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The Munich Show Specimens

Munich Show

October 29th

Day one. There is always a lot of excitement at the start of a mineral show. I arrived at the show at around 8:30 am and found a few friends almost within the first few minutes - namely Isaias Casanova, Dan Weinrich and Carter Rich. The three of them were traipsing through the show together. They saw fit to deliver a ration of verbal jabs at my new hat which is clearly Bavarian in its style. They said it made me look 10-15 years older and I told them that it was simply my way of blending in with the people in my immediate surroundings... After the personal jabs we all lamented on how weak the US Dollar is - currently $1.17 buys you 1 Euro. It would be nice to see the Bush Administration puts its money where its mouth is in relation to the rhetoric about their supporting the notion of a strong US Dollar... Ok, political griping now over.

Today was the first of the two days allotted for setting up for the show. As in years past the show will be contained in three enormous halls - each the size of the main show at the Convention Center in Tucson. Is it a daunting prospect to try and see all that is here in the 5 days the show is open you ask? Overwhelmingly YES!

Two shots in Hall A5 of set up day.

This image was taken between Halls A4 and A5.

Two shots in Hall A4 of set up day.

When I first arrived at 8:30 AM there was not much to see as vans and trucks were just beginning to stream into the facilities. I had arranged to meet with French dealers Brice and Christophe Gobin, in the meantime, to see what they had managed to locate since the last show that I had seen them at. The principal item that caught my interest were fine specimens of golden topaz - none with matrix unfortunately - from a new find near Kolweze, Katanga province, Democratic Republic of the Congo. This region is well known for its production of copper, cobalt and uranium minerals. The specimens come from very close to the border with Zambia I was told though the precise location is still a guarded secret held by the bushmen who found it. These are strikingly similar at first glance to topaz specimens from Ouro Preto, Brazil but the crystal form is sharper and the luster better than the average specimen from there. They also had some fine specimens of erythrite from new finds at Bou Azzer in Morocco. Some of these are truly exceptional!

Two shots of one of the new topaz specimens from the Gobins.

About mid day I met up with Bill Larson who mentioned that he'd found some specimens of South American vivianite. Ok... so what Bolivian vivianites are famous and have been for years. He "dope slapped" me a bit then said these were Brazilian! They come from the Cigla Conselheiro Mine, Minas Gerais, Brazil. The crystals have not been cleaned to any great extent but that will change when I get back home to California next week. Cailloux-Greoux and Luiz Menzes had specimens of these available.

This is typical of an average specimen of vivianite from the new find.

Around noon many of the Moroccan and Chinese dealers in Hall A4 had managed to get their material out for view so I started in looking for the proverbial "needles in the haystacks". There was not anything new to the mineral world from these regions that I could see but there were the usual interesting a well crystallized specimens such as fluorite and cinnabar available. Some of the cinnabar at one of the tables was exceptional with vibrant red colors and brilliant luster. Elsewhere in A4 I found two Russian dealers with very nice tourmaline specimens from Malkan. These are not new to the mineral world either but when things like this are available you have to jump on them.

In Hall A5 I found Renatto & Adrianna Pagano setting up. They had some fine specimens of the new mineral pezzottaite (pronounced "petzotite") on matrix. This deposit has been shrouded in a lot of secrecy and poor information since the first specimens appeared in Tucson last February. I expect that others of these will be available here in Munich and it will be interesting to see what sort of pricing these are set at now.

Here are two specimens obtained from the Paganos. The specimen on the left is a cluster of albite
and schorl crystals with several small pezzottaite crystals. The specimen on the right is a lepidolite
crystal with a druse of schorl and several small crystals of pezzottaite.

Elsewhere in A5 I met up with Clive Queit and found some nice specimens from southern African and also Jordi Fabre who had some new specimens of gem sphalerite from the Europa Mine. I wanted to pull the trigger on a lot of these but the current Euro:Dollar exchange rate is just too brutal at this moment.

The rest of the day was spent visiting with friends and acquaintances. The other 2/3ds of the dealers will be set up by tomorrow so there is still a lot of excitement in the air here.

I will add some specimen images of the minerals discussed above over the next few days as I get around to shooting them but in the meantime I have images shot during the day today for set up.

More tomorrow!

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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