November 2 A piece of sad news to report.  I learned that well known California dealer and field collector Al Ordway passed away while on a collecting trip in the Mojave Desert. Al was well respected in the mineral community and had boundless energy when it came to minerals and doing what he loved which was filling flats with self-collected material. I will look at a few of the minerals in my inventory a bit differently from now on... Today was opening day for the general public and there was a steady stream of people coming to the show. The three halls were jammed with people all day.   Looking east near the entry way to the show.   Looking into the impresive east entry way to the show.   The crowd at mid day in Hall A4. In Hall A5 Munich dealers Kristalle Druse had a new find of zircon from Centovalli, Tessin, Switzerland.  The crystals are beige in color and brightly fluorescent yellowish under SW UV light.  They had several examples of faceted stones also. I found out about this new find too late to obtain any good specimens for the update but you can see what they look like in the photo below.     A 4.5 cm crystal on matrix for 3,700 euros... One of my stops today was with French dealer Laurent Thomas.  Laurent has been busy in Madagascar and managed to relocate an old well known liddicoatite deposit that, until this year, had been represented in ony a few famous mineral museums such as the Harvard collection.  The mine is the Bevaondrano and it is located in the Ikalamavony district. The liddicoatite crystals are a pleasing greenish blue color and of exceptional gem quality. I did not purchase any as they were quite exspensive given the $:euro exchange rate but there is hope that more will come to market in the coming years.  Laurent also had a large display with fine liddicoatite slices available from the Alakamisy mine in Fianarantsoa.  I selected a couple of these for the Munich Show update later this month.   A 3.5 cm gem crystal of liddicoatite.   One of the slices I purchased from Laurent.   Laurent writing the locality of the green liddicoatite with some of the slices on display.   Wandering around I saw Collector's Edge salesman Steve Behling pawing over some unusal quartz specimens on display by Nepalese dealer Hari Timsina.  They come from Ganesh Himal, Nepal. I don't usually get worked up over things like quarty but these were quite different and attractive. The crystals have varying amounts of chlorite inclusions and a wide range of habits.   Two specimens of the chlorite included quartz from Ganesh Himal, Nepal. Hari Timsina wrapping up my purchased quartz specimens. Yesterday I ran into John White as I was leaving and he was enjoying a cigar which I commented on. The result was the offer of a cigar for me to enjoy which I said yes to.  While puffing smoke into the late Munich afternoon air he made mention of a new find of adamite from China.  I located two Chinese dealers selling specimens from the new find in the Dachang Sn-polymetallic ore field, Nandan Co., Hechi Prefecture, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, Chinas in Hall A4.  I picked up two specimens from Yang Yun Mineral Museum. They are quite reminiscent of the Ojuela mine material in terms of the gossanous matrix but the habit looks much like adamite from the Tintic mine in Utah.  The color is pale yellow. I do not know if they fluoresce or not but will check on that when I get them back home to Weaverville in a few days.    A 2.5 cm mass of adamite with calcite. More to come over the next few days from Munich!