This was another busy day of plowing through the halls of the Holiday Inn here looking for anything and everything that could be considered new to the mineral collecting world.  While working the first floor I was tapped on the shoulder by Bill Larson of Pala, International.  Bill said: "Follow me".  So being somewhat mindless as it is already I followed him.  He took me to the room that he is sharing with French dealer Alain Martaud and proceeded to show me a lot of new tourmaline specimens from the Aruba Mine in Minas Gerais, Brazil.   These are some remarkable specimens.  It appears that the cores of the tourmalines are pseudomorphs of quartz after tourmaline followed by a subsequent phase of tourmaline mineralization.   Bill told me he'd high graded the entire lot from the owner of the mine in the last month.  I bought the entire lot.  Below are two examples of the specimens obtained.  

Above are three of the 14 new specimens obtained from Bill Larson.
Note the quartz crystals emerging from two of the specimens.

Alain had a flat of gemmy floater adularia crystals from Switzerland.  Adularia is almost always opaque and, according to Alain, this is a very rare find with gemmy crystals.   I bought the flat he had and felt that the time spent in room 183 was very worthwhile.

 

On the second floor I saw Guangua Liu of AAA Minerals with his usual fine assortment of Chinese minerals.  He had two items of interest to me - new azurite and malachite specimens from the Tonglin Mine in Anhui Province and several specimens of fluorite in stibnite from Guizhou.  I selected a few specimens of the azurite and the only  undamaged fluorite/stibnite specimen from the lot he had.  He also showed me what has to be the finest specimen of mimetite from China that exists.   I did not get a picture of it but is simply dazzling... and expensive.  Below is one of the azurite specimens and the stibnite/fluorite specimen I bought from him.

 

   

As I mentioned in the last report new specimens of nevadaite are available here from Scott Kleine of Great Basin Minerals and also from Tony Nikischer of Excalibur Minerals.   I made a couple of selections from Tony's limited supply of nevadaite.  Tony was kind enough to allow me to take his picture so people can put a face and name together.

Here's a shot of Tony behind the keyboard in his room.

I spent the rest of the day snapping some pictures of the premises here.

 
Here are two shots looking from the outside at the wholesale tents.

 
These two shots show the front of the Holiday Inn with a line of tents with venders selling mostly lapidary type items.

 

 
Another popular venue here at the hotel show is the ball room where I found Doug and Terri Wallace of Mineral Search (photo on the right).  Doug is one of the hardest working dealers I know traveling all over the country in pursuit of fine minerals.  Doug and Terri always have some fine affordable minerals available as well as a fine assortment of jewelry and other fabricated products.

Here's a shot of Missouri dealer Dan Weinrich who, after making a crack about "my brother", was
"forced" to wear an Oakland A's cap for this picture. Dan is an avid fan of the St. Louis Cardinals.

Tomorrow the main show and Rocksmith's Auction.

2010
Tucson Show
San Francisco Show
East Coast Show
Denver Show
Munich Show

2011
Tucson Show
San Francisco Show
East Coast Show
Denver Show
Munich Show

2012
Tucson Show
West Coast Show
East Coast Show
Denver Show 
Munich Show

2013
Tucson Show
Sainte Marie Show
Crystal Days (Poland)
Munich Show