FMF - Friends of Minerals Forum, discussion and message board

[Jordi Fabre]

Barcelona 10/24/2009

This year for the Munich Show we will try to do a different kind of reporting. During the last shows, the push to prepare daily columns and at the same time exhibit in the Show was extremely hard for me so I think that I have found a way to offer to readers a nice vision of the show, while reducing the stress on myself. John S. White will be in Munich and, as he will have his camera, he will take daily photos, a little bit in the style of "Gail Spann". Each evening I will try to download them and publish them "crude," meaning without too much text (or without text). We will also add the photos that my employee Jordi Deusedes will take during the Show, so altogether I'm quite sure it will be representative. Shortly after the Show I will write a single text that will cover my observations of the Show as well as describing the novelties that appeared there. Hopefully this new system will satisfy everybody as well as making my life a little bit easier! ;-)

Of course all other Forum member's reportings will be more than welcome, I encourage everybody to do it. As it happened in the last shows: Tucson, Ste. Marie, Denver... diversified articles give readers a better and more original vision of the Show.

Just as an appetizer I am publishing a nice photo of a Baryte from an old locality in Spain, but not commercialized until now because the locality was hidden. These Barytes from the Beltraneja Mine are not world class, but they are finding a number of them, so I suppose they will be a kind of "classic from Spain" during the next years and, of course, they will be one of the novelties of the 2009 Munich Show.

More to come...

[Jordi Fabre]

Munich 10/26/2009

OK. Starting with the new kind of reportage, we display few photos just did today of the Bavarian atmosphere.
Tomorrow will start the setup only for the larger stands of this year new pavilions -> https://www.mineralientage.de/mineral_pavilion.html

More to come...

[Jordi Fabre]

Munich 10/27/2009

The beginnings of the Show.

More to come...

[Jordi Fabre]

Munich 28/10/2009

The first batch of photos from John S. White.

More to come...

[Jordi Fabre]

Munich 10/30/2009

The Show is ready.

More to come...

[Jordi Fabre]

Munich 30/10/2009

Second batch of photos from John S. White.

More to come...

[Jordi Fabre]

Munich 10/31/2009

Latest batch of photos from John S. White.

More to come...

[Jordi Fabre]

Barcelona 11/03/2009

So, as promised, now that the show is over and I have finally got some time, let me tell you about what I thought about the show and about the new finds that I noticed during it.

From what I heard it appears that this year the financial crisis finally affected a major mineral show. Many dealer commented about the low volume of sales that they had, some of them, including some well known ones, even saying that they had not even recovered the cost of their stand (let alone the costs of their hotel, travel, etc)

That said, the show organizers had opted for a well chosen policy of not reacting and showing a positive face.
This year most of the major other shows in the same location had reduced the number of halls that they had booked, but Mineralientage took one more than usual!
Other shows were a bit more low key and apparently people talked about the woes of the world, but not Mineralientage which just got moving and generated new activities and entertainment for everyone, especially children! (there was even a free kinder garden….)

I do not know what the final attendance figures will be, but seen from an external point of view it looked like a very successful show. Just as an example, in the small village where we lived, near the show, they were surprised how all the restaurants and hotels were completely full, as the other shows held during 2009 in the same area, Messegelande, had not created as much activity. So congratulations to those who put on the show, as from the point of view of the visitors it seems to have been very successfully organized.

I guess that the contradiction between the great feeling for the visitors and the malcontent of the dealers comes from the fact that, while the crisis is affecting the world of the mineral shows (but maybe less so collecting), the efforts of the organizers of the Munich show mean that seen from outside it was still a splendid and optimistic event.

Then you have to add to this that there really were not that many novelties. So it was a poor year from that point of view. Then there were few major collections being sold. I heard many varying opinions, but I think the quality on display this year was lower than that we have seen over the last few years.

