FMF - Friends of Minerals Forum, discussion and message board

[Pete Modreski]

Ah, although I know now that I'd read this several times before, it took me going to the city of Tucson's gems shows web pages, to figure out "So what/where is this Tucson City Center Show?". It's hard to remember there's a new name for the Inn Suites! I guess I've "got it", now.
[Especially since most of us probably don't exactly think of the Inn Suites location being "in the city center".]
I'll look forward to seeing you (and many others) there, Jordi!
Pete Modreski

[Jordi Fabre]

Tucson 01/28/2011

Finally I have few minutes to write something!. The trip is long from Barcelona and the arrival to Tucson is always stressing, with a high number of dificulties to fix...Anyway, between yesterday and today I had the chance to take an overview, and simplifying, the situation is:

The weather in Tucson is great currently, sunny and not too hot not too cold!

The Hotels are already working with more dealers than previous years open and selling. The InnSuites-Tucson City Center match up more dealers than past years and upgraded the quality of vendors. Seems to concentrate the dealers selling collector's specimens

The Quality Inn was operating too, with less people opened and less rooms ocupied by dealers than past years. Chinese dealers are the majority in this Hotel

The Hotels along the highway (Pueblo, Howard Johnson, etcetera...) are, as usual, early opened and busy, but althoug some, the minerals are mixed there with a tones of jewlery, cut stones, rough stones, metaphisical people, wholesale, etcetera.. with time and patience is possible to find some good dealer with some good mineral, just keep your eyes open to discriminate collector's specimens of the rest of the material

Executive Inn: big disaster, the Hotel is closed as we announced here -> https://www.mineral-forum.com/message-board/viewtopic.php?p=14905#14905 and a security employed is there, telling you don't aproach to the entry of the Hotel. Too sad...
The dealers who exhibited there are spread in different places, some of they in the nearby Oasis Motel.

As always, a lot of different spots are spread in Tucson, offering everything. Some serious and professional, some like bazaars. That's Tucson! ;-)

I will write some words about the minerals I saw in my next post.

Wild Tucson! ;-)

Jordi
2011 European correspondent of the Tucson Gem and Mineral Show™

[Matt_Zukowski]

Got into Tucson this evening. On the way into town I thought, on a lark, I'd stop by the Inn Suites to see if anyone was setup. To my surprise, I'd say at least 70% of dealers are setup and open. I saw Luiz Menezes, who was in good spirits, and had a number of rare species on display (sorry but I can't remember the names; I'll bet Alfredo will like these specimens). Pyrite Navajun, Donald Olsen, and Sunnywood were open. Jesse Fisher's Rogerly room was PACKED with dealers filling up flats. Luis Burillo had hubnerites from a number of mines this year, in different styles - my impression last year was that his room had a large amount of Mundo Nuevo hubnerites only.

When i first pulled into the Inn Suites, I was so amazed that the Azurite dealer was open that i took a couple of pictures. See attached.

[nimfiara]

More photos please!!! It's very interesting!!!

[Jordi Fabre]

Tucson 02/29/2011

This is a synthetic and eclectic list of the novelties I saw so far. In the next days I will add more details and some images. The list is organized with the most interesting things located at the top.

- Main novelty: Fabulous pseudomorphs of Copper after Cuprite! from Rubtsovskoye Mine, Rubtsovsk, Siberia, Russia. Extremely unusual, no one remember to have seen something similar. Exceptional crystal size, very good quality, exceptional shape, just great!

- Excellent (for the species) loose, gemmy, colorful crystals of Despujolsite from the N'Chwaning III Mine

- Very interesting and colorful pseudomorphs of Chrysocolla after Boleites and Cumengeites from recent finds in the Amelia Mine area. Also, it is reported that the Amelia Mine has been covered by tons of rubble from a new mine which will open soon. So, in some ways it is good news because this new mine could supply novelties in the future, but in another way is very bad, because with all these tons of rubble, the Amelia Mine probably will never more supply Boleites, Pseudoboleites, Cumengeites, etcetera....For more info about the new mine you can use -> https://www.bajamining.com/

Good Arsenopyrites with/or on reddish-violet octahedral Fluorite from the same locality as the Ilvaites, that seems to be Baotou, Nei Meng Gu, Inner Mongolia. On the other side, a major disappointment with the Ilvaites from that mine. Them are present in many places but although very large, the luster is bad on the new ones and the prices are double or more than for similar specimens (but with luster) displayed in Munich. I believe we should wait until the return of reasonableness for this material.

Not really novelties, but still new, I note that:

-The find of Alabandites seems to be copious, as several stands have them, but also it seems that no more specimens are coming out after the original find, at least in the last months.

