John Veevaert    6152 Mia Vista Dr. Reno, Nevada USA  (888) 689-8402

Minerals from this show will be available about November 15th.

We arrived in Munich on Tuesday the 24th.  We'd been in England the previous week so we were already adjusted to European time.

Mineral shows in Europe are strikingly different than in the United States.  In the US you can pay by credit card, write a check or pull out cash.  Here in Germany, especially, it is a cash or bank wire business only.  Some folks also use PayPal but I would estimate that 90% of the transactions are cash deals.  So for me to be able to purchase specimens I have to get a wad of cash and the easiest and cheapest way to do so is out of an ATM.  If you're as old as I am you might recall the old ad phrase: "American Express Traveler's Cheques: Don't leave home without them".  Well I can assure you NO ONE wants them at a mineral show and if they take them they will generally give you 90-95% of their stated value.  Before leaving home I get a temporary raise on the withdrawl limit to $5,000 a day. The banks charge a flat 1% for every euro  I withdrawl.  That covers the exchange from dollars to euros. 

My first task on Tuesday was to head to a bank and start the withdrawl process.  On the way I saw an empty bottle of Korn.  In 2014 we drove across the country (from California to Massachusetts) to the East Coast Show in Springfield, Massachusetts.  I was completely blown away at the amount of land dedicated to growing corn in the US.  I am sure, cumulatively, it would equal all the land in the states of North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska and Kansas.  So to see this little empty bottle of "shine" was quite humorus for me. 

A little empty bottle of Korn on the corner of Bayerstrasse and Bahnhofpl.

Before I launch into what was new at the show I thought it would be of value for folks to see some of the sights of Munich.  Everyone and their brother has show pictures of the Rathaus-Glockenspiel but the city is full of interesting buildings and beautiful parks.  Ronna and I took a tour one day and here are some scenes we enjoyed.

The BMW museum very close to the site of the 1972 Olympics .

Another part of the BMW complex.

A cylindrical poster advertising the Mineral Show.

The guilded Friedensengel or Angel of Peace.

Looking twoards Marien Platz.. and St. Peter's Church.

The interior of  St. Peter's Church.

Looking east on Marien Platz.

I had a chance to talk to quite a few people at the show.  There were quite a few new things to talk about.  Some were seen at the Ste. Marie show and also at Denver as small offerings.   Perhaps of most significance is the new find of fluorite from a new locality in Weardale, England.  First Crystal Classics has gained mining rights to the Rogerley mine.  This is the same mine that Jesse Fisher and Cal Graeber worked for the past 15 years as UK Mining Ventures.  Crystal Classics is going to retaing that name for their marketing purposes.  Ian Bruce has some grand plans for that deposit.  Over this hill from the Rogerley mine on an entirely different structural outcrop they found a new vein and have named it the Diana Maria mine.  It is named after Ian's wife Diana.  What is exciting about this new find is that the fluorite occurs on crystalline quartz and it is color zoned.  The fluorite is every bit as fluorescent inky blue in sunlight as the Rogerley mine material is too.  It was also found associated with snow white aragonite which offers some striking contrast.  So far there have been three pockets found - the Snow Storm pocket (these feature the aragonite), the Graeber-Jones pocket (these have the flourite on quartz) and the Emerald pocket (a richer green color but still color zoned).

I selected a number of fine specimens from this exciting new find.

South African dealer Paul Balayer is a must see person at the show.  Paul has the sanctioned rights to work the Kalahari Manganese mines for specimens.  He had some spectacular mangano-calcite specimens similar to those he had last year. They look like something designed by famous album cover designer Roger Dean. They are bright pink and very fluorescent under UV light.

Paul also had a suprise new find of rhodochrosite.   Everyone knows of the stunning deep red crystals of rhodochrosite as scalenohedral crystals.  He had a small find in an isolated pod of pink rhombic crystals of rhodochrosite.  Rhombic crystals have been only one other time at the Kalahari mines. That find consisted of a half dozen specimens.  There were ten specimens in all and I was happy to get nine of them.  They were costly but they represent the rarest form of rhodchrosite from the mines.  The exact mine location will be provided with any purchased specimen.  But until Paul has been able to fully exploit any other possible pocket the locality can not be presented in any published form.

Paul also had a single specimen of calcite with olmiite.  The olmiite is okay but what was caught my eye were the absolute gem crystals of calcite. The crystals are water clear and have complex terminations.

