Welcome to the 2001 Sainte-Marie aux Mines Show!
 
 

June 19th

Today is June 19th and this is the first day where many people are setting up for the coming several days.  Colleen and I got here yesterday the 18th and found the place virtually deserted.  It was a bit cool and raining off and on - mostly on.  We are hopeful that the weather will be nicer as the week progresses.   I checked the Weather Channel's weather.com website and it supposed to be... we'll see.

The next four pictures were shot on Monday the 18th of June.   There is an eery sense of the calm before the storm...
 

  As you can see from these four pics not much going.  The tents are up but the rocks are no where to be found yet...

On Tuesday the 19th we pulled into the show area about 11 am and, unlike 18 hours before, found many people busily setting up.  I was happy to run into Michel Schwab who is the show's organizer.  I really tip my hat to the people like Michel who organize these events.  They are a hell of a lot of work to pull off and there is a seemingly endless string of problems to solve.  The images below are of Michel.
 

Here Michel (with the blue shirt on) is entering the lobby of the Theatre.  In the photo on the right he is (hand in hair)
likely solving yet one more problem.

This is a shot of Claude Pelisson who is the web master for the Sainte Marie Show's website.

As the day progressed more and more people were showing up and several dealers were finally open for business.   Before I get too far into the reporting I should mention that of what I have seen so far this show is floating in Moroccan vanadinite.   The is a LOT of it!  The majority of it is not too good but there are a surprisingly large number of outstanding specimens available.   All of the Moroccan dealers that I saw today had hoards of vanadinite available in all sizes.  All of the choice aesthetic specimens are/were getting snapped up very quickly as the color and luster are outstanding on the pieces that comprise the cream of the crop.  The first person I saw open was a Moroccan dealer named Kamou.  I picked up two vanadinite specimens even though I told myself before getting here that I would not bother with them.  But these two were just too good to pass up.  Also still around in a fair amount are pyromorphites from China.  Not as many as last year but still quite a few.  Another mineral which is relatively abundant this show from Morocco is Skutterudite.  The habit is similar to most of the skutterudite seen in the past - clumps of pyritohedral formed crystals covering the surface of most of the rock.  They are particularly bright also which suggests a good working over with acid... Such is the way with the folks from Morocco I guess.
 
 

This is the Theatre where most of the high end dealers set up.

The above photos show the theatre essentially empty.  Below, as the day wore on, people were busy setting up cases for their booths.
In 24 hours the place will be humming with activity!

but it will give you a sense of what the place is like.  In it you will see Ian Bruce of Crystal Classics organizing his space.

Speaking of Ian you may or may not know that Ian is the principal organizer behind the reopening of the famous Tsumeb mine.  I saw Ian rather shortly after getting to the show and he took me to his van where he had some brand new material from the mine that was pulled out just 10 days ago.  There were some very attractive crystallized nodules of bright blue azurite some with brilliantly contrasting malachite.   There were also some specimens of cerussite, rosasite and mottramite.  Ian allowed me to plunder the lot and I came away with about a dozen or so specimens that still need cleaning.   The cerrussite is a small killer with several crystals that look like smoky quartz crystals.  They are perfect sixling twins without the branching arms associated with the snowflake sixlings.  Instead they have smooth twinning planes and look a heck of a lot like quartz crystals.   Below is a shot of the piece.

This specimen of cerussite was collected from the Tsumeb mine about the 10th of June, 2001.
The crystals are about 1.75 cm across. It was photographed by Jeff Scovil for his future report
in the Mineralogical Record on what is/was new at the Sainte-Marie aux Mines Show.

Ian and company have been working to get material ready for presentation but these had only been roughly cleaned by a quick washing and still have a lot of clay adhereing to them.    I will be working fevorishly when I get home to clean these up and will be posted to the Tsumeb.com site when they are ready.
 
 

 

This is one of the eating areas.  This is as clean and as empty as it will be for the next several days...

The following are just random shots taken as the day progressed.    One of the interesting aspects of this show is that the town cordons off several streets for the dealer's tents.  I suspect that many of the local populace are annoyed by the intrusion into their quiet valley but you certainly don't see it.   All of the people I have encountered are very friendly and eager to help the wayward traveler find his or her way.
 
 

 
 
 
 

As the day wore on I marched up and down the various streets where tents were open for business.  I found several other Moroccan dealers (they always seem to be the "first out of the shoot" here).   A very interesting fellow by the name of Laaroussi who spoke only french had some very nice crystallized azurite along with some feathery malachite specimens and some new arsenian vanadinite (it was purported by Laaroussi to be pyromorphite but these are vanadinite!).   It always surpises me that the French I took for 2 years in highschool has stayed with me.   Talking about minerals made it a simple process to re-engage my modest french speaking abilities.   Some of the specimens of vanadinite had associations with wulfenite.  I picked up some of all that he had and moved on.

Here is one of the three vanadinite specimens I picked up from Laaroussi.  The largest crystals are about 1.3 cm in length.

This is a complete 2 cm floater specimen of azurite partially psuedomorphed to malachite.

Hanspeter Schleife from Germany had some nice large Tsavorite crystals from Mali.  He also had some very brilliant royale blue specimens of hauyne from Eifel. I picked up the three nice large tsavorites with good crystal form that he had and a dozen or so of the hauynes. Some with nice crystals too!

This is a mostly complete crystal of tsavorite garnet about 3 cm across.
The crystal form is dodecahedral.

This is one of the specimens of hauyne I picked up and is typical of the lot.
The hauyne is about 3/4 of a cm across on this piece.

One of my goals for this show is to locate some fine specimens from Chamonix.  Colleen and I spent several days there prior to getting to Sainte-Marie and I asked around quite a bit about the availability of specimens from this famous locality.  Zippo, nada, nothing, zilch!  No one in Chamonix or the surrounding communities had anything or news of where to find specimens.  So, I hope that there will be some here at this show.  Today I saw nothing in the way of pink fluorite - some smokys but no pink.  Tomorrow is another day of course.
 

While enjoying a cola with Colleen I saw Jay Smith of the Rocksmiths wandering in front of the Theatre and snapped the above picture of her.  She gave us some very helpful insights to getting our new European cell phone working.  Quite a few fellow US citizens were wandering the streets of Sainte Marie including: Herb and Monica Obodda, Mike and Norma New of Top Gem Minerals, Wayne and Dona Leicht from Kristalle who were one of the few dealers from the United States to set up at this show, Bill Larson of Pala International and Jay Smith with her mom (Jean) and dad (Eldon) of the Rocksmiths.  Most of the American dealers here were buying for their stock at shows in the United States.
 

Here are the crowds waiting to get in to the show on Thursday!
Kids are kids no matter where you go in the world.

 

Follow the links below to catch up on the latest from what I consider to be one of the friendliest mineral shows in the world!

June 19th Report	June 20th Report	June 21st Report	June 22nd Report	June 23rd Report	June 24th Report
Elba Island Minerals	Chamonix Fluorite	Morroco 1 Morocco 2	Carrollite	Chevkinte-Ce &  other Rare Species	Europe 1 Europe 2
Hauyne	Uranium Minerals	Chinese Minerals	Paky-Afghan 1 Paky-Afghan 2	Sainte-Marie aux Mines Auction	Main Show Page
Trinity Mineral Co	Rare Minerals	Mineral Books	Tsumeb	Benitoite	Email Trinity Mineral Co

 

Click here to see the 2000 Saint-Marie aux Mines show report The Official Sainte-Marie aux Mines Show Website

All text, photos, and original graphics by John Veevaert and are copyrighted © 2001. All Rights Reserved.