very little overseas field collecting himself, his participation in national shows and symposiums provided access to both significant specimens and generous knowledge-sharing within the global mineral community.
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Beyond collecting, Philip played a substantial role in the Nelson Rock and Mineral Club, serving multiple terms as President and contributing to its educational, lapidary, and workshop activities over many years. Together, Philip and Cyril Wells held the presidency for more than 17 years, helping guide the club through periods of growth, change, and continuity. For Philip, mineral collecting has always been less about commercial ambition and more about curiosity, craftsmanship, and the quiet joy of working closely with stone—an interest he describes simply as “a wonderful hobby,” and one that continues to offer satisfaction well into his later years.
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In keeping with his long-standing commitment to community and education, many of Phil’s larger mineral specimens were donated to the Nelson Rock and Mineral Club. In 2025, his micromineral collection and a selection of smaller raw specimens were generously entrusted to Amanda Sears for inclusion within Solaria, where they continue to be cared for, studied, and shared as part of an evolving public-facing mineral library.
View Specimens from the Wells Collection
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