The Mineralogical Society of Southern California

Program Notes: Friday, May 19 2025  at 7:30, join us for Philip M. Persson presenting  “A Look at the Remarkable Collection of the mim Museum, Beirut, Lebanon”

The mim (the name is inspired by the 24th letter of the Arabic alphabet, pronounced “mim”, which is also the first letter of the worlds “museum”, “mineral”, and “mines” in both Arabic and English) is a public mineral museum located in Beirut, Lebanon. It is the brainchild of Salim Eddé, a Lebanese entrepreneur, collector and scientist. The museum, located on the campus of Saint Joseph University in downtown Beirut, opened in October of 2013. It currently contains approximately 2500 specimens and is organized both systematically and aesthetically to stimulate excitement about minerals and the natural world in the public of Lebanon and beyond. The focus of the mim collection is both world-class examples of aesthetic minerals, as well as high-quality systematic specimens representing rare and unusual minerals, ideally in macroscopic, high-quality crystals. The museum attracts nearly 40,000 visitors a year and is currently the #1 ranked activity in Beirut on the TripAdvisor website. This presentation will introduce the audience to this remarkable museum, certainly one of the most important in the mineral world, and its world-class collection.

Phil Persson is a geologist, mineral dealer, and collector living on the west side of Denver, Colorado. His passion for geology and mineral collecting began as a child living near the “fluorescent mineral capital of the world”, Franklin New Jersey, and eventually led to a BA in geology from the University of Colorado at Boulder in 2012 and an MSc. in economic geology with a focus on geochemistry and petrology at the Colorado School of Mines in 2017. He has been a co-author and collaborator on numerous scientific papers, abstracts and magazine articles on mineralogy and geology, with a focus on rare earth element minerals and pegmatites of Colorado. He enjoys public speaking and has given dozens of talks for mineral clubs and events, as well as helped organize several scientific symposia in Colorado. He has been involved in the mineral dealing and collecting community for close to 20 years and is currently employed full-time as a mineral dealer in the Denver, Colorado area.