FMF - Friends of Minerals Forum, discussion and message board

[John Medici]

Haven't left for Tucson yet, but we're also looking forward to the great food and drink there! Photo: Mi Nidito, Feb. 2011.

[Jordi Fabre]

Tucson 01/26/2012

Already in Tucson just a quick note to comunicate that the weather here is wonderful and that although the world's penible circumstances, for some misterious reason here (and in the rest of the major Mineral Shows) the atmosphere is special, calid, like nothing bad could happen in this island of "rocks".

Just arrived, the eyes of the majority of the collectors shine as when we were youngs and we expected the arrival of Santa Claus, with the difference that here the people don't expect that coveted game, but that coveted unique specimen ;-)

More to come...
2012 European correspondent of the Tucson Gem and Mineral Show™

[Jesse Fisher]

Sunrise this morning on the Catalina Mountains, north of town. Great start to a day of pricing flats of minerals. Tomorrow the real fun begins as we open the sales room!

[Peter Megaw]

Welcome everyone...let's have some fun!

[Jordi Fabre]

Tucson 01/28/2012

What can I say? I crossed Tucson from North to South and from East to West and what I can communicate is a curious situation in which most of the rooms in the TTC - Inn Suites are already open and most of the rooms in the other hotels are still closed, which is strange because what happens usually is the opposite. What does it mean? I don't know, but is what happens...

For the moment the number of novelties is extremely limited and mostly concentrated in the group of mines of the Huanggangliang mining area, Mongolia. According to Berthold Ottens there are a HUGE number of mines there, and not all of them are skarns (silver mines too he said!) and the number of new species that this giant group of mines could produce in the future could be a new El Dorado for mineralogy.

Luckily, another important find was mined recently, a species not reported before in one of the most important mines in the world, and the quality of that species is quite good. Please let me keep silent about this find until Tuesday-Wednesday, I promise to give all details then.

More to come...
2012 European correspondent of the Tucson Gem and Mineral Show™

[Jesse Fisher]

I can not comment on Jordi's secret new find, but it is obvious that the management at the InnSuites/City Center hotel have been watering the lawn in excess to the point that they have created the Tucson equivalent of the La Brea Tar Pits, trapping some of the migrating dinos in a quicksand-like turf. How will future paleontologists explain this one?

[GneissWare]

There are a few other new things this year at the InnSuites...

Dehne McLaughlin has been busy in the Malbunka Copper Mine, the source of the Azurite suns. New this year are round Azurite nodules, reminiscent of those from La Sal, Utah, but in a stark whitish kaolinite matrix. He also found a small zone of bright Atacamite.

These are the pieces I added to my collection.

[Jean Sendero]

Here we go, where to find Mexican minerals at the Hotel Tucson City Center (Inn Suites) and elsewhere on January 27-28, 2012. Firstly, in the category of the what’s new area, new finds are relatively limited based on what I have seen.

Luis Miguel Burillo Minerales has some interesting new light bluish green hemimorphite crystal groups sitting on a limonitic matrix from the San Antonio Mine at Sta Eulalia. These are coming in sizes from thumbnail to large miniature, or almost small cabinet.

An unexpected place to find Mexican minerals is in the UK Mining Venture room. The room contained, spread amongst the Rogerley fluorite specimens, several large cabinet calcite specimens from the Hercules Mine, Coahuila. We do not see these very often and at least 4 were still there when I visited the room. Also of interest are some large botryoidal grayish yellow smithsonite specimens from the Buena Tierra Mine Sta Eulalia. These came out a little before Christmas. Other minerals from Sta Eulalia were also seen such as the “cactus quartz”.

Dennis Beals has a diversity of specimens from a diversity of Mexican localities, in all sizes. Of note, welcoming you as you walk in his room is a stunning plate (app 45 cm across) of quartz crystals sprinkled with dark sphalerite crystals and clear fluorite from the Los Remedios Mine Taxco. Interesting sphalerite crystal habits can be observed on it. A nice stalactite is popping up.

Fender Minerals has a wide variety of Mapimi specimens and mineral species. Of note is a shelf with light yellow to beige mimetite and Baryte on arsendescloizite. These range in sizes from thumbnail to large miniature. Also with John are a few small specimens hosting some micro lotharmeyerite associated with adamite (Mn).

