...feelings from Tucson Show

To define and describe the Tucson exhibition is extremely complex, due to the dimension of the show widespread on a number of hotels and other exposition centers and areas.

Here we will try to summarize our impressions on the show, clearly based on our personal feelings taken only in the last week of the exhibition . Clearly our impression are only for the mineralogical part of the show, but we shouldn't  forget the other components of the show, on which we will make only few quick notes.

The show

The mineral exhibition is organized in different areas, generally hotels and motels, but also tents, each characterized by different  typologies: minerals, fossils, gems, bead, tools, generally organized and exposed as a market, or in the motels where each room is a small stand that can be visited in a very relaxing and friendly atmosphere.

Clearl the shift from one exposition area to the other, from a motel to a tent is relatevely difficult and unusual for our habit as europeans.

Another chatacteristic of the show is the duration: 15 days, officially it starts at the beginning of February, but since the last week of January the dealers start to prepare the rooms and at the same time the buyers come to see and try to catch the new findings.  

The Mainshow

The  mainshow is in practice a concentrate of what exposed in the different areas of the show, it is a classical show, european style, that lasts the last 4 days of the manifestation. All the main dealers present in the different hotel rooms participate to the mainshow, our inpression anyway is that this part of the exhibition is a sort of "museum"  where only the very top pieces with several thousand of dollars of cost are exposed.

Anyway this year  the thematic expositions in the central cases were very interesting with some really exceptional specimens.

Our impression is that one of the limits of this part of the event is the absence of small dealers and rockhounders... and the prices... very high, and sometimes higher even of the other parts of the show, the other motels and markets.

The Dealers

The representation of dealers was very heterogeneous, from different parts of the world, even a lot of european delaers, expecially from Russia. We have been impressed by the pakistani dealers, concentrated in a motel with some brazilian, where there were some superb specimens of aquamarine, fluorite, apatite, topaz and tourmaline.

As usual a lot of chinese dealers, thet had as usual very aethetic minerals, among the others, Fluorite, Scheelite, Quartz , Cassiterite and Wolframite.

Typical of this show is the presence of the most important wholesalers specialized in the import of minerals from  India, Madagascar, Zaire, Brazil, where it is possible to find specimens with very attractive prices...

The participation to the show.....

Our general impression has been of a poor participation from collectors, expecially american collectors, to the show. This impression has been confirmed by some of the dealers we have spoken with: they have roughly evaluated about 30% less of public, expecially american .

This impression is only for the mineral part of the exhibition, not for the gem and bead sector, where we noticed a quite numerous participation.

Highlights ......

In this section the main  remarkable new findings and mineralspecies we noticed in the show:

America: clearly this was the area with  the most remarkable specimens:  Millerite from Nevada, very good Wulfenite from Red Claud, from 79 mine, Defiance mine and from Los Lamentos; from Canada very nice asbestos vesuvianite; to point out the faboulus  specimens of crystalized gold  and nuggets both from USA and Canada; about flourite very nice samples from New Mexico in blue crystals and a new find from arizona in green octaedric XX till 3 cm.  From the California pegmatite mines very nice samples of elbaite with different colors and very hight quality coppers and silvers from the closed Michigan mines . Still from Arizona   very nice stalactitic azurites from Morenci and at the main show a good selection of epidote from Alaska; from Ande nice silver and Rhodocrosite from Perù , Hubnerite in nice red crystals both on quartz and pyrite , From Bolivia fantastic Vivianite and Proustite from Chile in red crystals .   From Brasile  remarkable   blue acquamarine in prismatic crystals  Elbaites  and some nice brasilianiti. Above all the exposition  of the famous Pederneira Tourmaline  and very nice emeralds from Colombia .

Africa:  a new find of epidote from Kenya in big dark green Crystals and from Madagascar a new find of loose red beryl crystal , red corindone and amazonite  in pale green Crystals from pegmatite; some very nice Erongo pegmatites samples were presented : nice blue acquamrine grenn flourites and Schorl. Very nice piece expecially at the main show of South Africa   Rhodocrosite were presented but with very hight prices. To finish we noticed also nice tanzanite crystals and many Tsumeb specimens of good quality.

Asia: from this part of the world we saw the main news of the fair: chinesi mimetite in yellow orange bright crystals all teh sample we saw seem to have a coomon origin from a chinese dealer ( how many we will see in the future ? ). Always from China interesting Amethyst quartz in association with milky quarz and some japanese twin law quartz. ; From Burma some intersting  loose rubellite Crystals , and nice elbaites from baikal lake area and rubies from Urals. From Pakistan many interesting specimens were presented with nice   tourmaline and top quality bastnaesites on matrix; from  Tajikistan very nice heliodors also in matrix  and finally from   Sri Lanka nice Crysoberils and Sapphire in loose XX ; at last from Azerbijan nice rutile  in big lustrous crystals

Europe: only some old specimens from England and Germany coming out from old collection.

Australia:  There were quite several dealers offerings nice crocoite samples and classic Broken hill specimens such as rhodonite and spessartine

Other Shows

One of the main features of this fair is the  diversity and variety of  the several shows  which form it. It's possible to find  Gems, carvings, beads, fossils, handy-crafts and tools. Among the shows we visited the ones with gems , and beads were those with the majority of public.

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