- The Jeremejevites on matrix of Tourmaline from Erongo are excellent, not only because they are on matrix, but also by their size and color

- The Azurites and Malachites from Milpillas continue to appear although the oxidation zone of this mine is expected to finish in two to three years

Jordi
2011 European correspondent of the Tucson Gem and Mineral Show™

[Jean Sendero]

To all aficionados of Mexican specimens,

As I only collect Mexican minerals, I generally only pay attention to these. So, after quick round of the dealers on Friday at the Tucson City Centre hotel, I found some of the Milpillas Brochantite in Don Olson room, a shelve full of lovely "AstroTurf" look a like specimens, some nice mimetite-tsumcorite-segnitite specimens from Campo Sure at the Ojuela and unusual vivianite crystal fragments from Mina La Caridad Sonora in Dennis Beals room and, for those of you that missed the Naica fluorite spinel twins a few years back, Luis Miguel Burillo has a fine selection.

I will try to keep you posted on any other interesting Mexican minerals in the next few days. Still to see will be Peter Megaw room and in the ballroom, Benny Fenn, and John Fender should have an interesting selection.

Pictures to follow later tonight, I hope.

Cheers

Jean

[Matt_Zukowski]

More pictures

[Matt_Zukowski]

more

[Jordi Fabre]

A quick shot of some distinguished members of the non less distinguished Club HAMS (Houston Area Mineral Society ;-)

Jordi
2011 European correspondent of the Tucson Gem and Mineral Show™

[Matt_Zukowski]

The Quality Inn on the Benson Highway has mostly Chinese, Russian, and Indian dealers. I remember last year many of the Chinese dealers had a significant portion of their inventory caught up in customs, and i couldn't find anything i liked. This year, my impression (for what it is worth) is that the Chinese dealers have some better material than they had by the time I got to this hotel last year.

Last year, I remember having a long conversation with Cui hua Gao of Xiaoxiang Crystal Mineral Museum about what we collectors were looking for. She seemed like such a nice person that I took the time to wade through a significant language barrier to communicate to her that i wanted no damage and no oil. This year she and her brother came back with some nice calcites and fluorites in good shape. I don't remember any specimens leaving an oily feeling on my fingers. I particularly liked the calcites they had from the Manaoshan Mine, Hunan. These have no damage, interesting twinning, and no apparent coating. I bought one, included in the photos below.

[Matt_Zukowski]

One more pict of the calcite - previous post ran into a limit of how many pictures each post can contain.

[Matt_Zukowski]

Two specimens that caught my eye in Donald Olsen's room today at the Inn Suites are an Elmwood fluorite with classic "Carthage corners" and an English calcite. Fun!

[Jean Sendero]

Here are a few pics from Dennis Beals (Xtal), Luis Miguel and Don Olson. I first saw examples of these (mimetite-tsumcorite and brochantite) at the Denver show and on offer by other dealers (Mineral Zone and Arkenstone). I like these for the mimetite rather then the much rarer tsumcorite. These mimetite are very different then those most commonly recovered in the past and are reminiscent of those from Tsumeb. One can find additional mimetite-tsumcorite with segnitite in Peter Megaw room.

[Matt_Zukowski]

Some more minerals that have caught my eye.

First up is another cuprite from KARP's Inn Suites room. This one is like the front cover of the new Mineral Almanac (V16, No 1) with sharp, euhedral parts of faces of large cuprite xtals surrounded by patches of sparkly second generation cuprite. According to the Mineral Almanac, the second generation cuprite possibly heals defects in parts of the faces of the original larger xtals.

The second is a Jiepaiyu (Shimen) Mine calcite. The largest xtal is 4 cm long, is mostly transparent, and has an inclusion of realgar. I can't find any xtals with damage, even the small xtals covering the matrix. The xtals have great luster.

Last up is a Navajun pyrite. Yes, yes, these are very common, but this one is perfect, with no eye-visible damage i could find. It also has interesting growth features including what i think is a growth terrace about 1 mm high on one of the faces - see last picture (left side). The largest xtal is 4.7 cm on one edge.

[Julian C. Gray]

The Friends of Mineralogy Annual Membership Meeting will be held on Tuesday, February 8, at 4 pm, in the restaurant of the Hotel Tucson City Center (formerly Inn Suites). A Social hour will follow the membership meeting from about 5 to 6 pm.

All Friends of Mineralogy members and prospective members are encouraged to attend our annual membership meeting and provide input and ideas to help our organization be as effective as possible.

This meeting is the same day as the FMF gathering, but there is plenty of time to catch the Friends of Mineralogy meeting and/or drop by for the social hour and still get to Casa Vicente by 7 PM.

Hope to see you there!