What's new in Minerals.

Tucson Show 2009

[January 31-February 15]

"The Tucson Show," as the mineral world calls it, is a labyrinthine complex of events and venues which covers major tracts of the city during the first half of February each year. The official name, collectively, for the 45 earth-science-related shows is "The Tucson Gem, Mineral & Fossil Showcase," but unofficially, and for some of us a bit annoyingly, natives and the local media tend to call the entire motley extravaganza "the Gem Show." The happenings of greatest interest to mineral collectors (not necessarily in order of "greatness") are: (1) the Executive Inn Show, now showing signs of a renaissance after a few years of administrative confusion; (2) Dave Waisman's small, elite Westward Look Show, wherein 26 high-end mineral dealers set up at a gorgeous resort community on the north side of town; (3) Marty Zinn's "Arizona Mineral and Fossil Showcase," with five separate venues of which the chief one is at the InnSuites Hotel; and (4)--do you still have some money left?--the Tucson Gem & Mineral Show (now officially also called the "Main Show") run with no-nonsense efficiency by the Tucson Gem & Mineral Society (TGMS) at the Tucson Convention Center during the climactic four-day weekend.

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At present the world's economic health is not good, and naturally there was some preliminary concern about whether the Tucson Show would thrive in its accustomed way, i.e. by adding $100 million or so to the city's economy and making a solid majority of dealers glad that they'd come. According to the Tucson Convention and Visitors' Bureau, the total attendance for all of the shows in the Showcase was around 55,000 in 2007, but they haven't done an extensive attendance survey since then, so a figure for 2009 is unavailable. According to Carole Lee of the TGMS, the total attendance figure for the four-day Main Show was down a few hundred from last year, though the attendance for Saturday was up.

In terms of revenues, the reports are variable. An Arizona Daily Star story on February 18, headlined "Dealers Disappointed in Gem Show Business," spoke gloomily of poor sales "even considering the economy," citing individual declines of as much as 70% of revenue in comparison with last year's figures, early departures by some dealers, cancellations of plans for next year, etc. That story, however, was about Showcase activity in general and does not (necessarily) apply to the mineral dealerships in the four important (to us) venues mentioned above. In fact, Carole Lee says that three mineral dealers at the Main Show had sales of over $1 million; presumably, good stock and good presentation/salesmanship, always critical for any dealer's success, played major roles in these cases. Having gone around asking randomly selected mineral dealers how they were doing, I got answers distributed quite evenly between "dead in the water" and "best year I ever had." Some wholesalers, in particular, reported very good sales, which is a promising sign. Meaningful generalizations are therefore impossible, but my impression is that this year was no worse for mineral dealers, on the average, than a "normal" year in Tucson, and that apocalyptic predictions about the health of the trade are unwarranted. Collectors at all levels still seemed to be buying. Later in this report I will offer a second installment of my new "HQLP" (High Quality Low Price) sub-column, which I debuted in the Denver show report last year, to assist readers in the goal of acquiring good stuff during economic hard times.

The Mineralogical Record, at least, had a very good show, with plenty of book and back-issue sales, a record number of new subscribers signing up, and some nice proceeds from our benefit auction during the Saturday night awards ceremony at the Convention Center. Decades ago this auction was a regular feature of the Main Show, and now, thanks chiefly to the hard work of our new Associate Publisher, Tom Gressman, the tradition is being revived, at least with regard to the silent auction. Collectors who couldn't make it to the show were still able to participate in the silent auction, as John Veevaert of Trinity Minerals (www.trinityminerals.com) took a flat of very good specimen donations with him, and auctioned them off for us in April on his website (thanks, John!).

During the Saturday night program at the Main Show it was announced that Rob Lavinsky of The Arkenstone and Daniel Trinchillo of Fine Minerals International are co-sponsoring a project designed to quicken the interest of young people in collecting minerals. Rob and Daniel have generously funded Brian Swoboda's Blue Cap Productions for the making of an hour-long DVD in which three bright, eager Californians, aged 12 to 14, were briefed on the pegmatite minerals of San Diego County and then, duly equipped and hard-hatted, were taken down into the Pala Chief mine to collect. Mine owner Bob Dawson and other expert adults looked on and provided advice as the kids extracted four large and fine smoky quartz crystals from an exposed pocket: Max, Brooks and Lauren (the last is Peter Megaw's daughter) got to keep one big quartz crystal each. Their running squeals of delight as the crystals are being extracted give sign of the indescribable joy and mind-broadening feeling afforded by successful field collecting, especially for the young who will succeed us. Indeed, besides addressing kids directly, this DVD models good grownup strategies by which we can help secure the future of mineral collecting, so the documentary is recommended for viewers of all ages. For $25 you can order a copy from Brian Swoboda's production company (www.bluecapproductions.com), although Brian also intends to distribute free copies to kids at shows, and to donate further copies to schools and other institutions so that they can hand the video out to interested youths.

