The center of the Convention Center on Friday.

I saw one other item on display in a dealer's booth, that of Andy Seibel's, that was interesting to note. Andy had some specimens of vanadinite on stalactitic goethite from the old finds at Tauz, Morocco.  He picked these up from Ernesto Ossala at the Clarion Hotel show. According to Andy, Kiyoshi Kiikuni got to Ernesto after Andy cleaned up what was left.  Below is a specimen in junior's booth.

This specimen is about 4 cm in height. Andy had $650 on the piece.

The following images will be focused on the displays at the main show. Bryan Lees of Collector's Edge had a display of Aquamarines from Mount Antero, Colorado.  Most people I spoke with had the same initial sense: Why a display of Paki Aquas?...WAIT!  They are from Colorado!!!! Oh my gosh!!!!!
 

A 15 cm specimen with smoky quartz.


A 15-20 cm specimen!

Another reason to go into cardiac arrest was this emerald specimen from North Carolina found last year.
 Jordi Fabre was seen crouched and babbling in a corner for 30 minutes after viewing this specimen.  



This was the entrance to the arena section of the show. Mostly jewelry dealers here...


Returning to the main hall from the arena you saw this dark tent with fluorescent minerals.


There were quite a few displays of Thumbnail sized specimens.  
The one by Michael and Debbie Ausec caught my eye.



Here is the center part of the display and a mineral that I stared at for about 2 minutes on the left...



This is the famous "Postage Stamp"  tourmaline from the Tourmaline Queen Mine in Pala.
It was featured on a US Postage stamp 10-15 years ago as I recall.



There was a display honoring Richard T. Liddicoat who was influential in the gem world.
The color zoned variety of tourmaline from Madagascar was named in his honor.  The above
piece is from the Gene Meieran Collection.



Speaking of Gene Meieran, he and Bill Larson put together a series of displays highlighting the gemstones
of each of the twelve months of the year.  The center piece was a display of gem crystals to make your eyes
fill with water.  I have seen several of these specimens at other shows around the world but here
are two shots to twist your mind into a knot.


A stunning Chinese morganite and the Euclase crystal of all Euclase crystals.



San Francisco collectors Joan Kureczka and Jesse Fisher put a display of
global tourmalines up.  All exceptional pieces!



Here are two specimens of note a blue cap from the famous 1972 find at the
Tourmaline Queen Mine and a vividly colored specimen from the Cruzeiro mine.



Here's a shot of Herb and Monica Obodda's booth at the main show.  It was pretty busy the whole
weekend as there were many very fine specimens available and people were pretty excited.  
There is a reason that there are so many good minerals in Herb's booth....



Recently Herb co-authored a paper on Zagi Mountain in Pakistan in the Mineralogical Record.



Here's a shot of Herb dressed in local garb with the white hat.




Here's what Herb uses to persuade the locals to sell him the best stuff!
The real reason Herb has great minerals!  ;^)  



The following specimens are from the collection of Irv Brown.  Irv outdid
himself and everyone else with his display of about 30 specimens. This was THE TOP
display case in  my opinion at the show due to the quality and diversity of minerals in it.
Bill Stone of Sunnywood did the custom mounting.
Thank you Irv!


A gem morganite crystal on albite from Pala.  The lustrous crystal is about 5-6 cm across!


A 7 cm specimen of wulfenite from Tsumeb...


A 6 cm crystal of gem pink topaz from Pakistan on matrix.


A large 9 x 8 cm blue cap tourmaline from Pala.


Probably among the finest known specimens of cuprian adamite from Tsumeb.
This beast stands about 6-7 cm in height.


A 7 cm cluster of lustrous deep magenta colored crystal of manganoadamite from the Ojuela mine.



One of the finest red beryls known - this is a gemmy crystal on a 5 cm specimen.


A 10 cm specimen of wire silver on calcite from Kongsberg.

Ok, so that will do it for the 2005 Tucson Show.  Everyone agrees that there was not too much new here in Tucson in the way of new finds, but there were a great many outstanding minerals available from recently sold old collections.  Several people  suggested that we're entering a new era where the great collections built from the 1950s to the 1990s will be becoming available.  I heard from several other dealers that they were working on getting old collections for the coming year so I think that this is a trend that will be continuing.

As for new material without question the andorite specimens that Alfredo Petrov and Brian Kosnar had were just incredible. Anytime a new find of material comes along that redefines how good a species is it is significant and these were quite significant.  The new gold specimens from Round Mountain, Nevada brought to the show principally by Scott Werschky of Miner's Lunchbox were exceptional also. Other items like the fluorite included quartz were new to the market as were the mircolite and fairfieldite of Luiz Menezes.  I would have to say again, however, that the andorites were the most significant new material here in Tucson.

For me my best find at the show was the Russian Gold specimen that I got from KARP.  My biggest blunder was buying a large "built" specimen of spessartine, smoky quartz and fluorite from a factory in Fujian.  Someone went to a lot of trouble to glue the many garnet crystals in place on that rock...

The show venues moved around a lot this year also with Marty Zinn's shows.   There was a lot of belly aching initially but I think most people, like myself, who drive a long way to get to Tucson can't really get too excited about another 5-10 miles to get to where the rocks were.  At the end of the show 99% of the dealers were happy enough to re-up for the 2006 Show and sales all across Tucson were way above last year's show.

I want to publicly thank Marty Zinn and his staff for their efforts to organize the shows at the Smuggler's Inn, Inn Suites, Clarion, Ramada and Mineral Market tents.  There were A LOT of great minerals at those shows and also to the organizers of the Tucson Gem and Mineral Show.  The volunteers who put this thing together do a heck of job!

I have one more week here in Tucson to get specimens packaged up and shipped out then Colleen and I will be heading out into the desert to camp out and go for hikes for a few weeks.

See you all here again next year for the 2006 Tucson Show!

Thank you again for tuning in.