Munich Show

SHOW REPORTS
October 29 October 30 October 31/November 1 November 2

The Munich Show Specimens

November 2nd

The last day. Well all good things must come to an end... Today marked the last day of the 2003 Munich Show. It started out fairly cloudy but ended up being a rather sunny day. Actually the weather has been very good all week here with only a minor amount of rain and quite a bit of sunshine. In fact two nights ago, while coming back to our hotel from a supper with Jordi Fabre (Thanks again Jordi and Julia for a great supper suggestion!), we saw the sky light up a bright red with the lights from an aurora. It was quite spectacular. Clear skies at night in Munich this time of year are a rarity and it was a real visual treat to watch the sky shimmer with greenish streaks while maintaining a bright red glow. Go sun go!

This is a spliced view of the main east entrance to the Messestadt taken the last day.

This was the view from the East entrance train station that I saw each morning.

I spent a lot of the time I had this day to visit all of the displays in Halls A4 and A6. There was also a lot of time spent visiting with people and soaking up the last of the great show that Munich is.

To tour the displays in the Hall A4 or Hall A6 click on either Hall link...

Click any of the images above

While coursing through Hall A4 I came upon the display of German dealer Ralf Konkel. He had some very interesting fluorite specimens from France that he had collected a few years ago at the Buxieres-les-Mine, Allier, France. He has permission from the farmer who owns the land to collect there and is the only source for this material which is very rarely seen on the market. The fluorite is found as small acicular balls with varying colors between light tan gray to violet. They are quite attractive when there is sufficient contrast between the fluorite and the matrix. Below are a couple specimen images and a picture of Ralf as well.

Here is a set of photos of one of the fluorite specimens with acicular (globular) habit.


Time for a small editorial: As I mentioned earlier I had the chance to visit with a lot of people this last day - both dealers and, more importantly, collectors. One conversation with two collectors in particular stuck with me and I think it is relevant to discuss in a report like this. There seems to be an increasing trend at ALL mineral shows where many dealers (and by no means not the vast majority of dealers!) are placing minerals on a table or in a display for sale without any label and without any pricing information at all! This is a huge disservice to the collectors who come to these shows as they, in many cases, have no idea what they are looking at. The two Swedish collectors I spoke with said that they have seen this trend growing across all of Europe and I indicated a similar trend at shows in the United States as well. Finding dealers who can provide scientific information about the minerals they are offering is also a very small number relative to the dealer population. Many times when I have been at shows and found material that would be suitable to obtain I have frequently had to do a lot of follow up research to ascertain the correct locality information. In most other professions where items such as art or other collectibles are offered the dealers are knowledgeable about the origins of what they are selling. Anyone can put a rock on a table or take a picture of and post it on the Internet. If the hobby is to grow then it is incumbent on the dealers to help the collectors get educated and more interested about the nature of minerals and science of mineralogy. After all, a mineral is a crystallized chemical compound or native element. It would seem reasonable that dealers should be able to answer basic questions of chemistry and crystallography - or least be able to point the interested person in the right direction. The last item on this editorial is the use of enhancers. It was somewhat alarming to see some Chinese dealers shamelessly spraying oil on their fluorite and calcite specimens to enhance their appearance. Even if you did not see the oil being applied you had only to pick up a specimen for inspection to realize that you needed a kleenex to wipe the oil from your fingers. Imagine someone buying a specimen at the show and in two weeks after the oil has dissipated seeing the mineral look a lot less desirable. The discussion ended with a hope that all show organizers will somehow place a requirement on the dealers to adhere to a minimal standard for labeling and pricing and enforce it. A daunting task for sure. If nothing else the argument can be made that the time is really upon us for finding ways to turn these trends the other way.

Ok, with that out of the way, I have to say that this was a very good show! There was a lot of new material here this year and a tremendous number of really good specimens available from known localities. Despite the poor exchange rate for people holding US Dollars there were some good bargains if you were willing to hunt them down. In terms of significant new material I would place the material from Madagascar, the new vivianites from Brazil and topaz specimens from the DR Congo as being the most significant. There were surely more items here that I missed but that is not surprising given the large size of this show. I came to this show knowing that there was not going to be a huge amount of new material here at the show so my focus was on Madagascar. I believe that this country will be the new hot spot for interesting minerals in the short term as there are a lot of pegmatites still waiting for exploration there.

As for the show itself it really is quite overwhelming to see so many dealers all in one place. Though the Tucson Show has more material it is disseminated across all of Tucson in many hotel shows and is not at all easy to see everything. The Munich show is by far the largest single concentrated mineral event in the world. I would heartily encourage every collector to come here at least once in their lives if possible and bring your running shoes if you hope to see it all.

Besides the show there is the city of Munich which is really quite a beautiful place. Many parks, open spaces, very old and beautiful buildings in the center of town, great museums, probably the world's best beers and of course many very friendly people. It all adds up to great experience and one worth repeating annually.

I would also like to publicly thank show organizer Johannes Keilmann for his generosity in helping me in providing resources to prepare this show report. His recognition of the value of the Internet in promoting the Munich Show and minerals is visionary.

That will do it for the 2003 Munich Show. I will be back again next year to visit the largest mineral show on Earth!

Auf Wiedersehen und ich sieht wieder hier in München folgendes Jahr!

John

Past Shows & Reports
PLEASE NOTE: The minerals that were offered on these pages are all sold

1999 Munich Show	2000 Sainte Marie Show Munich Show	2001 Sainte Marie Show Munich Show	2002 Tucson Show Sainte Marie Show Denver Show Munich Show
2003 Tucson Show Sainte Marie Show East Coast Show Denver Show Munich Show	2004 Tucson Show West Coast Show East Coast Show Denver Show Munich Show	2005 Tucson Show West Coast Show East Coast Show Denver Show Munich Show	2006 Tucson Show Bologna Show Sainte Marie Show East Coast Show Munich Show
2007 Tucson Show Dallas Show East Coast Show Denver Show Munich Show	2008 Tucson Show West Coast Show East Coast Show Denver Show Munich Show	2009 Tucson Show West Coast Show East Coast Show Denver Show Munich Show	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

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