FMF - Friends of Minerals Forum, discussion and message board

[bob kerr]

Every New Year's Eve, we watch Sidney and Melbourne celebrate the arrival of the new year first - and, similarly, the first of the international dealers arriving for the upcoming Tucson Shows is from Australia - that of course is Adam Wright of the Adelaide Crocoite Mine in Tasmania.

This year he unpacked the first specimens from a new zone he calls the Red River Falls - "Falls" because there's water flowing down from a number of points in the roof of the mine - and the crocoite is quite special from this zone - good sized crystals, great luster, color and clean terminations - somewhat similar to the great 1970's finds. Only a few of the new specimens display the large crystals - but these are among the best ever. A few photos are attached. According to Adam this zone should continue on for a while - he had to stop mining to get to Tucson.

AND - what was previously Mike New's Top Gem business - now B2B Minerals directly across Oracle Road from Mineral City - will celebrate a "Soft Opening" with a Mexican Lunch and Mariachi Band - January 23.

LOTS more to follow - and I was notified that the proverbial Clive Quiet from South Africa will be missing this year's show due to health - well over 40 years of mineral dealing - he will be missed. However, his room in the B2B Annex will be open and run by his partner Tony. Scheduled to open on the 15th.

bob

[bob kerr]

Adam provided me with an in-situ video of the Red River Falls zone. Note the water falling - and this video was taken after the flow rate subsided significantly.

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/QCkDJZAontU
(link normalized by FMF)

bob

(the youtube link to the right of the posting would not accept this??)

[Jordi Fabre]

[bob kerr]

The Top Gem annex room of South African Clive Quiet opened (kinda) this morning to quite a crowd. (Due to illness Clive remained in South Africa.)

He had quite a few flats of Congo dioptase as well as some larger pieces - Many of these are partially coated with malachite making for a nice green on green contrast and I was lucky enough to get the one nice "malachite after barite on dioptase" specimen in the flats - I wish there were more of these!

The other interesting finds from The Congo were reasonably priced specimens of botryoidal malachite and quartz on matrix - see photos.

Otherwise, there were LOTS of cactus quartz which were being picked up by dealers rapidly and LOTS of lustrous schorl from Erongo in all sizes - one dealer claimed all of the larger specimens - maybe 20.

I said he "kinda" opened because apparently the contract does not permit selling until this coming Friday so the owner of the annex had everyone leave after maybe 2 hours. More this Friday.

bob

[bob kerr]

I walked around the Mineral City area today and it's just too early - a few dealers are setting up but few are ready to open.

I did go over to the Top Gem annex again and re-acquainted myself with the Ramos' who just arrived from Peru and plan to partially open this Saturday.

And - to my pleasant surprise the room of Clive Quiet was open - recall that they were told to close this past Monday but the owner of the building has relented.

I noted three nice Fluorite options available - I'll start with the VERY interesting Eroongo fluorites on Schorl that were available although it was clear from the open spots that they were already picked from a good bit. The one's left were cabinet size and above but quite nice - see photos.

I'll present two other nice fluorite options in the following posts.

bob

[bob kerr]

For the second fluorite option, Clive had vivid blue Fluorites from Afghanistan (no other local details given) many of which are preferentially coated with yellowish calcite. These are mostly in remarkably good condition and are quite reasonably priced. See photos.

bob

[bob kerr]

For the third and final fluorite option - these are from the Lupita Mine in Mapimi, Durango, MX. The purple balls are sprinkled over a quartz matrix and the balls are then again sprinkled with minor quartz. The owner Jose' attempted to remove the small quartz sprinkles with mixed results. Best to leave mother nature alone here. A back-lit photo showing color and crystal form is included.

more in the next few days,
bob

[topgem]

[James Catmur]

Jason

Sorry to hear about your difficulties. 'Changing of the guard' in a business can be difficult (our family business - Catmur Machine Tools - did not survive the loss of my uncle, with >200 people made redredundant

[bob kerr]

There are still only a few rooms open but as has been the case in the past, Wendy and John Zhou of Wendy's Minerals is fully open and as is always the case they have some new material brought back from their trips to China.

I put notes in the photos below.

bob

[bob kerr]

As we discussed extensively in last year's Tucson report, there are a number of dealers selling these "Fluorite Loops" as natural specimens. By now it's well known that these are carvings and some of the earliest "victims" of this fraud were Rudolf's Minerals. Well, they have recovered most of their losses and now have two flats of these that will be wholesaled.