Turning back to Ian Bruce and Crystal Classics, Ian had a new find of copper from the Rocklands mine, Cloncurry, Queensland, Australia. The habit is arborescent and crystallization is both blocky and fine.  There are also spinel law twins. Ian showed me photos of this material from last year and there was an enormous pile of native copper - tons and tons and tons of it.  Well apparently the company has decided to melt it all instead of making specimens available. I has a small hoard of these in England and I was happy to pick out a few specimens of what may end up being a small blip on the market.  

Near the south entrance to hall A6 I found Brazilian dealer A.R Cristais.  He had some new specimens of xenotime-(Y) from Novo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, Brazil that were just too good to pass up.  One has a spray of xenotime crystals on a rutilated quartz crystal and another was comprised of  lustrous blocky crystals with deep root beer brown color. I picked out a couple of others.  He also had specimens of wodginite and almeidaite.

Belgian Valere Berlarge is primarily focused on the mines from the Congo. In particular the Tanterra mine. I was fortunate to have contacted him ahead and reserved one specimen of the drusy quartz over shattuckite.  This one had a lot of calcite covering the quartz but I was able to get rid of it with some air abrasion.  It is a very attractive specimen.

A small cabint specimen of drusy quartz over shattuckite.

Christophe Gobin has always had something of interest to offer me and this year was no different.  Some of the reddest wulfenite specimens I can ever recall seeing.  These, all thumbnail to miniature sized, are from Chah Kharboze Mine, Chah Kharboze, Anarak District, Nain, Esfahan Province, Iran.  These are not a new find as they were first seen in 2015 but this is the best hoard of specimens I have seen from there.

Spanish dealer Jordi Fabre had a few new things including a new find of gold from the Potosi Claim, Municipio Vetas, Soto, Santander, Colombia.  The gold is found on siliceous matrix with smal crystals and small leaves. I only saw two pieces available.  He also had some specimens of roweite and well crystallized olshanskyite from the Shijiangshan mine in Inner Mongolia, China.  These have been out for a while but it is the first time I have seen them firsthand.  The olshanskyite forms colorless, bladed crystals and the roweite occurs as bladed crystals and arranged in a deck of cards like habit. These were first seen at the Ste Marie show this past summer.  both species have been redefined by this recent find - especially the olshanskyite which has been found as crusts in the past.  Really exceptional stuff!

Czech dealer Jaroslaw Hyrsl had a new find of clinozoisite from San Cristobal Hill, Canete, Lima Peru.  The crystals are predominantly a pale olive green however there are zones where they are pinkish in hue suggesting a trend towards clinothulite.

A cabinet sized specimen of the new find of clinothulite.

I found an Indian dealer who had new specimens of quartz variety amethyst from Karur, Tamil Nadu, India.  This locality has produced sceptered quartz in the past but these are new pieces just found in the past few months.  He had one on matrix which is quite rare.

Large matrix specimen of sceptered amethyst on quartz arranged in a semispherical habit.

A 4.5 cm floater of sceptered amthyst crystals. 

I was also able to meet with two collectors at the show who had specimens they were selling.   I picked up such items as a Chessy azurite, Gold anf petzite from Montana, wurtzite from hungary, an old Russian kyanite, boulangerite from Sala, Sweden, bismuthenite from Riddarhyttan, Sweden and several interesting specimens from Langban including: langbanite, barysilite, kentrolite, margarosanite and many others. But one standout is a hedenbergite from Nordmark Sweden that was found in the 1830s.

8 cm specimen of  hedenbergite from Sweden.

Sunset at the UBahn stop for the U2 train back to downtown Munich.

The theme for the show this year was Mine to Mine - meaning something taken from a mine and then becoming personally possessed.  I was proud to be a part of the display this year as one of the localities highlighted was the Benitoite Gem Mine. There were some FABULOUS specimens in the displays this year.  I will start it off with the two benitoite cases I was responsible for and then offer up some of the other highlights in the displays.  The first one was filled with specimens I organized and the second one was a case I had A LOT of help with.  All the specimens in it belong to Mike Scott - the first CEO of Apple Computers.  I had the chance to visit Mike in his home and view the specimens and faceted stones that would comprise his display.  That is a day I will never forget.  Anyway Mike worked on lighting to provide the best light for the rich blue color of benitoite to come out. It was a very popular case.

Okay I got that out of the way.  On to some other great specimens!