FMF - Friends of Minerals Forum, discussion and message board

[Jordi Fabre]

January 2015, so Tucson Show is arriving with its cohort of friends, social life, wonderful colors and forms, rarities, business, suppers, parties, articles, columns and even Science! ;-)
Madames et Messieurs, the real madness is arriving!

Starting the series of wonders that Tucson carries every year, let me share with all FMFers one really exciting. Our mastermind Elise Skalwold won together with John Koivula (lead author) the award "2014 Best Article of the Year" for the article in Rocks & Minerals: "The Microworld of Diamonds: Images from Earth's Mantle" published in the January/February issue of this fine magazine. It's a longstanding annual award administered by Friends of Mineralogy (FM). The judges also selected the "Best of" for other publications in this field, including Mineralogical Record and Mineral News.

Congratulations John & Elise, this wonderful news enlightens my upcoming Tucson Show and dulcify the over-stress task of prepare so many rocks for the Show! ;-)

Jordi
PS: to know better the quality of the work of Elise you can read any of her multiple posts published here writing the word "Elise" in the box "Search for Author" of the Forum search page.
Anyway one of the best pieces is: Inclusions of spiral or helical growth and screw dislocations - (0))
And this thread will tell you more about John I. Koivula

[ian jones]

Tucson - so soon.

Start my trip on Friday - see you all over there

[Jesse Fisher]

Displays are packed, minerals priced and labeled (well, mostly), beer is made for the Old Farts meeting. Guess it will be time to hit the road soon. For a change the displays will even be in keeping with the TGMS theme this year.

[Jordi Fabre]

Barcelona 01/25/2015

As many others, almost ready to go to the Tucson madness! ;-)
European correspondent of the Tucson Gem and Mineral Show™

[Jordi Fabre]

Tucson 01/28/2015

Already in Tucson, the day today started out raining but, as usual, the weather becomes wonderful later.

Although many, many people are already here, not many rooms are open. Hopefully it means that the Show becomes a little bit more rational and the dealers don't continue doing races to open before the neighbor.

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

[Matt_Zukowski]

I had such a great time last year getting out of the Anchorage cold and gloom and into the AZ heat and sun that I decided to come even earlier this year. I think maybe I came too early this year, but at least it provided me with a vantage of Tucson waking up to the show. Follows is a log of the last five days.

On Friday the 23rd, there were no dealers open anywhere that I could see, but there were lots of display cases and other signs of preparations at the Inn Suites and the hotels along I10.

On Saturday the 24th, there was one dealer open at Inn Suites, a Chinese dealer with a lot of the new blue Chinese fluorites.

On Sunday, maybe 6 dealers were open at the Inn Suites, no dealers were open at the Riverpark Inn. Went to Flandrau Science Center on UA campus. There were no mineral exhibits upstairs, all to see was downstairs in the permanent exhibit space. Although I have been through this exhibit several times in the past, I did find some specimens that jumped out at me. There is a piece with the largest franklinite xtals I have ever seen. Also, a display case filled with AFG and PAK pieces donated by Gene Meieran had some spectacular specimens including a small aqua that looked like cut glass, a nice scapolite, and a saturated spodumene. A Piedras Verdes chalcopyrite donated by Marty Zinn also caught my eye.

Monday – Maybe 5-10% of the Inn Suites had open dealers. Charlie Zp was open, with a nice selection of Chinese material and always a good word. The Heckschers (Crystal Circle) were also open – what I remember is some top quality Gobobos, Namibia amethyst points and some AR quartz (not McEarl) of top luster and clarity.

Tuesday – Inn Suites was starting to hop, with maybe 10-15% of dealers open and a lot more people. Saw several collector and dealer friends. I happened to be there when Luis Burillo opened his doors (actually I saw a set up room with one person browsing, knocked on the locked door, was let in, soon there were several knocks, and then they unlocked the door and let the hoard in). It was soon very crowded with people lifting specimens off the shelves and putting them in their “piles” for eventual purchase. Luis, as always, has a large amount of great material. This year, the stuff that caught my eye includes Viloco cassiterites; La Viesca, Asturias fluorites; and Lily Mine, Peru clinoatacamites. Two Chinese dealers, in rooms 281 and 283 of the Inn Suites were open and had some interesting material with little damage and no oil. There was only one dealer open at the fine mineral building of the Riverpark Inn, Pu Tzu.

[Matt_Zukowski]

Flandrau Science Center on UA campus

[Matt_Zukowski]

Just a little of what is available in Luis Burillo's room

[Matt_Zukowski]

Rooms 281 and 283 at the Inn Suites.

[Matt_Zukowski]

Riverpark Inn

[crocoite]

I read this too quickly...

I read "Huge beautiful quartz, with Dave Wilber for scale." as "Dave Wilber for sale"!

[Mike Wood]

Nice reporting and great information Matt. Thanks for taking the time to do this. Enjoy the sunshine!
Cheers, Mike

[Volkmar Stingl]

Matt, the fluorite with calcite, as well as the azurites seem to be from China (because of the white plastic pans, which seem to be typical for Chinese dealers). The azurites are similar to mine that originate from Liufengshan Mine, Guizhou, Anhui province (possibly from Tongshan mine, also in Anhui, which have similar matrix).

Greetings, Volkmar

[GneissWare]

[Don Lum]

Enjoying your report, Matt. Please keep'em coming.

[Paul Bordovsky]

Thanks for the show report and pics of the early arrivals. Looking forward to getting there on Sunday.

[Matt_Zukowski]

Thanks people for your encouragement, and thanks Volkmar for the locality help. I couldn't remember where these azurites came from and the language barrier was insurmountable, but they do come from Liufengshan Mine, Guizhou, Anhui Prov. The fluorite I talked about yesterday was in several rooms and the locality is Xinjian, Henan Prov.

Today (Wed the 28th) about 30% of the dealers at the Inn suites were open but about 70-80% of the parking appeared to be taken. I heard a rumor today that the lot used for parking to the N of the Inn Suites has been sold and will be developed - if this comes true, parking will be impossible at this venue.

One of the first places I stopped was room 124 (Alvaro Lucio), who had some nice tourmaline from the Chia Claim in Minas Gerais. One piece was something around 20 cm long, with a really sharp termination, clear prism faces, and good luster. Although the color was dark, with lighting you could see nice color zoning within. Pictures below.

[Matt_Zukowski]

Next I went to Donald Olson's room where I saw another year's assortment of aesthetic specimens. I always enjoy looking at what they have assembled. They had a bunch of material from an old Bisbee miner that was interesting. Also they had several unique Milpillas brochantites with stout xtals and chisel shaped terminations. Also catching my eye were a Milpillas azurite, Tsumeb dioptase, Espirito Santo chrysoberyl, and a Keweenaw copper. Pictures below.

[Matt_Zukowski]

Next I went to Zheng's room (rm 309) where they always have a bunch of interesting chinese material.

[Matt_Zukowski]

I walked around more at the Inn Suites but didn't take any more pictures. Collectors Edge was open but still loading cases. Green Mountain had most of their cases filled but their door was closed because they weren't finished.

At about 4ish I drove over to the Riverpark Inn where I saw Marcus Budil with, among other things, some nice Swiss quartz pieces. Then I walked down to the fine mineral building where I found that Rocksaholics had opened. I had a nice chat with Aisha and Dave Wilber, and also saw some nice rocks - pics below.