collectible.web.id Browse species

Reference · 8 min read · Updated 2026-02-20

Locality data: what a good label records

Locality is the difference between a specimen and a rock. Recording it well takes a minute and lasts a century.

Resolution matters

A useful locality names the mine or quarry, the district, the region and the country. Brazil is not a locality. Mine, district, state, country is.

Where a specific level, vein or pocket is known, record it. That detail is what makes historical material valuable.

Type localities

The type locality is where a species was first described and formally characterised. Material from it carries particular scientific and collector interest.

It is a specific claim about history, not a synonym for the place a species is most common.

Record doubt honestly

If a locality is uncertain, write that it is uncertain. A label reading probably Tsumeb is more useful than a confident label that is wrong.

Certainty that was invented at the point of sale contaminates every catalogue it later enters.

Checking a locality claim

Species do not occur everywhere. A locality that has never produced the species on the label is a reason to doubt one or the other, and the mismatch is usually the fastest way to catch a relabelled specimen.

Where a mine closed before a species was described, a specimen cannot carry both that locality and that identification honestly. Dates are as much a part of provenance as places.