November 1 Today is All Saints day here.  This is an important holiday here in Bavaria so the commute out to the show via the U-Bahn was quite relaxed with mostly empty trains. I had a limited time here at the show today but was there for about 5 hours. Jordi Fabre in center talking with collectors. I did meet up with a part time German dealer who had one of the best hoards of gratonite from the Excelsior mine, Cerro de Pasco, Pasco dept., Peru I can ever recall seeing. This is the type locality for this lead arsenic sulfide. I can rarely resist picking up rare species like this so I bought the whole group of specimens. These were originally obtained in the 1940's by a German mining engineer working in Peru at the time and lay forgotten until the heirs cleaned out his closet recently and wanted to part with the "rubble".   Two thumbnail specimens of gratonite from the hoard I bought.   I always make it a point to visit Francois Lietard whenever I get the chance as he has interesting material available. I found a few pieces to purchase including the two pictured below.  One is vesuvianite specimen with large crystals of calcite from Shigar Valley, Baltistan Pakistan and the other is a nice combination piece of spodumene with elbalite and microlite from Paprok, Afghanistan.   A spodumene crystal on the left hosting a 7 mm crystal of microlite and a 2.5 cm crystal of terminated elbaite. The specimen on the right consists of a 3 cm crystal of calcite on a bed of root beer colored vesuviante crystals. The guys from Webminerals.Com had the last of their zinkenite specimens collected in Saint Pons, Ubaye Valley, France. I picked out a few fine specimens from those available and moved on.   A 5 cm specimen of siderite with a nearly solid crystalline zinkenite vein.   While roaming the floor in Hall A5 I saw Dan and Diana Weinrich set up at the show from St. Louis, Missouri. Dan is an avid baseball fan and we frequently commiserate about our failing baseball teams.  I was suprised to learn however that Diana is now auditioning to play the part of Jimmy in a local production of "South Park" back home in Missouri... All kidding aside Diana broke her ankle when a house got in the way of her car. Diana Weinrich in pose with her new" black boot".  More to come over the next few days from Munich!