It is always great to be back here in Tucson.  2004 is no exception.  My trip down was circuitous as usual with stops in Sacramento, Reno, Tehachapi, Los Angeles, San Diego and ultimately Tucson 1,585 miles and three days later.   I was re-reading my intro page from last year and saw that I had noted the "dramatic" change in the exchange rate between the US Dollar and the Euro from 2002 to 2003...  Here is a quote from last year:

What a difference a year makes!  Today January 30th, the US Dollar is a paltry 0.8057 Euros.  In other words it takes 1.2411 US Dollars to buy 1 Euro! This is not good for the mineral market or any other industry like mineral collecting that transcends international boundaries.  There are a lot of dealers and buyers from Europe here but prices are all over the place as most source countries like China, South America and Africa prefer to paid in Bucks over any other currency.  The foreign dealers must then translate this into their currency which means they have to adjust their pricing in order to sell material and hope they can sell enough to make it worth while and most other people like me (which is just about all other US dealers) have to beg for price breaks.  This sort of disparity in the exchange rate is not good for the long term health of the hobby at all in my opinion...

Anyway, after three full days "in the hunt" here and conversations with many people it is apparent that there is very little of anything new in the mineral world to report on. Overall the appearance of new find material is quite limited to non-existent. But, there are substantial numbers of very good specimens from existing localities. At least that is the story so far. Many dealers have not yet opened their doors which is somewhat odd.  Given the surprising low turn out so far that may not be such a bad thing to do.  Tomorrow is the first official day of the important hotel shows here so we'll see. ...

 
Here's a photo of the Inn Suites taken January 29th.

Ok, on to the rocks!

California dealer Steve Perry has what I think are some of the more interesting specimens of "new" material here at the show. I use the term new loosely as the specimens of blue lawsonite that he has were collected in the 1950's but have laid in old newspapers since the 1950's!  These specimens all come from the type locality for lawsonite which is the Reed Ranch Road near Tiburon, Marin County, California.   Steve gave me the story on these as follows:  They were collected between 1952 and 1956 based on the dates of old newspapers which the specimens were wrapped in.  Evidently they had been stored in a garage in the San Francisco area since that time. The fellow who collected them passed away in 1970 and his widow died in April of last year. The kids of the deceased declared that the garage had to be cleaned out so the house could be sold.  Steve was contacted by the heirs and now has the best lawsonite seen in decades! Some of these specimens have enormous crystals over 1.5 cm across!  The color of the crystals varies from steel blue to light pink - some with gradations between the two colors.  Lawsonite is a rare mineral though a silicate.  It has been found in less than a dozen locations globally.

The specimen has some of the largest lawsonite crystals I have ever seen.  The large crystal on the right is over 1.5 cm across!

As I mentioned earlier on my way down I stopped in Tehachapi, California to visit with John & Barbara Seibel. John is well known for traveling around the western USA field collecting all sorts of minerals. This year John found some more of the rich pink colored halite at Searles Lake. Halite of this quality from the lake is not always available as its formation depends on the quantity and timing of rainwater.  Bacteria are responsible for the coloration of the halite.  The crystals have the classic hopper shaped crystals and many show color zoning.

  
Above are two of the seven specimens I obtained. 

Another item of interest is the appearance of good quality cuprite variety chalcotrichite. Cuprite variety Chalcotrichite from China - I have seen several Chinese dealers with some fabulous specimens of chalcotrichite.  This mineral is a hair like varietal form of cuprite.  The color is bright red and they are all lustrous. These are not new to the mineral world but they are quite appealing.  I made selections of these from Ming-Rui Mineral Museum based on the highest probability of surviving shipment while in the trusty hands of the US Postal Service. 

  
The photos above are of two of the specimens of cuprite var. chalcotrichite obtained.

There is also a few specimens of some new fluorite from the De An Mine, Jian Jiang, Jiang Xi Province, China here.  I saw some of these in Munich last November so they are not exactly new but they are new to the States.  The crystals are sharp octahedra and richly colored with variations of greenish blue to green with violet fringes. There is also a lot of dark apple green fluorite here as well.

 
These are two of the specimens I have obtained here at Tucson.  The piece on the
left is over 15 cm (> six inches) across. The specimen on the right is 8 cm across.

I noticed, while walking the halls of the Executive Inn that there were more powellites than I have ever seen before.  Raj Minerals and Superb Minerals, both dealers from India, had a good selection of fine specimens of this fluorescent calcium molybdate.  The mineral is found in association with virtually every mineral found in the fabulous basalt deposits.  I decided that the "iron was hot" with these so decided to "strike" and picked out a small hoard of small miniatures to large cabinet specimens.   Powellite is also very reactive under SW UV light.  The crystals glow a bright yellowish white color.

    
This specimen has two clustered colorless crystals of powellite set on chloritic stilbite crystals.  
Colorless crystals are less common than the more typical cream to amber colored crystals..

   
This small cabinet sized specimen has a lustrous crystal of powellite set among crystals of apophyllite and stilbite.

This is a sampling of the new material found here at Tucson.  I will work on getting more specimens posted over the coming days and will of course continue the hunt for new stuff.

  
This is where the wholesale market place is located across the street from the Executive Inn.
Not much in the way of high quality minerals here - mostly carvings, spheres, etc., and Indian zeolite specimens.

More to come on what I saw of the first three days here in Tucson 2004 in the next report.