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[Pierre Joubert]

[Roger Warin]

Other winks from Ste Marie.
Roger.

[Roger Warin]

and also

[Jordi Fabre]

One of the things that helps to better understand the atmosphere of the Shows are the reviews of the local newspapers. Thanks to the help of Madame Pina Schneller and Mr. Gérard Schneller we can see the vision of the St. Marie Show of the local newspaper DNA

I'm publishing the reviews in order, from the start to the end of the Show.

[Jordi Fabre]

[Jordi Fabre]

Barcelona 07/03/2016

Ste. Marie is not just a fair, it is a whole people pushing and cheering, a whole people that a few years ago put all in place to keep his most precious treasure: the Fair of Minerals. Those who has been in Ste. Marie has already lived this experience and whom which have never attended Ste. Marie should do at least one time the experience.

But as well as the soul of a people Ste Marie is also a major International Show of minerals and there is also which the collectors we seek: new discoveries! This year although there have been just a few, they have been powerful. Let's begin by the very few that I have seen that are not from Morocco:

- Portugal: not too much new from Panasqueira this time, it looks like the production in the recent months had been very limited. Instead they have been excellent primary Meta-Autunites from Assunçao Mine and some large crystals of Triphylite along with other phosphates from Bendada Mines.

- Peru: new Hutchinsonites from Quiruvilca Mine. this time reddish and associated with well defined Pyrite crystals and another species, still unidentified.

- Canada: new finds in Mt. Saint Hilaire of Rhodochrosites on floater and large (for the locality) crystals.

- Brazil: more Golds from the extraordinary discovery made between October and December 2015 in Serra do Caldeirão, Pontes e Lacerda, Mato Grosso.

And not much more that I have been able to see, though I'm sure there was much more…

Come up with the most important things, of course from Morocco, as Ste. Marie is the world's major Show for Moroccan minerals.

- The most important comes from the area of Imilchil: very large crystals, up to 6 cm. of Ilmenite-Rutile / Rutile-Ilmenite (more accurate analysis will clarify) fully coated by good crystals of green-yellowish Titanite. Most specimens are floaters but some are on a matrix of crystals of Feldspar. In my opinion an extraordinary find, time will tell.

- Very good Silvers, well crystallized, in the not so well known mine of Tamdrost in the Bou Azzer area.

- New Olivenites of, apparently, somewhere in the Taroudant Province. They have not a very high quality but they are interesting because they are related to beautiful rosettes of Azurite.

- New Quartz with an extraordinary color between amethyst and hematoid, possibly from somewhere between Jebel Saghro and Jebel Bougafer in the Souss-Massa-Draâ Region.

- Very peculiar chalcedony shaped like "underwater mines" from Smara, Western Sahara.

- It seems to be found Tourmalines somewhere in the Tazenakht area that without being exceptional they have good quality and size, and that for Morocco is a big novelty. As has told to us, it seems to be that these tourmalines will be displayed for the first time at the next Denver Show.

Add to this that the Bou Nahas mine is in full production and is providing many samples of Baryte, Pyrite, Marcasite, Copper, Azurite, Malachite… and some of them are even very unusual and / or showy.

I'm publishing with this post a photo of an unusual and colorful Pyrite from Bou Nahas. The next few days I will complete this review with more photos of the new discoveries and more analytical results.

More to come...

[Jean Sendero]

Thanks Jordi for the posts. I really like the french newspaper bit...a great addition. Although, as a pulse of the market, the last article says commercial "entries" on the raise but normal show people decreasing. Was this your take on it?

Cheers from Chile.

A few new things from Mexico will pop up in the next week.

Jean

[Roger Warin]

Hi,
Sainte-Marie-aux-Mines Show always gives opportunities to see exceptional things.
So this modest gold crystal is actually a rarity in its perfection.
This is not strictly speaking a gold crystal, but a pseudomorph of an octahedron of skeletal pyrite. Pyrite is often contaminated with gold.
Roger.

[Roger Warin]

Also in Ste Marie-aux-Mines

[Roger Warin]

Hi,
Not far from Ste-Marie-aux-Mines, a stony meteorite fell at Ensisheim in Alsace.
On November 7th, 1492, an enormous explosion was heard over a wide area in Alsace (France) and parts of Switzerland. The event was observed only by a young boy who saw the wide stone falling out of the sky and plunging into a wheat field near Ensisheim in Alsace. It is a LL6 chondrite, a stony meteorite composed of grains of orthopyroxene, olivine, feldspar, sulfides, phosphides and blebs of ferronickel.
Its mass was 127 kg. There remain 53.83 kg after shares to various museums (Paris, Berlin, Vienna, London, etc.) and other…
This meteorite Ensisheim was presented at SMM Show.

[Roger Warin]

And more again...

[Roger Warin]

This post ends my photographic report on the Sainte-Marie-aux-Mines Show, I visit every year since the late 60s.
Roger.

[Tobi]

What a beautiful benitoite specimen (088-Benitoite_20369_R.jpg), do you remember its size? I guess it was good AND large ... ;)

[Roger Warin]

Hallo Tobi,
Yes it was really the piece to buy. It was owned by an old German collector.
From memory, I propose a width of 12 cm, which is consistent with the scale of the plastic support.
The proposed price was high but reasonable.
Roger.

[Tomasz Praszkier]

Jordi, I just saw your report from SMAM. Just small note, the titanites are not really new, they have been coming out for last 3-4 years. The biggest plates I have seen are the size of about 2 hands! Just this small note...