I pulled into Denver the afternoon of the 13th.  Denver seems to be getting bigger and a bit more crowded every year but it is a big place with a lot of room to grow and get bigger.

During the first two days it is always a bit of a mad dash to see what is new in minerals at the hotel show.  The main show opens this Friday and there will be a chance to see some other new finds once they are made available. 

A good first place to stop is at Karp's room.  Ivo has found a way to obtain and get new material from Burma into the US where there is an import ban of Burmese material in place...hmm...He had a nice lot of the new gemmy blue apatite crystals from Mogok.  He had these first on display at the Sainte-Marie Show last June and several other dealers here in Denver have them as well including Andy Seibel and Leonard Himes.  These crystals are weakly fluorescent yellow under SW UV light.

One of the people I always look forward to visiting with is Robert (Rocko) and Mandy Rosenblatt of Rocko's Minerals and Jewelry.  This year Rocko is in a side room near the lobby and he had a new and very recent find of calcite and quartz specimens from the Roncari Quarry, East Granby, Connecticut. Many of these specimens are centered or grown around casts of long gone anhydrite crystals. The quartz is drusy and lustrous and the calcite crystals are scalenohedral in form.  I picked through his batch and ended up with 7-8 excellent specimens to be posted later this week.

Nevada dealer Scott Werschky of Miner's Lunchbox was setting up when I knocked on his door. Scott picked up some fine specimens of the recent find of brookite from Kharan, Pakistan.  These first showed up at the Sainte Marie Show last June but prices were really out of sight for this simple oxide of titanium (it is a polymorph of TiO2 and shares the same chemistry with rutile and anatase).  I picked up 6 specimens and then moved on to his gold specimens.  He had a small hoard of crystalline gold from the Star of the West Mine, Central City, Gilipin County, Colorado available which I bought.  These have an off yellow color but are sharply crystalline with dodecahedral forms the most dominant. 
 
 

I wandered out to back of the hotel and found Ian Bruce and Wayne Leicht relaxing with Terry Szenics. Wayne and Dona Leicht had a new supply of gold specimens from the Eagle's Nest mine available and a couple of richly colored fluorite specimens from Morocco. 
 
 

Some of the more significant new minerals here at the Denver Show are from Collector's Edge.  Martin Jensen has been busy in China!  They had some of the best wurtzite specimens ever found available from Yaogangxian Mine.  Wurtzite is a polymorph of ZnS2 (shares the same chemistry with Sphalerite) and has been found primarily as small hexagonal shaped crystals .  This new find is an order of magnitude above previously known specimens with crystals to 1 cm across of sharp hexagonal plate shaped crystals.
 
 

Not done with China yet.  Martin also found some specimens of scorodite from the Pingtouning Mine, Guangdong Province in China.   There were only 8 specimens available and I picked out 5.  Other species found with the scorodite include anglesite, arsenian siderite and beudantite. Unfortunately, Martin informed me that the scorodite was found as the last of the zone was hauled off to the crusher and smelter. He estimated that less than 30 specimens exist from this locality with an untold number now lost forever.   Does anyone else out there think Tsumeb - 2 also?  The scorodite specimens have outstanding color change between indoor and outdoor lighting and have bright mirror-like luster.

Collector's Edge has been busy working in southern Arizona.  They recently finished work on the Red Cloud mine and moved a little north on to the Geronimo Mine which is on the same vein system as the Red Cloud.  They produced several flats of outstanding specimens of bright red vanadinite.  This is not of the same quality as that of Mibladen, Morocco but they are some of the best North American vanadinites ever found.  I could not pass up the chance to obtain a few good specimens from this impressive group.

More in the next few days!

2010
Tucson Show
San Francisco Show
East Coast Show
Denver Show
Munich Show

2011
Tucson Show
San Francisco Show
East Coast Show
Denver Show
Munich Show

2012
Tucson Show
West Coast Show
East Coast Show
Denver Show 
Munich Show

2013
Tucson Show
Sainte Marie Show
Crystal Days (Poland)
Munich Show