Tucson Show 2016

Well .... when you are back from Tucson Show you have the feeling of having been in a place close to the "miners' heaven" ! it's really so ! the amount of mineral specimens and species available is enormous but what it is really astonishing is the great variety for each single mineralogical species !

It has been a long time that I visited the Tucson Show last time, more or less 13 years ago ! and this was the year to be back ! a long trip from Italy with my friend and collector Giampaolo Barone. We were really excited to reach Tucson, as you can see from this photo.

Lot of things changed in the years and being in Tucson a long time ago nothing can be defined as similar to my previous visit. We scheduled all the visits to all shows ... we did not want to miss anything ! having the car we could move freely and with no problem all around Tucson.

The first stop was at Top Gem Minerals so that to see what was available. Lot of specimens from Mexico's areas and mines and so we got some fluorites, wulfenites, topazes, Erongo material in nice crystals and shapes !

Close to Top Gem there was an other area with some wholesale vendors, among them Collector's Edge ! we did not miss the many flats from Erongo, Namibia, both with pegmatite material and the nice amethysts that show incredible colors and phantoms inside. There was also a large variety of keystones offered at interesting prices. We had the chance to find nice topazes from Namibia and bright orange wulfenites from Red Cloud mine, previously run by Collector's Edge.

Having the car, it was easy to move from one place to the other ! and I was the driver taking the advantage of the TomTom navigator !

Looking all around Gianpaolo found several biterminated crystals for his crystals' collection even though some of them were little bit "oversized" to be taken at home ! nevertheless he was able to find real nice specimens, also from old collections of Italian classics.

Obviously we visited all the boots at the Tucson Hotel (ex Inn Suites) and this took at least 2 days of wondering around, registering what was of interest and where it was ! a hard work but successfull since we bougth real nice specimens at interesting prices. In regards to prices, it has to be said that these were little bit high, we had almost always tried to have some discount or at least offers for flats. The american classics were very expensive (not always high grade material) but we made it in getting some nice rocks !

We could not miss the Fine Mineral International exhibit .... what a great show of nice specimens ! several Italian classics also, especially from the iron ores of Isola Elba. Nice pyrite crystals (up to 5-6 cm in diameter !) on hematite matrix ! I could not resist to take photos of some of the shows. In the average the prices here were very high even though there were several keystones (50% discount).

Some bargains were found, such as very nicely terminated large apatites from Morocco ! I took several crystals from these dealers.

Almost every evening the Italian Group joined to have dinner... lot of talks and litlle bit noisy but italians are always italians ! some of them had a boot such as Corrado Vietti, Giovanni Signorelli (WebMinerals) while others were visiting as we were doing. A good group of friends !

Other than from the many shows we visited, the final one was the Westward Look Mineral Show ! a splendid high level exhibition of the best specimens from all over the world.

Among the many specimens, I was in love with a blu spinel, with a doubly terminated elbaite from Hymalya mine and also with  a perfect pollucite from Pakistan. There was also a fantastic, though expensive and repaired, elbaite from Elba Island, Italy.

It has been an incredible experience, I met a lot of friends such as John Veevaert (Trinity Minerals), Dan Weinrich, Keith Hayes and many others. Unfortunately everyone was rushing after rocks so we had not so much time to stay together but the atmosphere was so electric that everyone was excused !

The going back home saw us little bid tired, almost 20 hours of travelling, 4 different fligths to catch, and a lot of sleep to recover .... but we are happy for having been there !