Tucson 2012 Report 5

T he consensus is that there is not a great of material that is new to the mineral world.  The Haunggangliang Iron mine in Inner Mongolia, A.R., China is probably the biggest source of new material  - the siderites with chalcopyrite are nice but very pricey and the pink fluorite specimens seem a bit pricey too.  This is evidently a very large deposit that will be producing for some time to come.  So for the past few days I have found a few things of interest to post to the web and have spent a lot of time visiting with mineral friends

This is how nice the weather has been here in Tucson this year.     
Mineral Collection curator at the Smithsonian Paul Pohwat relaxing in the fine weather.    I obtained some nice gold specimens from Kristalle at the Westward Look show and will be posting them soon. This is a nice matrix specimen with a 2.5 cm group of gold crystals.     Wait till you see the rest of these bi-colored apatite specimens I obtained from Frank Melanson! Brand new material from the Golconda mine in Minas Gerais, Brazil.    

The final event is the main show at the Convention Center.  Those of us who have been here for three weeks are anxious for it and for the end of mineral insanity.   

 
Wendell Minerals before the minerals arrived....  
First day of the show and "magically" the minerals are in place.    
Evan Jones getting his booth together.  

A prominent structure in the Lithographie, Miner's Lunchbox and Dave Bunk booth.     New York dealer John Betts at the front end of a long day...  
Isaias Casanova and Geoff Krasnov trying to get inspired to fill the cases.     This is one of the new brochantite specimens in Evan's booth from Milpillas.  These are some of the best of species that I am aware of.    
Opening day at the main show.  Very large crowd this year!    
The Graeber and Himes booth.

  

 

Enjoying some of the fine food.

 
Alfredo Petrov just entering the party.     The two principal hosts - Gail Spann and Jordi Fabre.   The main dish - delicious Paella.         The new mineral curator at the LA County Museum Eloise Gailllou.       Carl Francis remeniscing about his past at Harvard while Jim Spann (left) and Tony Kamph look on.     Everyone pasted their name tag on Jordi as they left.     Some of us have a more distinguished spot in Jordi's heart...Actually I guess just me.... whaaaa  

 

Many thanks again to Jim, Gail and Jordi for the fun time.

 

The last report will be on some of the incredible displays here.

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