One of the primary methods of acquiring mineral samples is through collecting during business trips and expeditions. Due to the infamous underfunding of museums, it is generally quite difficult to perform organized collection activities. For that reason, the museum’s approach to collecting is flexible, especially when it comes to collecting samples from mines where lost opportunities cannot be redeemed later.
Since the establishment of the museum until nowadays, despite all difficulties, several large and successful expeditions to collect minerals have been conducted:
- Several expeditions to Russia: pegmatites in Zabaykalsky krai; "Old" mineralogical places in Ural; Two expeditions to alkaline massifs in the Kola Peninsula beyond the Arctic Circle.
- An expedition to pegmatite fields of Mozambique.
- An expedition in the ancient silver mines of Lavrion, Greece.
A multiyear permanent expedition operated in the Rhodope Mountains near Ardino’s area. Dozens of new pegmatite veins were discovered there and hundreds of specimens were collected. In recent years the expeditions relocated near the area of Cold Well, where it continued with systematic research of agate deposits.