Mineral Shows - Trinity Mineral Co

Tucson 2009 Report 6

I was finally able to spend more time at the Westward Look show on Sunday. No doubt that the highest concentration of good rocks in Tucson can be found at this show. A visit to each room is an educational experience on how good the best of any given find is or was. It is also the place where the prices asked for minerals look for new and never before explored regions of our galaxy. I spent some time with a number of the dealers there and the reports were that people were buying at the high end but not quite as much as in recent years. Some dealers there had banner shows while others watched the clock in their rooms. Traffic, as with the other hotel shows, was down about 30-40%. In general things were about 25% down as an average. But there was still a lot of activity in the high end market.

My regret was not being able to get to the Jim and Gail Spann display in the lobby. There always seems to be more things that have to get done than there is time to get to the things that one wants to get done. I feel ok on this one though as I had a chance to view their collection in the home in Rockwall, Texas this past December. I think most people will agree that the Spanns have built one of the more impressive collection of minerals in the US in a relatively short time. But, it has also been assembled carefully with a substantial knowledge gained over the past several years.

During the Saturday show at my apartment I heard from Brent Thorne that Rob Sielecki of Ausrox had a large array of Tsumeb rarities. I was way late on getting there but I saw a couple of very good stottite specimens that Brent nabbed. Rob had all sorts of the tough stuff to get from Tsumeb like johillerite, kegelite, schneiderhohnite and a lot more. Nuts.

Tsumeb rarities and even a Kombat mine treasure - nambulite!

Anglesite on Thometzekite on the far left and in the lower right another stottite.

Herb & Moni Obodda had one of the better microlite specimens I've seen from Pakistan

They also had a loose partial crystal of the canary yellow stibiotantalite .

The Oboddas also had a stunning rough and cut of vayrynenite.

Dan & Diana Weinrich had the best grossular I can ever recall seeing from the Jeffrey Quarry in Canada.

Their $125,000 tanzanite was nice to see also.

The rooms at the Westward Look were akin to walking into museum displays. There are some incredible pieces available but my budget and intent to stay married trumped my willingness to pull the trigger on much of anything there. So, back to the Inn Suites to see what I can dig up.

I finally wandered into Czech dealer Petr Sztacho's room at the Inn Suites. Petr had a large number of good pieces from the former USSR states but what really caught my eye were specimens he had of the only known mineral containing the element rhenium. They are rheniite specimens from the Kudriavy volcano on Kuril Island off the east coast of Russia. This was a one time, ephemeral find of this mineral formed around several active vents on the volcano. When the discoverer returned to collect more specimens the volcano's heating system had vaporized the entire deposit. All of the area where the mineral was abundant was totally barren of rheniite. Subsequent trips to the site have proved futile also. I bought all he had of this exceedingly rare mineral.

An insanely rich specimen of rheniite with crystals to 1.5 mm across.

Earlier in the preceding week I received a note from Paul Balayer of Kalahari Mineral Venture and Bruce Cairncross about a new and allegedly spectacular find of olmiite. There has been a tsunami of olmiite specimens made available over the past two years since it was described as a new species two years ago. Paul has consistently had the best specimens of these available at the Munich Show and anywhere else he sets up. Bruce had said in his email that Paul had recovered the entire contents of a series of pockets at the N'Chwaning mine (they were recovered just before Christmas about six to seven weeks ago) containing pinkish salmon colored olmiite associated with water clear, calcite. The pockets were found after blasting at the mine (tragically, this resulted in many of the calcite crystals being cleaved at the tips...). Many of the calcite crystals have faintly defined phantoms also. This is the first time that water clear calcite in large crystals has ever been found in association with olmiite/poldervaartite series. Well Paul arrived very late on February 8th or, I guess it was actually very early on February 9th and I made arrangements to see him later in the morning of the 9th. My eyes popped when I saw these. The olmiite is associated with what appears to be optical grade calcite in scalenohedron habit. The calcite is second generation as the clearer calcite frequently is found as a cast of larger calcite either dissolved away or still present as a much more opaque core. There were also several large hemispherical specimens found - all with brilliant luster. I made a substantial pick of the 200 or so specimens which comprise the entire find and will have them posted in a day or two. You can find Paul in room 270 at the Inn Suites. He will be there till the end of the show on February 14th. Paul can also be reached via cell phone at: 520-822-7394. I believe that these are some of the more interesting new material here in Tucson.

A new 10 cm olmiite specimen from N'Chwaning.

One of the new olmiite specimens with water clear calcite from N'Chwaning.

Another of the new water clear calcite/olmiite specimens.

A 5.2 cm specimen of calcite with pink olmiite.

Dusk at the Inn Suites after a rain storm.

I can see I will have to add another report or two to this year's effort. Up next will be set up day for the Main Show at the Convention Center. Everyone is expecting a lower turnout this year compared to last year. I know that scores of dealers and collectors have already returned home. We shall see...

1999 Munich Show	2000 Sainte Marie Show Munich Show	2001 Sainte Marie Show Munich Show	2002 Tucson Show Sainte Marie Show Denver Show Munich Show
2003 Tucson Show Sainte Marie Show East Coast Show Denver Show Munich Show	2004 Tucson Show West Coast Show East Coast Show Denver Show Munich Show	2005 Tucson Show West Coast Show East Coast Show Denver Show Munich Show	2006 Tucson Show Bologna Show Sainte Marie Show East Coast Show Munich Show
2007 Tucson Show Dallas Show East Coast Show Denver Show Munich Show	2008 Tucson Show West Coast Show East Coast Show Denver Show Munich Show	2009 Tucson Show West Coast Show East Coast Show Denver Show Munich Show	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