October 26th -  The show begins

I made it to the show about 10am and headed over to Hall B2.  I had several meetings to attend to and that more or less consumed the first half of my day here.   I did spend a little energy in Hall B3 afterward and found an Italian dealer - Chianale - and a fellow I met at Sainte Marie, named Eddie Bosnetto, with new pink fluorite specimens from Chamonix.  I have a soft spot for specimens of this type from this classic locality so I rummaged through their inventory of about 50 specimens and hauled off with the goods.  Eddie Bosnetto indicated that the location of new specimens was nearly impossible this year as the snow never really melted at the higher elevations.  Hence, the number of new specimens is rather low this year.   The photos below are two average specimens from this new group.
 
 

Octahedral crystals of pink fluorite on Adularia  rich matirx.

Cluster of octahedral crystals of fluorite on a smoky quartz crystal.

I then headed over to Hall B2 and found Daloun Minerals.  This was the mystery guy from Sainte Marie with the great chinese material .  He had some very nice specimens of fluorite available including combination specimens of wolframite and fluorite.  He also had a sharp and attractive specimen of tabular beryl with inclusions of acicular schorl.  Again, the quality of material getting out of China is fabulous!
 
 

Here is a very fine specimen of gem sphalerite on dolomite from the Picos de Europa in Spain. This specimen was formerly part of the Jordi Fabre Collection.

A close up of the 4.5 cm undamaged crystal.

Later this day I completed a deal that will be a significant undertaking for me during the coming year.  Sigbert Zecha had an unbelievably rare and intact suite collection of specimens from Langban available.  Suite collections are not exceptionally hard to come by but when the material is of exceptional quality then this becomes a different matter.  This collection was part of the Dr. Harry von Eckermann collection assembled in the early part of the 20th century when high quality specimens from Langban were available. Many of the specimens in his collection were obtained directly from Gustaf Flink - perhaps the most important historical figure in the history of this mine.  Most of the material available today from Langban is generally consisting of small and scattered crystals.  This collection has some remarkably well crystallized specimens of species such as lead, tilasite, trimerite, trigonite, quenselite, rhodochrosite, fluorite, langbanite, armangite, margarosanite, allactite and just about everything else that was important from this mine.  Below are some images of von Eckermann and a very small percentage of the specimens that will be available in the coming year on the Trinity Mineral Company website.
 
 

Here is a shot of Dr. Harry von Eckermann taken in  the 1920's.

A close up of Harry.

The following are a very small sample of the specimens all with original labels and many indicating a "Flink" lineage.  Any specimen from Flink has "FL. on the label.
 
 

Partial crystals of Armangite to 8mm.  The rock is 2.5 x 4 cm.

 

Native Bismuth and alteration minerals on a  specimen 15 cm across.

 
 

Enormous flat lying barylite crystals to 2 cm across.  The rock is 4 x 6 cm.

 
 
 

Exceptionally rich specimen of langbanite with  crystals to 0.75 cm in length.  Many are still  embedded in calcite.  I did not snap the label.

 

Very rich specimen of Margarosanite.  The piece is  6 cm across with flat lying sprays 2 cm across.

 

12 cm lead with pyrochroite crystals.

 

Exceptionally well crystallized lead specimen 5 cm across.

 
 

Superb crystals of Trimerite to 0.5 cm in length.

It is hard to stress without sounding over bearing how important this collection is. Asuite of high quality Langban material exists only in Sweden and at Harvard.

I did not think that the show could get any better but it has!

See you tomorrow,

John