About the collector
Gallery PATRIOT is my dream come true
I started collecting rocks in the eighth grade of elementary school thanks to my chemistry teacher, who chose me to throw a full box of pebbles in the trash. The sound of stones falling to the bottom of the metal bin and the dazzling sun overhead turned the ordinary stones into a shiny and glittering treasure! As a little boy back then, I didn’t hesitate to climb into the dustbin, pull out the treasure and take it home. I put the stones in the shelf and that’s how my journey to minerals began.
I see getting to know Karel Koliáš, Michal Macfelda and others from the then GeoKlub Přerov at the gymnasium as another milestone and again luck. Under Karl’s leadership, we as boys started looking for stones directly in the field all over the Czech Republic. We visited many mineralogical sites in Bohemia and Moravia. It was a very beautiful period associated with friendship, trips, nature, and often crowned with interesting finds.
University studies turned me away from stones for a while, but then I came back after I moved to Prague, where I met David Drahuský from Jílové u Prahy. He took me underground for the first time, we visited the Dolnoborský pegmatite mine and then a number of other important mining sites. At that time I was already working and could afford to start the stones and buy.
Currently, I consider myself an important collector and popularizer of mineralogy. Since 2016, I have been the main organizer of the Minerál Tišnov exchange, a member of the editorial board of the MINERÁL magazine, the organizer of occasional professional meetings of mineral collectors, and above all, I am the founder and operator of the PATRIOT Gallery in Tišnov.
What minerals mean to me and how I choose them
“I visited a lot of mineralogical sites, private collections, museums and also stock exchanges
throughout the country and abroad. My collection
gradually increased in volume and quality. I learned to compare and evaluate the quality of stones.
This made me realize that there was a lack of a place to collect and document those
the best stones of our broad generation of turn-of-the-millennium collectors and at the same time accessible to all laymen
and professional mineralogy enthusiasts.
And that’s why the PATRIOT Gallery was created.”
Minerals are an integral part of my life. For me, they mean joy, the opportunity to build and take care of my dream in the form of the PATRIOT Gallery, and over time, minerals have also become one of the non-traditional options for storing and evaluating financial resources. I hope that the Gallery will be a place that you like to visit.
My other activities with minerals
I participate in the organization of the mineral exchange
Since the spring of 2017, I have been organizing the Mineral Tišnov mineral exchange. This is the oldest and largest mineralogical meeting in the Czech Republic with a tradition of more than 40 years. Every spring and autumn, Tišnov belongs to minerals from Friday to Sunday. In recent years, we have reached an attendance of 7,000 guests, with 210 exhibitors from different countries.
I run an e-shop with minerals
Establishing an e-shop with minerals was the next logical step in my collecting activity, because in many cases it is necessary to purchase additional stones or replace the original exhibits when acquiring exceptional specimens for exhibitions. And the e-shop is a suitable outlet for these surpluses. On the website www.mineralpatriot.cz you will find a wide range of stones at favorable prices.
TOP 111 minerals Gallery PATRIOT
Publishing is the icing on the cake of my collecting. These are primarily pictorial documentation of exhibits from the PATRIOT Gallery’s own collection and exhibits. The TOP 111 Minerals publication published in 2020 is among the firsts, and I already have ideas in my head for other publications, including the TOP 111 upgrade for 2030 and the next decade.