Local Collector Claims Haul Was 'Highly Selective' After Vehicle Reaches Maximum Legal Payload Capacity

A local field collector reported a highly selective haul despite a vehicle suspended at its maximum legal payload capacity.

I logged the claim at 14:22 on July 30 after Inez Fenn's monthly update noted a 'curated recovery' at a public pullout off County Road 14. The cut passes through a basalt flow with columnar jointing so regular it looks machined. The collector, who shares a lease with Harold Loomis, had parked a half-ton pickup perpendicular to the exposure.

Field Note: land status public, surface collection permitted. Broad geology: olivine basalt, late Pleistocene flow. Observation: rear axle bump stops compressed, tire sidewalls bulging, later scale reading 1,240 pounds over rating. What was left in place, per the collector: 'the inferior fragments.' The fresh cut face showed every column under eight inches removed.

Identification Bench moved through the pocket of quartz with pyrite. Quartz scratched window glass; pyrite did not. Streak on unglazed ceramic gave pyrite's greenish-black line, not the gold a balcony-finder on the forum had hoped for. The first commenter asked for a streak test before offering an opinion, as he always does.

Otis Vale, standards-board fixture, arrived to issue a procedural ruling. 'Selectivity is a state of intent, not a function of clearance,' he said, tapping the bumper. 'A bottomed-out leaf spring is not a field method, it is a confession.' He logged the haul as 'indiscriminate but enthusiastic.'

A gem-show regular passing by offered forty dollars for the 'curated recovery,' dropped to thirty after the scale reading, then withdrew when shown the axle. Inez Fenn's record now states the group believes the specimens were 'curated by gravity and the county weight station.' Harold Loomis watched from the cab and said nothing; he has learned that noting the suspension's contact with pavement only extends the evening.

The collector produced a label roll to mark each piece SELECT. He exhausted it at specimen 47, then used gas-station receipt paper. The truck could not move. A friend with a trailer was called. The trailer returned with the columns left 'for the next selective visitor.'

The collector kept a dime-sized quartz with pyrite because it is pleasant to hold. He classifies the nine-gram stone as proof of restraint. The basalt remains in the wheel wells, unconverted by labeling.