Another day and another show here in Tucson.  Thursday I was out at the Westward Look show to see who was open for viewing before the show starts Friday.   There are more dealers there this year than ever before and there is a sense that this show is becoming more important for the serious connoisseur of fine minerals - probably the most important show.   Most of the dealers were not to be found but I did see Scott Werschky (Miner's Lunchbox) who had a fine array of new gold specimens from the Round Mountain mine in Nevada.  The gold from this active mine keeps getting better and better!  The habit of the gold is quite variable and crystals of all sorts are found in this material. Cubes are perhaps most frequent but delicate wires, herring bone and spinel law twins are common.

Front side and back side of this 3.5 x 1.5 x 1.5 cm
 gold specimen from Round Mountain, Nevada.

Close up views of the same gold specimen with wires,
cubes, herring bones, octahedra and more!
This specimen is available SOLD for $500.00

A new surprise!  After a nudge from Mike Bergman I went to see Brian Kosnar (Mineral Classics) in room 230.  He has what are arguably the finest hoard of Bolivian andorite crystals in Tucson or anywhere else for that matter. Recall that Alfredo Petrov had some of these at the Smuggler's Inn.  Well, it turns out that Brian Kosnar has A LOT more of them - about 50 more to be exact and all are very good in terms of crystal quality. Brian told me that these were all out of the same hoard that found its way to the market this past year and he managed to get the finest group of those that were available.  These were all recovered in the 1970s and forgotten about until recently when the miner who found them passed away and his heirs then decided to clean out the closet.  These were in the closet.  Brian has gone to great lengths to get these cleaned up without damaging the andorite or any associated minerals - predominantly zinkenite. I selected 8 specimens in all and shot photos of some of Brian's better specimens which are posted here.  After some time with my microscope I have found one specimen with ferrokesterite among the specimens I obtained and several have bright glassy yellow micro crystals of cervantite.

Here are two specimens in Brian's inventory and shiny 4.5 cm specimen on the
left and a 6+ cm crystal on the right.  Both specimens are SOLD at this time.

The specimen on the left is a large 6cm crystal SOLD already.
The specimen on the right is one I bought and it is 4.5 x 4 x 2 cm cluster
of crystals - many doubly terminated. It is available for $1,100.

While running around I saw Christophe Gobin (Minerals Web).  You may recall that at Munich Christophe and Brice both indicated that they would have some exceptional Smoky Quartz Gwindels from Mont Blanc, Chamonix, France.  They did! Wow! The specimens they had were all large to very large cabinet pieces and many were featured in the special issue of Le Regne Mineral that was dedicated to the Mont Blanc region.  Chris and Brice were gracious enough to allow me to photograph several of the best specimens so that you could see what they look like.  This is the best of the best of these things folks. They don't get any better than this from France!

The specimen is over 20cm across.  The large crystal in the center is a gem!

 
This stunner is a perfect 15 cm gwindel set on quartz and adularia matrix.
Probably one of the finest in the world!

This 35 cm specimen is the last one that they have available.
All of the Gwindels featured here have been sold according to Christophe.


I drive to this intersection almost each day on the way back to my apartment. It is the corner
of Tanque Verde and Sabino Canyon.  I have seen two accidents already at this intersection in just
10 days since arriving!

More in the coming days!