Things happen fast here in Denver compared to the Tucson Show.  The hotel show opened the 15th and set up day for the main show was the 16th.  This year I decided to work out of Steve Perry's room to offer a lot of the Bill Birnie specimens.  Over the past several years I have indicated again and again how much work it is to pull a show together and now I can seriously vouch for it.  Steve and I along with a very helpful Keith Hayes spent the entire day of the 16th getting the showroom in shape for the opening day on the 17th. Ok, enough of my whining... Back to new and interesting minerals!

Steve Perry brought a flat of fluorite from the Belmont Mine near Nova Era, Minas Gerias, Brazil.  These crystals have textbook hexaoctahedral modifications of the cube.  The crystals have colorless to light blue centers with deep and very dark violet colored outer surface.  Steve had just a small hoard of these which I picked up for the show updates to come.
 
 

Doug Wallace has been busy digging with Bill Forrest at a new gold locality in California.  They've been working the Prescott Vein of the Badger mine in Mariposa County, California.  The quartz is shot through, abundantly, with gold.  It is mostly amorphous but does have some leaf structure.  Doug had these reasonably priced so I picked up a nice select lot. 

India continues to crank out interesting oddities.  Rick Green and Steve Perry got to Mineral Decor before anyone else and bagged the only 6 specimens of calcite crystals on heulandite with inclusions of cavansite.  I managed to secure two from Steve and one from Rick.  One of the more interesting things here at the show.

Casey Jones of Geoprime Minerals had a flat of pyrite crystals from the Chino mine in Grant County, New Mexico that were collected by the mine geologist.  The crystals of pyrite that Casey had were coated with either chalcocite or hematite stained clay.  I picked up the entire flat from Casey and will post these in the coming week.
 
 

Evan Jones had some fine specimens from a new find of wulfenite made at the Rowley mine in Arizona. Jim Ricker worked the mine and came away with the best material seen in many years. Evan had the chance to dig a little and was quite successful. He showed me the best specimen recovered from the mine but it is not for sale. He's going to have it trimmed into a killer cabinet piece. He had many fine thumbnail specimens and miniatures available as did Ricker at the Best Western Hotel.  I selected only one from Evan since these are extraordinarily fragile.

Scott Kleine had a new find of very good crystals of getchellite from the Getchell mine in Humboldt Co., Nevada.  The crystals are associated with orpiment.

At the main show I had time to visit with Harald Muench and Charles Cecil.  These two have been hovering over Namibia for years and have generally had access to just about everything that has come out of there for the past 2-3 decades.  I was blown away by the incredible crystals of Jeremejevite from the find made a few years ago in the Erongo Mountains.  The crystals they had were sharply crystallized with lustrous surfaces.   These have all but disappeared from the market as they were quickly absorbed and many sent to faceters.  I obtained a very fine selection of these crystals many which are two toned with blue bases and white terminations.  Extraordinary!  These will be posted in the coming week when I get back to Weaverville. I should warn you that many of these are quite expensive.
 
 

One more report in the next few days. I am leaving for California later today and it will take about 2 days to get home...ugh
 
 

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