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[Tobi]

[Tobi]

Ok, it finally became a complete translation instead of a synopsis - here we go:
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EXPOMINER 2011 – THE MINERAL SHOW IN BARCELONA, SPAIN

Even if we already had two show reports in this issue, we don’t want to hold back a more “exotic” show – the Expominer in Barcelona. MineralienWelt member Tomasz Praszkier visited it for us:

Barcelona is one of my most favourite cities. During the last years I didn’t have the time to visit it, but this time fortunately my friend Joan Rosell Riba (Rosell Minerals) animated me and my girlfriend Asia to visit the most important mineral show in Spain.

We were surprised to find the show smaller and featuring less Spanish minerals than we expected. But there were a lot of dealers offering fossils and minerals from all over the world – and some of them were really good. About 50 % of the dealers offered jewelry stuff, that’s less than on most other shows. There’s one thing that makes the Expominer quite special: Much effort is made to make mineralogical and geological subjects interesting for kids. Friday morning was a big surprise for us because we expected the serious mineral dealers and collectors to be the first to appear at the show. But not here in Barcelona: Instead, many children came in, school classes with their teachers – the same as every year! There were even special challenges for the kids, so they had to run from booth to booth, ask mineral-related questions, take photos etc. Furthermore, in one area of the hall there were movies, presentations, informative displays and museum minerals. But let’s go back to the dealers:

First, we visited our friend Joan Rosell who had a nice range of Spanish minerals, among them epidotes from Catalonia and yellow fluorite from Mina Gloria in Andalusia. He also had large and spectacular kutnahorite specimens from the Kalahari Manganese Fields in South Africa. Maybe the best minerals of the show were offered by well-known dealer Luis Miguel. He had, for example, a good range of fine minerals from Panasqueira. Some of those specimens with large apatite crystals on quartz were really spectacular. He also had many minerals from South America and Africa. Besides that, we were fascinated by a wonderful group of shigaite crystals up to 1 cm on rhodochrosite from N’Chwaning and a classic rhodonite from Peru. And there were also really nice pseudomorphs of copper after aragonite from Corocoro, Bolivia. Especially one was worth seeing: It featured some sharp-edged former aragonite triplets, now replaced by copper, sitting on bladed copper. High-quality specimens were also offered by a local dealer from Barcelona – Jordi Fabre!* Among them were new arfvedsonites from the area of Imilchil, Morocco – with crystals up to 7 cm. They are not as spectacular as those from Malawi, but really worth mentioning considering the locality. Jordi also had specimens with black/white aragonites from Bovegno, Italy. They were small, only up to several cm – but dichroism is really uncommon for this mineral species. Also a lot of classic minerals could be found here, e.g. groups of genthelvite and garnet from Huanghuang, China. Jordi showed us also a superb semseyite from Herja, Romania. The roses of really large crystals, perfectly sitting atop the specimen, made it the best semseyite specimen we have ever seen. Of course the owner of the Victoria Mine in Navajun also had a large booth. He had a wide range of pyrites with and without matrix. They were spectacular as usual, though it is a wonder that they still find buyers in Spain. The Italian dealers of R&T Minerals offered many Japan Law twinned citrine crystals. They came from a new find in Serenje, Zambia, and the largest of them had a length of 20 cm. Many dealers had fluorites from Asturias to offer, but we found no really good stuff and no new finds from this area. Only José Ramon Garcia – who was “only” visitor and not dealer – showed us new specimens from a well-known locality in this area: Llamas quarry, Asturias, Spain. They began mining there again, after the ground was opened just by chance during road works. Some dozens of good specimens were found and sold to José Ramon. José is still busy cleaning them, and he still keeps several of them.

One advantage for the visitor of the show is the chance to have a sightseeing in Barcelona. Sagrada Família, Parc Güell, Casa Batlló and Casa Milà are the most famous of Antonio Gaudí’s buildings in Barcelona. Some of them are over a hundred years old and it always surprises the visitor how much they can be both strange and modern. La Rambla was crowded with people and artists. We were glad we had the chance to take a walk without haste and to sit in small cafés for eating some Jamon and watching life in Barcelona. The weather was perfect: sunshine and 25°C, while Poland was around the freezing point these days. It was a pleasure to spend some more summer days in such an amazing and vivid city such as Barcelona.

Tomasz Praszkier, Warsaw

We wish all our readers a peaceful new year full of minerals!

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* Note from translator Tobias Martin: Jordi … who? Never heard of this guy … ;-)

[Jordi Fabre]

Good job Tobias. Thank you!