The 2015 East Coast Show  Trinity Mineral Company

I arrived in Springfield the evening of August 4th.  Last year I had the "enviable" reponsibility of setting up the dispays for the public.  It was a long haul that started in Santa Cruz, California and, 3080 miles later, ended up in Springfield, Massachusetts.  Everyone should put this on their bucket list so that you can fully appreciate how much land the United States has dedicated to the production of corn and soybeans.  It is mind boggling.  It is also a full fours days of fun and joy on the road.  I was happy to fly this year and "appreciate" the corn fields from 36,000 feet as they wizzed by.

There was not a lot new to the mineral world this year but there were some interesting things that I was able to dredge up.  First is a new find of galena from Big Bear orebody, Fletcher mine, Reynolds Co., Missouri.  Aside from the usual cubic crystals there are flattened penetration twins. These look like spinel law twins but the angles are wrong.  There are also elongated dodecahedral crytals.  This is crazy stuff for galena.  Dan & Diana Weinrich had the entire supply of these so look for more of these to appear on the website in the future.  Dan is holding on the best specimens for the time being but they will be offering a lot of these in the coming weeks. Weinrich Minerals Inc.

 
Set up day at the Eastern States Exposition Hall. 

 


Elongated galena dodecahedral crystals with dolomite from the new find. 

 

 
A very rare galena specimen with the flattened penetration twin and adhereing cubic crystals. 

 

One of the dealers you'll only see on the east coast is John Betts.  John is a "top shelf" individual and probably the hardest working dealer in the mineral business.  I have no idea how he maintains and frequently updates his labarynth like website but he does.  He had two things that appealed to my eye. An old/new find of rich violet fluorapatite from Brazil and oddly formed and colorful fluorite from China.  The fluorapatite is associated with small bertrandite crystals and the bulk of the matrix is albite. The crystals are simple prisims with pinacoidal terminations. They are fluorescent yellow under SW UV light.  The violet color is as good as anywhere else I can recall seeing.  They come from the Golconda mine, Minas Gerais, Brazil.  These were all collected in the 1980s but have been "in hiding" since then.  John recently obtained the lot and is now making them available.  Hence, the reference to an "old/new" find.

 
The poor lighting in my motel room is insulting to the color of the fluorapatite on this specimen.

The next thing John had were "curved" octahedral formed fluorite.   These are crazy looking things with the curved habit.  The color is a very pleasing violet pastel color with green and blue hues.  My motel lighting does not do these specimens justice but you will at least see the crystal form.  These specimens come from the De'an mine, Wushan, Jiangxi Prov., China.

 
Smithsonite coating calcite on this 6.5 cm specimen.

 

Jay's Minerals from New Jersey had a new find of amethyst from Windham County, Connecticut.  Most of the specimens were single crystals with decent violet color.  But I focused on the few matrix specimens they had for my update.  Again, my photos here in the motel room do not accurately portray the true color of the specimens.

 
Amethyst crystals of quartz crystals from the new find in Windham Co., Connecticut.

 

The last thing of interest to report on is a new find of fluorite var. yttrofluorite from the Erongo Mountains of Namibia.  I know what you are asking - what in the world is yttrofluorite? Well, it is fluorite that has had an appreciable amount of calcite replaced by the element yttrium. Yttrium is a transition element and it has been classified as a rare earth element.  The color of the yttrofluorite exceeds any from prviously known finds of this rare varitey of fluorite.  If you look it up on mindat you'll find that most of the specimens look like they should be crushed for road fill.  Collector's Edge had these and they only had three specimens in all.  I was intrigued enought by this rarity to get two of the three.


Two etched crystals of fluorite set on a fully terminated smoky quartz crystal. 

 

 

 

The special exhibit this year was of specimens from the Matry Zinn Collection. Marty sold his collection 5-7 years ago to Collector's Edge and Kristalle.  After the sale he aggressively started to rebuild his collection and, in fact, even bought a lot of his old collection pieces bck since replacing them was next to impossible!  Marty lives in Evergreen, Colorado and I have been to his home several times.  It is remarkable what he has been able to accumulate in such a short period.  He has impeccable taste.  The following images are of specimens from his collection.

 


A collection of fluorite from Hunza Valley in Pakistan.

 

 
A close up of the three adjoined octahedral crystals.

 


A collection of exceptional miniatures.  What is that thing in the front lower right?

 


It is a smokin' hot crystal of benitoite!

 


A group of cabinest sized specimens.

 


I was quite pleased to see a specimens I sold Marty about 5 years ago - a specimens of neptunite that I prepped.  That specimen specimen a lot of time in my hands...

 


A case of tourmalines from Minas Gerais, Brazil.

 


A drawing by Fred Wilda of the center specimen above.

 


A collection of tourmaline from the Himalaya Mine.

 


An iconic specimen from the Himalaya Mine.

 


More "smokers" from the Himalaya mine.

 


An incredible array of variscite material from Fairfield, Utah.

 


Including a rare sphere of variscite.

 


Two exceptional slabs of the highly sought after dark green variscite.

 


A lovely group of blue smithsonite from the Kelly Mine.

 


An eclectic group of calcite specimens. 

 


An unusual specimen calcite preferentially coated with small epidote crystals.

 


Fluorapatite from global localities.

 


A gorgeous specimen from Panasqueira.

 


Two more smokers in the fluorapatite case.


A case of gorgeoud blue minerals. Look at that little "dude" in the middle!

 


A group of stalactitic specimens. Who knew so many minerals can form in stalactites.


Direct from the Copper Queen mine in Bisbee!

 


Spainish pyrite.  Love that "snake" in the front.


Some of Marty's Gold collection.  He has more than this as I have seen them!

 


Two of the golds from Colorado. Breckenridge produced some of the best wire gold ever!

 


Another example of Colorado's mineralogical claim to fame: Amazonite and Smoky Quartz!!

 


Close up of two of the combo pieces.


This case nearly broke my eyes. Rich red rhodochrosite from the Sweet Home mine.

 


An utterly ridiculous piece of eye candy.

 


Mexican adamite from the Ojuela mine.


An exceptional specimen of cobaltoan adamite from the Ojuela mine.

 


One of the finest specimens of cobaltoan adamite from anywhere!

 


A fine group of mixed minerals from Mexico.


A great matrix specimen of boleite from Baja California.

 

Okay, this will do it for me.  As I have said before what is the most fun about these shows is visiting with friends and sharing laughs.  I will be here again next year.  Hope to see some of you here also.

 


Dan Weinrich, our waitress, Diana Weinrich and yours truly at Chef Wayne's Big Mamou.
The best Louisiana cuisine outside of Lousiana! Having a good tme is a chore but someone has to do it. 

 

John
 

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