John Veevaert    PO BOX 2182   Weaverville, California  96093  USA  (888) 689-8402

 


 
 
 
Show Reports
2014 Munich Show Report -1      2014 Munich Show Report -2 

 

 

 

Munich Show 2014 - Report 1

I got to Munich in a round about way this year flying into London first and then heading west to East Coker to visit with Ian Bruce for  a couple of days. From there we drove to Munich via the "Chunnel" which crosses the English channel about 250 below the water's surface.  It comes out near Calais, France.  We spent the night in Metz, France and visited with one of Ian's friends who recently lost her husband. They were major suppliers of Moroccan minerals for years. 
 


Loading on to the EuroStar train near Dover, England.

 


The view from inside the train.

 

The next day we made it to Munich and the weather was balmy with temperatures in the high 70s.  This time of year the weather can change rapidly in southern Germany and we were not disappointed with temps dropping to the mid 30s with strong winds and rain.  That's more like it - Munich Show weather... 


Cloudy skies and the prominent tower at the east entrance to the Messestadt.

 

 


The transformation is about to begin in Hall A6...

 

 

 


And also in Hall A5.

 


Here is Liz Hacker with Ian Bruce in the back ground setting up the Broken Hill display in Ian's booth.  Regrettably during tear down after the show ended Liz tripped and fractured her left femur.  She has since had surgery to pin it back together and will be returning to England with her husband Dave in a week or so.

As usual Jordi Fabre was one of the first to be set up and I found a number of new specimens of very lustrous fluorite from the Mine Emilio, Lorone, Asturias, Spain.  The crystals are bluish in color and have faint yellow phantoms. I picked up two for the update.

 


6 cm specimen of the new Asturias fluorites.

Here is a real superb Tsumeb rarity - a specimen I saw in Ian Bruce's booth - of stottite.  Stottite is found known only from Tsumeb and is comprised of iron, germanium and water.  The crystal on this specimen is close to 1 cm in size. It had a healthy price tag on it of 13,000 euros but this is one of the finest specimens of this very rare mineral I have ever seen.

 


A superb crystal of stottite from Tsumeb.

Spirifer Minerals  had a new find of baryte from Morocco.  The butterscotch colored crystals come from Bou Nahas, Oumjrane, Alnif, Er Rachidia, Morocco.  They are included with marcasite.  Tom also had a specimen I could not say no to - a 1 cm sixling of cumengite on matrix from the Amelia mine in Baja California, Mexico!!! These are very hard to come across.  There is a smaller sixling about two mm across nearby on the specimen.   It took about one nano second to say yes to that rock.

 

 


A fine specimen of the rare cumengite sixling on matrix from Mexico.

 


A 5.5 cm specimen of the new baryte from Morocco.

 

Many folks were commenting on the lack of new things here in Munich. Well, I tell you all you have to do is look with a little dedication.  I found the three guys from the Italian mineral company known as webminerals.com having new specimens of dark blue apatite on feldspar from the Mina do Cuval, Vila Longa, Viseu, Portugal.  This is not a long ways away from the famous Panesqueira deposit so they may be paragenetically related.  But unlike the apatite from Panesqueira these crystals fluoresce light orange under SW UV light. Several specimens also had small crystals of bertrandite in association.  I found a half dozen or so to include in my post Munich show update.


A 0.4 cm crystal of lustrous dark blue apatite on quartz and feldspar.

During the show here in Munich I always find time to share a cigar break with John White.  Just prior to the show there was a report on Facebook that indicated John had suddenly passed away.  That was very disheartening so it was with great pleasure to learn that it was all a big mistake.  John is still here and we made future plans for more cigar in Tucson unless he gets killed off again....


A "selfy" of John and I after a cigar break - a couple of old smoke stacks.

 

The other thing about any mineral show is that you can find a lot of "one of" specimens. I found something I had not seen before a gem crystal of lepidolite. This one is from the Naipa mine in Alto Ligonha, Mozambique. There are two generations of lepidolite on this specimen with the window pane surrounded by lepidolite of a more granular nature.  It is absolutely transparent.

 


A 4.5 cm specimen of lepidolite with a window pane section.from Mozambique. 

 

Shows are also a great time to spend with friends.  One evening I went out with Dona and Dave & Audrey Lloyd to an Italian restaurant.  I had my very first exposure to truffles... OMG... Are they are ever good especially when sliced over excellently prepared pasta with a garlic sauce. Perfectly pared with a fine red wine. The best culinary experience for me in Munich 2014. Wayne Leicht and Lois Nelson had to miss this one because of a delayed shipment.

 


Audrey, Dona, yours truly and Dave.

 

South African dealer Paul Balayer had several specimens of shigaite associated with rhodochrosite from the N'Chwaning mine. Shigaite has not been found in years and these specimens I obtained are from old material that Paul finally decided to release. I picked up three in all including the one pictured below. At 0.9 cm across this is considered large for the species though I have seen other crystals up to 2.5 across which fetch tens of thousands of dollars.

