FMF - Friends of Minerals Forum, discussion and message board

[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!

[Matt_Zukowski]

Today I wandered into Geometra's room (Inn Suites). I am partial to anything multichroic, and the Urucum spodumenes jumped out of the case at me. They had this rich gemminess and luster that looks to me like jelly. Very enjoyable to look at. Sorry I don't have sizes, but the case they are in is a large case (that should provide some scale.

[Matt_Zukowski]

Back to the Quality Inn, I saw some nice pieces in the room of Great Wall Mineral Museum.

By the way, my purple ruler is 15 cm.

[Matt_Zukowski]

Finally for tonight, there is one Chinese dealer in, of all things, the Ramada Inn. I never would have heard about this fellow if I had not been talking to Ross at North Star Minerals, because the Ramada Inn is almost all fossil dealers.

This fellow, has some nice pieces, especially interesting ilvaite clusters. Pictures below.

[Jordi Fabre]

[robynahawk]

Stopped by Jordi's room yesterday and it was standing room only!

[Jordi Fabre]

Tucson 02/02/2011

As the post of robynahawk shows, my social life here is extremely busy. In one sense that's fine because I can meet a lot of old friends and join new ones, but in another sense, this prevent me to find time to write my regular columns, because sleeping 3-4 hours per day don't give to me the possibility to do much more as I'm doing. Sorry for it.

Anyway, today I have few free minutes and I use it to publish one of the promised photos, the image of one of the new Coppers after Cuprite and two shots of the unexpected weather here in Tucson. After few days with a "kind of spring" days, suddenly the temperature fall down and right now and at least until Saturday it seems that we will get a very cold weather which is not so funny considering that people is working in open spaces or in rooms with the doors open...brrrrrr ;-)

BTW, everybody in Tucson with acces to a computer, please publish your thoughts about Tucson Show here. Only if we collect many different visions we could offer to the rest of the world the reality of Tucson Show!

Jordi
2010 European correspondent of the Tucson Gem and Mineral Show™

[Darren]

I know that someone posted, somewhere, about a great Mexican food place close to the Inn Suites - as we will be out there this weekend (and looking for good food) can someone remind me of what this place is called????? Gotta say, we are used to New Mexico "Mexican" food and Sonoran is VERY different, but I'm willing to go for it!!!!!!!

Thanks, ya'll!!!!!

Darren (in cold-as-an-ice-box-Las Cruces, NM!)

(Yeah, ten BELOW zero here last night!)

[Samuel]

Hi Darren:

you are very lucky to have such nice weather. Where I live the temperatures get up to 115F, and it is flat, dry and dusty. The Flinders Ranges can be seen in the distance.

Stay frosty.

[Joan Kureczka]

Darren -- if you were thinking of our posts on the UKMV Facebook page regarding La Cocina, it isn't a Mexican place but more of an internationally focused cafe, although they do have a few Mexican dishes. Just a nice, relaxed and affordable cafe, with coffee drinks/teas, beer, wine and cocktails, open all day from 9 am until late. And live acoustic music many evenings. It's at 201 North Court, not far from the original El Charro. Jesse and Ian Jones have been spending quite a bit of time there this past week and other folks they've taken have liked it as well.

If you're looking for good Mexican you may also have seen posts for Cafe Poca Cosa and LIttle Cafe Poca Cosa (both downtown). The Little Cafe is breakfast and lunch only, M-F and is a favorite of Jesse's and mine.

[GneissWare]

There is a pretty good place down on Oracle, between the Executive and Collector's Edge Wholesale. Its on the side of the street closest to Hwy 10. You can't miss it. Good hand-made at the table guacamole!