Welcome to the 2001 Sainte-Marie aux Mines Show!
 
 

June 22nd - Day 5

This was the last day of the "Dealers" days here at the the show.   Today was a rather short one for me looking for rocks as I wanted to spend some time visiting with folks and more or less "catching up".

Upon getting to the show I ran into Bill Larson of Pala International and Marcus Origlieri - both from San Diego County, California and we discussed the ins and outs of what we'd seen the past several days.  Later in the Theatre I saw Jeff Scovil with Bill Larson who was helping him track down the new and interesting finds at the show.  Clearly the talk of most people at the show are the fabulous new specimens of Chevkinite-Ce from Pakistan.   The majority of the specimens have a matted or dull luster though a very few were found that have this mirror-like luster like the specimen pictured below.  Again, the source for these at Saint-Marie was French dealer Righi Umberto.   Pieces circulated quickly around the show to other dealers who recognized the significance of this new find.

The nature of this material is that it is constricted to narrow calcite rich veins.  There are open vugs in which lustrous crystals like the specimen below are found but most crystals are completely smothered in encasing calcite.  The only way to expose the crystals is to remove the calcite through etching with acid.  I suspect that the majority of the dullness of luster is due to etching in the vein during calcite mineralization.   Associated minerals include calcite, rare feldspar and cinnamon colored sphene.  No one knows how extrensive this find is or what the future will hold in terms of supply.  All anyone is certain of is that this represents the best find of this species to date.
 
 
 

This 5.5 cm example has been deemed one of the very top specimens of Chevkinite here at the show in terms of crystal quality and aesthetics.  It has a doubly terminated crystal and also fantastic luster.   Jeff Scovil photographed it for his What's New in Minerals article at the Sainte-Marie Show that will appear in a future Mineralogical Record.   I have this specimen and ten others of the best specimens that I could lay my hands on that will be posted when I return home after the 1st of July.  Prices for these specimens range from $100 to $2000 for this SUPERB  specimen which is now sold.

 

This is a shot of Rhiggi Umberto's display of the new find.  The large piece in the center is about 20 cm across.  Note the
dull luster however.  Almost all of these specimens pictured here were treated in an acid bath to remove the encasing calcite.

I also took the time to see Gilbert Gauthier in the Theatre and loaded up on some uranium bearing specimens.  Gilbert has always got some very interesting specimens no matter what show he sets up at.

Here's Gilbert at his display area.

I found about a dozen or so interesting specimens containing uranium plus a couple of other non-uranium bearing minerals.  In particular some very good quality specimens of torbernite from France, Schoepite from the Congo and  a nice francevilleite specimen from Gabon.

A couple of other interesting rocks that have turned up are a large number of jeremejevites from the Erongo Mountains of Namibia.  It turns out that the prolific aquamarine locality of the Erongo Mountains that has been of interest the past 2 years  had a surprise pocket of aqua to light lavender colored jeremejevite in abundance!   There are a few of the around but the web is carwling with them.  I saw a very decent specimen here and took the chance to photograph it.  It is 2 x 0.5 cm gem crystal with mirror like faces and a complete termination.  2 years ago this specimen would have fetched over $5,000!  Asking price today for this piece is about $900 to $1,000.  George Gebhard has the majority of the new specimens of jeremejevite.

Another interesting rock that I saw here was this specimen of quintinite with magnetite from the famous Kola Peninsula deposit in Russia (will that place ever dry up?).  It has what has been reputed to be the largest known crystal of quintinite with a flat lying crystal in excess of 2 cm in length!  The best of recent finds in Brazil brought to market by Luis Menezes are small dots compared to this extremely large crystal!  This piece sold for a tidy sum.

Tomorrow Colleen and I will take the day to see the sites of the Alsace region and prepare a short report on the other part of the attraction of Saint-Marie - the history and culture.

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