They were selling individual "carvings" for $50 so I had to buy one for my fraud collections.

I hope no one falls for these - they are simply carvings (done with a bead gun?) and not natural specimens.

bob

[bob kerr]

LOTS of happenings going on in and around the Mineral City area.

The Mineral City manager Graham Sutton has definitely spruced things up a good bit and the name flags on each room helps tremendously.

Also, the B2B Mineral business in the old Top Gem building resurrected a tradition established by Mike and Jason New and offered a wonderful Mexican lunch complete with Mariachi Band. Usually, the typical sunny weather makes this a wonderful way to spend the lunch hour - with a cold beer in hand - but the cool weather made things a bit different. HOWEVER, the Gods that be permitted a gap in the rain so that all there could enjoy the chicken enchiladas in a dry environment.

A good bit of new material was offered by B2B but the only thing I found of interest was some Ojuela Chalcophanite - see photo.

more to follow,
bob

[bob kerr]

In the room of Unique Minerals - Evan Jones and Mark Mitterman - I found a wall of brilliant blue shattuckite with quartz druze from the Milpillas Mine - Milpillas never ceases to amaze!

Additionally, there were the usual top-level specimens available - a few shown below.

[bob kerr]

Sharing a room with James Hall of the Noth Carolina's Reef Mine (see last year's report) is John Cornish. Up until this year John was working for The Arkenstone but now he has decided to set up business on his own.

In the room were this year's supply of those wonderful "azurite suns" from the Malbunka Mine in Australia. These were mined by Dehne and Maureen McLaughlin who also sold them previously, but John has taken over the duty.

John was also showing off an incredible double terminated apatite from the Himalaya Mine extracted in 2013 - see photos.

This room was set up last year by James Hall who filled it with lots of wonderful amethysts from The Reef Mine in North Carolina. This year he filled half of it with all new material. See photos.

[bob kerr]

It's always a pleasure to visit the room of Valenzuela's Minerals who specialize in all things Mexican but especially Milpillas. It's pure "eye candy" with all the electric blue azurites from Milpillas.

This year they also have an equally (to Unique Minerals) impressive display of shattuckite most of which are covered in a wonderful quartz druze from Milpillas.

Additionally, they were displaying some new calcites from Chihuahua that resemble those from the Rudnyi find of many years ago - see photos.

And Alehandro was proudly showing his excellent Ojuela Cerussite sixling in a protective vug. See photos.

more to come,
bob

[bob kerr]

I also ran into one of my favorite Chinese dealers who is working to promote the 2024 China International Mineral and Gem Expo to be held in Nanjing over May 29 to June 2. An expensive and tiring trip but no doubt worth it.

See flyer below.

[bob kerr]

I visited the room of Rocko Rosenblatt today to see his Balmat NY offerings - quite a few gem sphalerites are still available as well as some huge calcites. Also, there's a small number of anhydrites available - all of these are from the Empire State Zinc Mine in Balmat NY. see photos.

[bob kerr]

OK - get ready to see the largest aquamarine specimens to come out of Pakistan - not right now but as soon as Muhammad Ejaz's (in the A building) special stands are available there will be a 1.2 meter and a 1.1-meter-long aqua specimens out for viewing - hopefully within a few days. I was honored to get a special viewing in their shipping containers in the back room - they are indeed HUGE and nicely covered with medium sized aqua hex's with a very nice blue coloring. Should be a special event. STAY TUNED!

In the meantime, he has a half a dozen display cases filled with "lesser" pieces which are really incredible in their own right.

see photos.

[bob kerr]

Not a new find but Anton Watzl had a large display of zunyites in his room in the D building - mainly single crystals - from Iran.

See photos..

[bob kerr]

As I mentioned earlier, Graham Sutton has spruced up the Min City area a good bit - AND - published for this year's show is a show guide packed with some great articles in addition to being a useful guide to all the dealers in all the buildings.

The article which makes this a collector's item is the article by Brian Swoboda, the FMF's fearless leader Jordi Fabre and Carles Manresa Pla titled "50 Best of Species Mineral Specimen's from The MIM Museum". Each of the 50 specimens is described in detail. An excellent bit of reading.

bob