Seth Rosenfeld Collection

Bay of Islands, Paihia, New Zealand | Photo by Leo Kenney

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An Accidental Collection by Appreciative Patients

The Seth Rosenfeld (Beth Heesacker - Julian Gray) Collection has an interesting backstory which begins with Dr. Rosenfeld who had this collection in his office. When he retired, he offered the collection on Craig’s List and provided the following story when asked by the new owner.

My Sand Collection

I just retired from practicing medicine for 30 years (primary care, Internal Medicine). About 15 years ago I came back from a trip to Israel, brought back a couple vials of sand from beaches I visited there, and put them on a shelf in my exam rooms as a small decoration. I added another couple of bottles of sand after a trip to the Bahamas with my kids a year later. My patients when seeing these few bottles sort of assumed I "collected" sand; they then would start bringing in small amounts of sand from their various trips to add to the collection. The early donations were typically brought back in those plastic film canisters (no use for them once the film was used); that gives you an idea of how long ago this was! (ie the pre-digital camera age...)

At any rate the collection grew and grew, 90+% were donations from my patients (who of course did not know each other, but together collaborated on the communal project). The bottles were displayed in my exam rooms, which patients enjoyed while they were waiting to see me. I soon ran out of counter space, so a patient made a few small cabinets with shelves so I could fit more bottles. A geologist patient donated nice screw-top glass specimen bottles.

I enjoyed hearing of the stories behind the collections. One lady braved high winds and horizontal rain while traversing a narrow path down a cliff at night to collect sand for me from just the right beach in Ireland. Another hiked 2.5 miles to get the only green sand on the island. What initially began as strictly sand from beaches grew to include dirt with supposed healing properties from a spiritual church in New Mexico, volcanic rock from Pompei, sand from the foot of the Great Sphinx, a piece of the Berlin Wall, a small rock chunk form the Acropolis, a piece from Dwight Eisenhower's driveway, and (my favorite) snow (melted of course) from Sun Valley.

This has entertained me and hundreds of my patients for years. I hope you enjoy it as much as I have.

Seth "Chip" Rosenfeld, May 2013

Beth Heesacker answered the ad, received the collection, and enjoyed it for 10 years. She incorporated some of the original collection into her collection. She also produced almost 200 microscope slides with samples of the various sands glued to the slides. Beth gave the collection to Julian Gray, a fellow mineral and sand collector and a member of ISCS.

In late 2025, Julian gave the surprisingly still well-stocked collection to the Donations Committee for distribution to ISCS members. The collection at that point contained over 200 containers of various sizes containing sand, pebbles, and rocks. The microscope slides will be for educational use.