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Tour of the Halls at the 2001 Munich Show

1999 Munich Show        2000 Munich Show       2001 Munich Show

The Official 2001 Munich Show Homepage

All specimens are from this show are now Sold though not necessarily marked as such
 
October 25th -  Last Set up Day

I got to show much earlier today in the hopes that everyone would be set up or nearly so.  It was a good day!  First stop was a Chinese dealer representing the Southwest China Mineral Museum located at the Chengdu University in Chengdu, China.  He had very fine specimens of scheelite and beryl/apatite specimens as combinations.  I found 5 excellent specimens and quickly moved on.  No time to waste as many people were frantically racing about scooping up the best specimens.
 
 


Large well formed crystal of scheelite in desparate need of 
cleaning from the Chengdu Museum.

I found another Chinese dealer who was just opening up and he was talking with Ken Roberts.  I went over to say hello to Ken and it did not take long for my conversation to stop as I found several very fine specimens of fluorite from the relatively new finds in China at the Yoa Guang Xi Mine.  I am very impressed with the quality of material making its way out of China.  Finally!  Care is being exercised in the removal of specimens from this fabulously mineral rich country.  I really think that some great minerals are going to be coming to light in the years ahead from China.
 
 


.14 cm crystal of fluorite on quartz from China.  This
is only one of about a dozen I have found that were
worth grabbing.

Next stop was Christian Rewitzer with an incredible new find of bournonite from Baia Sprie, Romania.  At first glance I thought these were Peruvian and blew them off.  By chance I happened to see the label and was jazzed to see that these were new to the mineral world.  Bournonites have leaked out sporadically over the past few years from Romania but the quality and availability of specimens like these have not been seen before.  I quickly gathered up eight or nine of the best specimens and considered this a good mineral nirvana for the day.  I also found several other interesting specimens and moved on.  The bournonite specimens are one of the more important new finds here at the Munich Show that I have seen so far.
 


One of the new bournonite specimens from Romania.
This one is about 6 cm across and has crystals to
1.2 cm across.

Next stop was at Francois Lietard's booth. Francois was unloading specimens and the first two things that caught my eye were the new find of calcite from Rio Grande do Sol in Brazil and then after looking behind the counter my eyes bulged when I saw what has to be some of the world's largest and best formed crystals of hackamnite - crystals up to 8 cm across!!!  Francois also had some outstanding specimens of the rare mineral afghanite.  Afghanite is a species found with the lazurite deposits of Afghanistan and is referenced as being associated with the sodalite group of minerals.  It is not however a member of that series.  Its chemical formula is: (Na,Ca,K)8(Si,Al)12O24(SO4,Cl,CO3)3·(H2O).  Francois also had some of his usual top quality material from Pakistan and Afghanistan of which I made additional selections then moved on.
 
 


1.9 cm free standing crystal of afghanite on calcite 
matrix.

2.7 cm fishtail twinned crystal of calcite from the new find in
Brazil.

 
 

5 x 4 x 3 cm specimen hosting sharp and deeply 
colored crystals of hackmanite to 1.8 cm across.
Price for this specimen is $1650

2 cm crystal of sharply crystallized hackmanite.
Price for this specimen is $1000.00

 

Enormous 8 cm crystal of hackmanite with sharp form.  This
is one of the largest known crystals of this fluorescent 
species.  Price for this specimen is $4500

 

4 x 2.8 x 2.2 cm specimen hosting sharp and gemmy 
crystals of hackmanite to 1.4 cm across. 

Another shot of the specimen on the left.
Price for this specimen is $1750

Along the trek I met up with a private German collector and went through some of the specimens he was offering.  I found two superb crystyalline specimens of Hauerite and an exceptional specimen of demantoid from Italy.

During the mid afternoon I met up with Carter Rich and he pointed me in the direction of Luis Menezes who had a fellow working with him with a new find of alexandrite specimens on matrix.  I, of course, boogied on over and picked up several fine crystallized specimens.  These all have very good color change.
 
 


1.2 cm cyclic twinned crystal of alexandrite exposed from
biotite schist matrix.

 

Last stop in the day was to see my good friend Gilbert Gauthier.  I always look forward to seeing what Gilbert has - especially in the way of radioactives.  I was completely unprepared for the fabulous array of fine cuprosklodowskites that he had available.  There were about 20 or specimens that were just too good to not get.  So with that in mind... I got them.  He also had one of the finest specimens of becquerelite I or he had ever seen.  Lastly there were a few very fine specimens of torbernite from the Congo so they and the becquerelite went into the mix (I hope airport security is not screening for radioactive materials... gulp*).

Today was orders of magnitude better than yesterday!

See you tomorrow,

John

* Today is October 30th and airport security WAS screening for radioactivity... read the gory details on the index page...

Follow the links below to see pages from the largest show in Europe!


October 24th
October 25th
October 26th
October 27th
Last Day
Erythrite
Moroccan Apatite
Namibian Schorl
Spanish Sphalerite
European Minerals
Pink Fluorite
Madagascar
Radioactive Minerals
Italian Sulfur
Brazil
Rare Species
China
Pakistan & 
Afghanistan
Romania
Mineral Shows
Home Page

1999 Munich Show        2000 Munich Show       2001 Munich Show

The Official 2001 Munich Show Homepage


Trinity Mineral Co
Rare Minerals
Mineral Books
Benitoite Mine
Tsumeb

All images, text and stuff on these pages copyright John Veevaert 2001