The what's-new tour kicks off with a new find in Arizona--although it took a couple of Coloradoans, John Crowley and Dean Misantoni, to come down here and do most of the finding. At intervals over the past four years, John and Dean have been opening isolated miarolitic cavities in exposures of granite in the Santa Teresa Mountains, north of the town of Klondyke in Graham County. From many of these cavities have come nice specimens of fluorite, quartz and microcline, and just one cavity has given up aquamarine beryl, a super-rarity (in good specimens) for Arizona. The accumulated stock was acquired by Evan Jones (evanabbot-tjones@gmail.com), who offered several shelves' worth of mostly miniature and small-cabinet specimens at his stand at the Main Show. The fluorite specimens show translucent, deep purple, slightly rough octahedral crystals to 6 cm on edge, forming tight clusters on gray quartz. The quartz itself forms typical transparent prismatic crystals of medium luster to 10 cm long, in groups to 20 cm across, commonly overgrown by a second generation of smaller, brighter crystals; in other specimens the large quartz crystals are smoky and more lustrous than the grayish ones. Rarely, microcline turns up as groups of sharp, glassy, brownish gray crystals to 2.5 cm individually, with quartz and fluorite. The single aquamarine-bearing pocket yielded a handful of odd-looking thumbnails: loose, skinny groups of subparallel, just slightly divergent prismatic crystals which are pale blue and opaque, priced at around $100 apiece. But in Evan's display case at the Main Show was the great find: a 10-cm starburst cluster of loosely attached compound beryl crystals to 5 cm, medium-blue and quite lustrous, with gemmy areas visible as you look down the c axis. I would be much surprised if this isn't the finest beryl specimen ever found in Arizona. Oh yes, and Evan shared with Mike Shannon a goodly number of specimens of rams-dellite from Arizona's Mistake mine--but these black beauties are so inexpensive that I'll defer description of them until the HQLP report, much later on.

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At last year's Denver Show, fairly sizeable numbers of fairly good gold specimens from the Belshazzar mine, Boise County, Idaho, made their appearance with a couple of dealers, and one of these dealers, prospector Ed Muceus of the Mad Mutha Mine (P.O. Box 66, Paradise Valley, NV 89426), kept up his momentum at Tucson this year, both at the InnSuites and at his stand at the Main Show. Ed offered about a dozen very bright gold specimens taken recently from the Belshazzar mine dumps: intricate, glittering groups of dendritic aggregates and curving wires without matrix, ranging between 2 and 3 cm and priced between $150 and $350. Ed also had a few more of the specimens, mentioned from Denver, consisting of loose, whitish gold "herringbone" leaves, to 4 cm, of what's probably the Au-Ag alloy informally called "electrum." This time, though, Ed could give the locality: the dumps of an old mine called Howard's Claim, in Nye County, Nevada.

Large and spectacular specimens of acicular natrolite in dense coatings, sprays and "nests" over matrix, the natrolite crystals sparkling with colorless, lustrous apophyllite microcrystals, were taken from pockets struck in the late 1990's in the Weyerhaeuser Lincoln Creek quarry. Doty Hills, Lewis County, Washington. These wide, beautiful, wintry-looking specimens have not circulated much on the market, but Bruce Wood Minerals in the InnSuites (www.brucewoodminerals.net) this year had about 15 pieces, from 6 to 30 cm across, from a pocket which was cleaned out in 1998 by Rudy Tschernich (zeolite expert and author of Zeolites of the World, 1992). Very thin, delicate natrolite "needles" to 5 cm, with uniform dustings of apophyllite microcrystals to make them glitter all over, cover the black basalt matrix plates. A few rooms away in the InnSuites, John Cornish (Cornish@tfon.com) had a few more specimens from the same pocket, and both dealers asked low-three-figure prices for excellent cabinet-size plates.

Large-scale copper mining has long since ceased in the Keweenaw Peninsula of northern Michigan, but "copper country" collectors still make significant specimen finds from time to time. In August 2008, Bob Barron collected about 500 copper specimens, miniature-size to one which measures 20 X 30 X 30 cm, from a vein outcrop which he located with a metal detector--funny thing is, the outcrop was under water in Lake Superior, near Eagle Harbor, and so the find has been christened "the Laker Pocket. …

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