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A biography of Luiz Alberto Dias Menezes, a Brazilian mining engineer, mineral collector and dealer, is presented. He was born on October 5, 1950 in São Paulo, Brazil and studied and graduated at the Polytechnic School of the University of São Paulo in 1973. He achieved a successful professional career as a mining engineer and is married to Maria Luisa Mazza Dias Menezes with four children. He entered the mineral business and work full time as a mineral dealer.

The article features Alpheus Fuller Williams who was an American mining engineer and an avid collector of diamond crystals from local diamond mines. Topics include Williams' role in the discovery and naming of bultfonteinite which is a Kimberley diamond-mine type-locality species, the books on mining that he wrote including "The Genesis of the Diamond" and "Some Dreams Come True," and his role as director of the South African Permanent Mutual Building and Investment Society.

Remembers mining engineer, economic geologist and mineralogist Richard Venable Gaines. Date died; Contributions to the science of mineralogy and to the mineral collecting community; Childhood; Family background; Career and educational background; Companies worked for; Mineral collections; Retirement.