FMF - Friends of Minerals Forum, discussion and message board

[Roger Warin]

Hi,
Some remarkable golds, seen in St Marie 2013 Show.
Roger.

[Roger Warin]

Another series of exceptional minerals seen in Ste Marie.
Roger.

[Benj]

Hello !

It was my first Sainte-Marie Show !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I dreamed some so much since so many years....................

[Roger Warin]

Another series
Roger.

[Roger Warin]

Another series from Ste Marie 2013.
Roger.

[Carles Millan]

[Jordi Fabre]

Barcelona 06/07/2013

With some time now and before to publish my last post with some conclusions about this 50th edition, lets me publish a small homage to all exhibitors to this Show (as well as other Shows of Minerals)

As I'm non more exhibiting in Ste. Marie now I can recognize better the monumental effort that all dealers do to drive to Ste. Marie with their goodies (some from very far countries) and just arriving to Ste. Marie do an extra effort to download all his stuff to show to visitors attractive spots, full of natural miracles.

This series of photos taken with my not so good phone camera, would be a vision of the hidden, but not negligible part of the Shows: the set-up and set-down.

More to come...

[Jordi Fabre]

[Roger Warin]

Hello Jordi, Carles,
Thank you very much for correcting my error. I was abused by a photo out of focus of the label. I was wrong. Forgive this unforgivable distraction... I'll send you a new photo.
It is indeed a Parisite and it is priced at 19,000.00 euros. . I'll send you a new photo. Many thanks.
Roger.

[Herman van Dennebroek]

Jordi it's a good idea to show "the scene behind".

It's hard working to prepare everything. Most of the visitors have no idea about it.

Thank you

[Jordi Fabre]

Barcelona 07/07/2013

The 50th edition of Ste. Marie is over, with this last post I will try to offer a global vision of what happened there.

I had talks with many dealers, visitors and people connected with the organization and, although there were some small problems, the general opinion seems to be that it was a good edition and that the work of the committee was positive, more or less equal to the past year. The most positive points were the indefatigable efforts of almost all of Ste. Marie to make the Show successful, helping everybody continuously and the exhibits like the "Hidden Treasures of America" mandatory in a big Show like Ste. Marie. Also positive was the good management of such a large Show, but this positive fact also has a negative part. Its very success could, in time, mean that it will become so large that it could collapse. Many have begged the organization to maintain a reasonable number of exhibitors, but this year the number of exhibitors was higher than in past years and continuing to grow. We saw many people in every corner of Ste. Marie exhibiting in places that did not exist before, so it seems that the main goal for the organization was trying to supply a spot for everybody and this is a little bit dangerous… Anyway, from what the dealers said it seems that no major problems happened at the end of the Show and that Sunday was a successful day with many more people than usual. So congratulations to the organization but at same time a warning for future editions, it seems a general opinion that the number of exhibitors should be limited or Ste. Marie could suffer from its own success.
Also the new area, the "Parc Jules Simon", is a very good idea, but it demands more advertisement and better access to realize its potential.

Going to the minerals... as I commented before, Ste. Marie is, in my opinion, the main show in the world for Moroccan minerals, judging by the number and variety of Moroccan dealers attending this Show, and it supplied something very unusual in the last Shows: novelties!
Luckily several mines in Morocco are operating and, as another very experienced dealer told me, "the novelties appear when the mines operate", so Morocco has a gift : Bou Nahas in Oumjrane, Bouismas in the Bou Azzer area, and Imiter are supplying new material, like attractive Pyrite-Marcasite in Baryte "boxes", promising Cerussites, and some others from Bou Nahas, fine Proustites and extremely colorful orange Baryte from Bouismas… add to this the great richness of the Imilchil area with, this time, attractive Prehnites, Fluorapatites in lovely pink feldspar matrices, as well as Fluroapatites associated with combos of Arfvedsonite and Stilbite. Taouz also supplied "different" Vanadinites on a crystallized Siderite matrix. In an old abandoned mine works named "Lizaste" between Mibladen and Aouli they found bowls of Azurite on a white Gypsum matrix. Also great new Gersdorffites from Aït Ahman, and much more… Morocco for me this time was a kind of paradise, I found in Ste. Marie many attractive specimens from there.

Outside of this country I found not much more, but still a little: Greece with Linarites from the King Arthur Mine, Kirki Mines, Évros, Thrace, and Azurites from the Plaka Mines, Laurion. Brazil, with the new species Almeidaites, Mexico with better quality than before Smithsonite pseudomorphs after Calcite from the San Antonio mine, Santa Eulalia... and probably some others that in this moment I’m not able to remember.

As usual in former Shows, a large number of great classic specimens from dispersed collections were offered for the main dealers, and different from Tucson, with prices more or less “realistic”…

The Ste. Marie Show always touches my heart; I enjoyed my visit this year as well as I’m sure I will enjoy in 2014!
Glück Auf

[Pierre Joubert]

Thank you for taking us along on the journey. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

[Jordi Fabre]

[valere]

One little souvenir: Dioptase with cerussite, Mindouli, Brazzaville, Congo

[Roger Warin]

Hello,
Contrasts in Ste Marie.
Not only rocks in the tray.
Rain, sun, sauerkraut, wine (and a sundial).
If you want, I can send other pics of minerals…
Roger.

[Roger Warin]

I forgot Sun and public...
Roger

[Jordi Fabre]

[Roger Warin]

Another choice from Sainte-Marie.
Roger.

[Benj]

According to Jean-Jacques Chevallier, one of biggest french mineralogist dealer,

the show becomes less and less interesting, it weakens year after year because there aren't new discoveries.

For my part, since that was my first Sainte-Marie Show, I really loved !!!

[Roger Warin]

Hello,
I think this show is still as interesting as in the past. Of course it is a long time since tourmalines from Itatiaia glowed throughout the theater, the time when the surface of the show was very low.
The prices were very reasonable, and Roger Titeux told us: "so buy now..." But even then the money was scarcer than desirable minerals. We thought next year we would find other tourmalines and prices would fall. You know what happened. Minerals are beautiful exceptions in the Nature.
Why regret the past? There was not long ago appeared pezzotaïtes. You cannot have such new discoveries every year.
If I roughly summarize the situation since the sixties, in addition to European minerals there was the time of Madagascar, Congo and Brazil, then came the minerals from Tsumeb then located in SW Africa, Russia, followed. India sent its zeolites. Then the kingdom of Afghanistan and Pakistan crystals appeared alongside the financing needs of war. China finally arrived. Today, rocks came from moon, I saw the exceptional NWA 5000, a lunar feldspathic breccia in Ste Marie (550 – 600 euros/g).
What do we complain? Maybe prices... Making bad business? In any Show, we can find something interesting, especially in Ste Marie. And all this without counting on the resale of old prestigious collections.
I think I kept the enthusiasm of my twenties. Do not believe the grumpy, it's just different.
Roger.