Benny Fenn has some very nice smithsonite from Choix, one in particular is bright cadmium yellow. Several large specimens of platy calcite with goethite coating inclusions are for sale as well.

Azurite, malachite and brochantite specimens from Milpillas of good quality and quantities can be seen at Rocko Minerals. Sizes ranged from miniatures to good cabinet size. Valenzuela Minerals has mainly the azurite.

At the TEP, way out to the east past the airport, Ruben Avila had a large selection, all in flats of creedite from Rodeo, pyrite from Concepcion del Oro, wulfenite from Mapimi, and much much more if you have the patience to dig into piles and piles of flats.

At the Market Place, on Oracle, when I stopped on Friday, the Holguin had not yet set-up so I cannot say if anything new can be found with them.

Hopefully, I caught everything that was available but one never knows, surprises can be awaiting later on.

[Joan Kureczka]

Jean -- thanks much for the mention. One correction though -- our UK fluorite mine is the Rogerley, not "Waverly," as you have it here.

[Jean Sendero]

Yep, I tried to correct it this morning but I do not have the rights. The wine was good last night when I wrote this up. I have another correction to make. One flat of azurite should read miniatures and not thumbnails.

[Jordi Fabre]

[Joseph DOliveira]

Jordi,
Thank you for the show reports, I am sitting here in snowy, Northern Ontario, Canada, waiting for my Sunday flight to Tucson next week. Unfortunately I have another week of anticipation to deal with.

[Jordi Fabre]

My pleasure Joseph, but as you saw the most complete posts were done by other FMFers what is really best.

I encourage every FMFers in Tucson to write some lines. All avantages: a more complete overview and less work for me! ;-)

[Matt_Zukowski]

Hello everyone. I have been here since the 24th, but for the first week or so have been/will be renting a house in the desert, on the other side of the mountains from Tucson, so I can get more of the desert stargazing experience that you just can't get in Alaska. Unfortunately this also means that i have no cell phone service and satellite internet that is so painfully slow that I haven't posted before and won't post any pictures till I get over into the Tucson Bowl.

My impressions are similar to other people: not much new, the Inn Suites got going quite early (I had things to look at on the 24th), and it took a little longer for the other mineral shows (Quality Inn, River Park Inn) to get going. The newest interesting mineral combination I have seen are the sulfides (mostly chalcopyrite) on siderites from Inner Mongolia that a number of the Chinese dealers have. I saw one interesting tetrahedrite with chalcopyrite on siderite from that same locality. On this piece, the chalcopyrite seemed to have nucleated on the etched areas on the tetrahedrite, but other areas of the tetrahedrite retain luster. But for the satellite internet, I'd post pictures now - I will later. There seems to be more Rubtsovskiy cuprite and pseudos of copper after cuprite than last year, and the prices remain high for this material. At some point this material has to run out based upon everything I have read or heard about this locality, so for those who really want this material, perhaps the prices aren't too high. I have seen more Uchucchacua rhodochrosites this year than last, almost all have a scalenohedral habit, but a couple have a rhombic habit. Unfortunately and as usual, too many of the faces of minerals in the Chinese and Indian dealers at the Quality Inn, when touched or smelled, have oil or silicon on them. I wish they would get the message that we do not want these enhancements and will pay less for (or not buy) specimens with these treatments. I make it a point to tell these dealers that i do not appreciate these treatments and encourage others to do so as well.

The Inn Suites bristles with many nice things, too may to list. Most dealers seem to be in the same place as last year except: a) Charlie Zp Guo (Stone Age Gifts), a newer Chinese dealer with good inventory moved over from the "fossil hotel" (I think it was the Ramanda) to the Inn Suites; b) Rob Lavinsky has a clearance room; and c) Rocko Minerals, an upstate NY dealer that seems new to me but perhaps i have missed in the past, has a bunch a milpillas azurites and upstate NY specimens that seemed good to me.

There will be a couple of dealers new to the Westward Look including Sunnywood and Danny Trinchillo (Fine Minerals International), so it seems like the Westward Look show will be bigger than ever.

That's it for now. I hope this message finds everyone well.

[Jordi Fabre]