Today was a very windy day but also a very clear day.  This is the first time in a few years since I have seen so much of the sun while here.  This was also the first day that the show was open to the general public.  It was very crowded today with many thousands of people in attendance.   I arrived just before 9:00 am and there were so many people it was like running a gauntlet just walking through the buildings.
 
 

Today I decided to focus more on some of the dealers in Hall A4.  I have to again convey that this show is so huge that it is really quite impossible to thoroughly see every dealers inventory.  So I started in the far corner of A4 and was quite pleased to see some very richly colored fluorite specimens from a new find at a mine called the Bikow (pronounced beekov) in western Siberia,  Russia.  The Ludvigs of Budapest, Hungary had a couple of specimens of this fluorite on their table and in my incredibly choppy German asked them if they had others. The dealer pulled out a box from under the table and started pulling out another 6 specimens of exceptional quality.  I scratched my head wondering why these were not on the table before - but only for a nano second - and then proceeded to add these to my growing hoard of specimens.  I showed the specimens to Jeff Scovil and he was eager to snap one for the What's New in Minerals for the Mineralogical Record.
 
 
 

As mentioned earlier there was a guy in Hall A4 who had some very nice specimens of kammererite.  Initially, his prices were in the thin layers of our atmosphere.  I mentioned to my pal Steve Perry that there were some great kammererites but the prices were nuts.  I went to show them to him and lo and behold the prices had been cropped in half!   I am convinced this poor old guy thought that the DM was still the coin of the realm here... Steve and I both nabbed about fifteen specimens between us and were happy to have been there when the light went with this guy.
 
 
 

Later in Hall A4 I came across French Dealer Philippe Russo.  I have had numerous email exchanges with Philippe over the past several years so it was a pleasure to finally put a face together with a name.  Philippe specializes in French fluorite and minerals from southeast Asia - particularly Viet Nam, Thailand and Burma.  While chatting with Philippe he mentioned a new find of apatite from Kazakhstan in Hall A5.  I totally missed it.  I offered to snap a picture of Philippe behind his booth and then headed back to A5 to see if I could find the apatites.
 
 
 

Back in Hall A5 I found Axinite PM minerals managed by Ponomarenko Victor who is a dealer from Kazakhstan. True to the words of Philippe he had specimens of a new find of apatite from the Akjaylau Mountains in Kazakhstan.  These apatite have an interesting color change going from a pinkish sherry color in incandescent light to a pale green in sunlight or fluorescent light.  I was not the first person to see him so many pieces were plucked before I ever found out about him but he still had quite a good selection including this aesthetic thumbnail specimen with a doubly terminated crystal  pictured below.
 

On back to Hall A4 I went to see what else I could turn up.  I found Chinese dealer Ming-Rui Mineral Museum who had several of the new Rhodochrosite specimens from China that were very reasonably priced.  (It has been interesting to note that pricing has been quite dynamic here.  Today the same rhodo specimens are priced at 10 times less than they were the first day!)  He indicated that these were from Quilin, Guang Xi Province in China.  I selected two specimens that were not damaged and moved on.  Below is one of the two.
 
 

As the day continued I found some decent matrix specimens of Alexandrite from Russia at the booth of MGI-Moskau (Moscow).  I selected two pieces that had good color change and crystal form.
 

Here at the show it is very easy to get wrapped up in the moment and forget to stop for refueling.  Fortunately, the show is well organized to provide ample opportunity for sandwiches and beverages.  Below is the largest of the food areas here at the show located in Hall A4.
 

Tomorrow I am going to focus on the many exhibits that are here at the show.  So there will be MANY photos in the next installment.
 

More tomorrow!

John