All that said, in a show as large as Munich there has to be some new things. The thing that most appealed to me was the new find made in May and June in the Bouismas mine in the Bou-Azzer region. While we do not have the results of the detailed analysis, it looks like we are talking about Dyscrasites, although it is not certain that they are not Allargentum, or maybe both of these species. Whatever they are, as you can see in the photo, they are neat specimens. They were found included in Calcite and need to be removed using acid if you want to see the crystals, but even for that their quality makes them very interesting. From the same region there were also some recent new finds of good quality Erythrites, and a series of rare minerals: Vladimirites, Karibibites, Xanthoconites…

Another novelty was the first public showing of new Gold from the Spanish region of Sierra de la Chimenea, Badajoz, although these were actually found back in 2004 and are known about by many collectors. During Munich 2009 they were put on public display and made available to collectors, dealers, magazines, etc. These are gold nuggets whose size varies between typically 5-10 grams, with the largest found being 218 grams, which has even been given a name " 'Doña María José' and whose photo can be seen in a report on this site: https://www.mtiblog.com/2008/01/doa-mara-jos-el-tamao-si-que-importa.html
What is interesting about these Golds, as you can see in the photo, is that some of them show the form of crystals, which, while they have been some what rounded, means that we are talking about crystallized Gold.

What else? Lost of good Andradites (Demantoide) from Madagascar, lots at the start of the show and even more at the end, as those that had them got them all out by the end. In this case the locality seems to have produced a lot of material at the same time, in all sorts of prices and qualities. Some of the experts in the region advice people to wait until the market settles down, as the whole thing is rather mad at the moment…

Lots of Chinese material, but nothing major that is really new, just variations on a theme, such as neat Calcites on Stibnite from Xikuangshan Mine or some more or less new golden Calcites, very beautiful, but very pricey.
Scandal for this show: a Chinese dealer with stand full of brown fluorites in the form of balls or groups of balls, all without matrix, or on matrix of the same material. From what one could see false and completely man made.

From the Kalahari manganese deposits there were yet more marvelous finds, in this case what looks initially like Olmiite, but what might be a new species as its crystallography, appearance and some other features are different from those of Olmiite. It is being analyzed in Freiberg, let’s hope that it is a new species as the samples are really neat, with a great contrast with the white matrix.

From India, there is a new locality Kannad in Aurangabad district, hat is producing some nice Mesolites, some of which are really high quality. Some of the Indian dealers said that they are Mordenites or Thomsonites, but the analyses show that they are Mesolites.

Then we should add the Elbaites from Paraíba and Barytes from Beltraneja that we mentioned at the start of this report, and the much admired, for their size (and price) Emeralds from Zambia, which while they were first seen in Denver were having their first outing in Europe. Given that most of them were repaired (a fact that was very clearly indicated by the dealers and on the labels) and that their color, transparency and brilliance is different from that of the Columbian ones some collectors were not fully convinced, but for all that they are spectacular

I am sorry, but I cannot say anything about other novelties. If there were any I did not see them.

More to come...

[John S. White]

This may interest only a handful of collectors but I feel it is worth mentioning. At the recent Munich Show I was shown by Hemant Merchant of Mineral Decor some odd spherical masses of radiating crystals which, until they were X-rayed, he nor I had any idea what they might be. Actually he first showed me one of these at the Denver Show in September before it was X-rayed. They are laumontite and he says they were found loose in pockets like eggs, and these are approximately 4 cm in diameter. The locality is Panduleni, Nasik, India. They are, of course, unstable and will dehydrate and disintegrate if not preserved. In the past laumontites have been preserved by soaking them in diluted white glue and I am guessing that this will work with these pieces. For the present, each is wrapped in plastic "cling" wrap.

[Jordi Fabre]

Barcelona 11/10/2009

A new batch of photos, this time from Jordi Deusedes - Fabre Minerals.

More to come...

[Jordi Fabre]

Barcelona 11/11/2009

More photos from the exhibits, all of them from Jordi Deusedes - Fabre Minerals

More to come...

[Jordi Fabre]

Barcelona 11/14/2009

Waiting the results of the analysis of few Munich's novelties and communicate the results here, I publish the last batch of photos.

I strongly recomend to everybody to read also the other thread about Munich Show started for jaysminerals -> https://www.mineral-forum.com/message-board/viewtopic.php?t=779 to have a better overview about this last edition of the Show.

More to come...

[Gerhard Niklasch]

A few pictures up, in the preceding (10th) set of photos, Jordi saw:

[Jordi Fabre]

Thanks for the note and additions Gerhard!

Jordi

[Jordi Fabre]