43rd Munich show Report
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Here we are to the 43rd edition of the Munich Mineral show. This year thanks to  the Italian national holiday of 1st november we left on wednesday morning from Italy and arrived to Munich in the early afternoon   ready for set-up.  The impression was that many dealers  arrived in advance and on thursday  (which is the set-up day) almost all the exhibitors  were ready for the show.  Another impression was that there were more collectors during the set-up days  than on friday

Our table  B2.456

General view of the show during setup

 The Munich Mineral Fair is Europe’s international meeting place of lovers of crystals, fossils and gems from all over the world. There were about 850 exibithors from many countries spread on 3 halls . One is mostly dedicated to gems and bjoux . The B2 hall is the hearth of the show for minerals with its international pavillion were all the most famous dealers are setted up.

The B3 hall is a mix of minerals and gems and here there are all the dealers from Morocco , China, Pakistan etc .. are setted up.

Shigaite on Rhodocrosite Morocco Silver

We spent all 4 days of the show  in search of mineralogical news and good specimens  besides clearly to follow up our stand .

The main  mineral news came from the most productive countries  : China, Pakistan ,  South Africa  Morocco...  From  Europe there were no new finds  but a lot of intersting pieces for sale coming from dispersed collections.

As new find  we point out the interesting shigaite crystals on rhodocrosite from Kalahari manganese fields. For the size and quality of the crystals this could be considered one of the best find of this species. Other interesting specimens were  hollowed casts of calcite comprised of a mix of siderite and sphalerite coming from the Aggenys mine also in South Africa.

There was a massive presence of Chinese dealers with the classical Fluorites, Garnets, Stibnite, Calcite, orpiment, Realgar, Cinnabar, etc.   but the main news are   the babingtonite/prehnite specimens from Qiaojia, Zhaotong Prefecture, Yunnan Province and Rhodochrosite from Guangxi Province China.  The babingtonite are in crystals till 2 cm with nice green prehenite balls . The rhodocrosite resemble the famous pieces from sweet home mine  even if are less intense as colour and not so gemmy in association with fluorite . Dealers requested very high prices for those specimens  but anyway we managed to acquire a selection at reasonable prices.

Other news from China were some purple round fluorite balls as floaters and nice yellow baryte on blue -green fluorite. Again from China we saw some axinite samples  on sale  butof poor quality and   many flourite in green trasparent colors

 
Cihinese Rhodo Chinese globular fluorite

From Morocco the best news were Silver wires on Achantite  . We were told about  pieces with silver wires till 13 cm  that were sold at the beginning of the show. Other news were Cobaltocalcite pieces of intense color , Fluorites , Azurite and malachite from a new find and also new titanite in lustrous brown crystals

Pakistan presented the classic selection of gemmy minerals, Aquamarine, polychrome tourmalines, Topaz in dark brown colours, peridot and very large brookites and anatases pluricentimetric sometimes with blue and reddish colour….but the best pieces were in Prato's booth  : Exceptional  Pink fluorite crystals and epidote groups with crystal till 15 cm !!

Orange river Fluorite

 Pakistan Fluorite

Russian dealers presented the usual selection of minerals from Kola Peninsula and from Dal’negorsk, fluorites, calcites, sphalerite, red quartz, and some huge pirrotine crystals…..the only news aere some blue beryls and topaz from Urals

Bolivian Phosphophyllite A los lamentos wulfenite ..many were available

Indian dealers had the usual selection of Zeolites, some good fluorites but no outstanding news.

From Brasil  among the high quality gemmy material exposed   there were some new red variscite

Nice Brasilian tourmaline

 hollowed casts of calcite comprised of a mix of siderite and sphalerite

From Namibia a new find in Erongo mountains of aquamarine of intense color on quartz crystal groups. Also some new octahedric green fluorite were available. From Congo a nice found of Dioptase in large pieces very interesting for the  association with calcite and  quartz.

Finally from Bolivia & Peru' a good selection of interesting samples like paravauxite , andorite , rhodocrosite on pyrite and so on...

From Europe , USA and rest of the world as we said, many good specimens from classic localities and from old collections, expecially in the exihibitions inside the international pavillion.... from Italy we saw      somo exceptional  old pieces ( not exposed ) from the classic areas of Sardinia ,Tuscany but the prices were too high for the common collector

 

As a final comment we can resume our impression  in :

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