 


A large crystal of shigaite with pink rhodochrosite.

 

Joaquim Callen organized a book authored by Scott Werschky and Carles Curto on Gold.  It is a stunning publication filled with rich photographs of exceptional gold specimens.  Joaquim organized a book signing and placed out Spanish wine and delicious finger foods of cheese and salami for the event.


The cover of the new book on Gold.

 

 


A typical picture in the book.

 


Bob Jones talking with Scott and Joaquim.

 


From left to right - Jaoquim, John White, Carles Curto, Scott and Mark Mauthner.

 


Across from the book signing is the Bologna Mineral Show stand where you can taste the best Parmesan cheese on the planet and enjoy a small cup of Italian red wine.  I always buy 2-3 large wedges of fresh Parmesan cheese here,

Belgian dealer Valere Berlage had some very nice shattuckite specimens available from the Tantara mine, Congo.  These are very pronounced specimens with large contiguous radial sprays of deep blue shattuckite.  They were a bit more than I could afford but they are well worth seeing,


Large shattuckite specimens from the Congo,

I also found a rare specimen of lorandite from the type locality.  Interestingly the German box label says that the specimen comes from "Allchar, Jugoslavien".  Allchar is now in the Republic of Macedonia so this dates the specimen. There is a lot of deep red lorandite - a rare thallium bearing species - set in a vug in orpiment. The largest crystal is 0.7 cm across. What a score!

 


A large crystal of Lorandite from Allchar.

 

German dealer Jurgen Tron had some rarely seen matrix specimens of chrome tourmaline on matrix from the Merelani Hills near Arusha, Tanzania.  Chrome tourmaline has just about the most intense green color in the mineral world. It completely crushed emerald in terms of color and is highly sought after for gemstones. The vast majority of these get removed from matrix and sent to facetors.  I found two matrix specimens - both fluorescent under SW UV light - with Jurgen and the one below is also associated with diopside. The tourmaline is not fluorescent but matrix is.


A 7.5 cm specimen with a 2.2 cm terminated crystal of chrome tourmaline. 

 

I suppose what is most ironic about this show is that I spent more money with a dealer who lives only 100 miles from me back home.  Steve Ulatowski of New Era Gems had a lot of really interesting things from Tanzania including matrix specimens of tanzanite and odd ball combos such as a tanzanite set on a an alabandite crystal and chrome tremolite set on pink tanzanite. Really cool stuff. The matrix specimens are flourescent under SW UV light.  Below you will see a small assortment of the specimens I will be posting in a less than a week.

 


A 6 cm specimen with a 3 cm crystal of tanzanite. The matrix consists of calcite and graphite.

 

3.8 cm specimen with Chrome Tremolite and calcite crystals. The matrix is pink tanzanite!! 


 

Two images of the same specimen - a 4.3 x 2.5 cm crystal of tanzanite with 4 adjoined crystals of diopside.

 

Werner Radl  - German gemstone dealer - had lots of things from Tanzania also similar to what Steve Ulatowski had.  But what he did have a lot of were crystals of magnesio-axinite from the Merelani Hills.  The crystals from this locality are noteworthy for two reasons - many fluoresce bright orange under SW UV light and many change color under different lighting conditions.  Werner said that virtually no matrix specimens exist of the odd variety of axinite and complete crystals are almost unknown.  Anything of significant size tends to get sent off for faceting.  Most crystals are available as partials only.  I selected a baker's dozen for the Nov 4 update. Below is a couple of examples of color change and fluorescence.

Three images of the same 2cm Axinite-Mg crystal in fluorescent light, incandescent light and SW UV light.


My last "selfy" at the Munich show with two friends from our Madagascar trip this past May - Roger & Ute Lang of Germany.
 

I also picked up some rare species from Langban, rare fibrous malachite from Germany and more at the show.  I will have everything posted by November 4th.

This year the theme for the Munich Show was meteorites.  I am not much of an authority on meteorites. But when you think about collecting minerals or rocks from some other world - literally - they are really quite interesting.  There was a lot to see here and I could have added a lot more but as I said last year there are plenty of other people out there now posting pictures to the web of things like this so you wont have to look hard to find some.

You can never know what will turn up at shows like this and I was happy to come across a lot of rare minerals from Langban and that cumengite from Spirifer minerals. I sure did not expect to see something like that here,  Also, New Era Gems and the myriad things of interest Steve brings back from Tanzania.

I would like to thank the Keilmann family for their tireless efforts to produce one of the finest mineral events anywhere.

I expect to have the specimens from this show on the web by Nov 4th.  I will send out a note to all on my mailing list when that update is ready.

Thanks for following the show with me this year and I will be back again next year.

Cheers,   John Veevaert

 

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

  2014
Tucson Show
Denver Show 

 



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