Set up day at the Westward Look show.

I saw this specimen in Crystal Classics booth - a 
7 cm rhodonite crystal from Conselheiro, Brazil.

The vans and trucks are backed up and the unloading begins. 

Rob Lavinksy getting one of his cases in place.

This is the booth area of Wayne Thompson, Bill Larson, Casey Jones, and Alain Martaud.

This is Rob Selecki's booth. Rob is an Australian dealer and this year the theme of the show is Australia.

To the average viewer set up day looks like total chaos.
It never ceases to amaze me that shows like this get set up
in one day... 

Monica Obodda caught my attention when she mentioned that Herb had 
recently obtained some richly colored kunzite specimens from Mawi, Afghanistan.
 This is a shot with Herb holding one of the crystals over a small flash light.  What color!! 

Dan Weinrich pulled me aside and showed me two new specimens of wulfenite from another new find in China.
This is not the same locality as the wulfenites seen last summer. And as it seems that everyone is trying to 
protect their sources in China Dan was told that the locality was just China.  That narrows it down... 
The top specimen is about 30 cm across.  The lower one is 20 cm or so across.

Christophe Gobin showed me this stunning Emerald specimen from Pakistan. 
The tall crystal is 8.5 cm in length. It would take a lot of green to buy this green.

This is a 40 cm stalactitic specimen of malachite from the Congo the Gobins have.

The Gobins also have some new specimens of cuprosklodowskite from the Musonoi Mine
in Katanga, Dem. Republic of the Congo. This one is 15 cm across.

Wayne Thompson had this stunning 15 cm specimen of quartz and fluorite from Switzerland. 
The price tag is $40,000.

Kristalle and Crystal Classics have a priceless set of collages of photos of mineral people from the past 40+ years. 
Some of the photos are solid gold.

A shot of Charlie Key...

A shot of Victor Yount back in his salad days with something other than minerals on his mind.

This is Hawthorneden setting up for the last time. They have recently sold their business.
Like the Rocksmiths, they will be sorely missed for their inventory of affordable and quality specimens...

Here's a Spaniard (Jordi Fabre) using his clairvoyant talents to locate the best specimens possible...

Scott Werschky did again with his recent acquisition of these incredible grossular specimens on blue calcite.
These come from Kaijiado, Rift Valley, Kenya. The above specimen has a 1 cm crystal on blue calcite crystals. 

I got caught with my hand in the cookie jar.  Busted!
The flash cameras were working non-stop with this 
staged photo op ... There goes my reputation...