Tucson Gem, Mineral, and Fossil Shows 2014-Finding Something New

Today, all the shows at the hotels on “The Strip” opened. This is a row of hotels on the service road on the West side of I-10. We favor a parking lot south of the Riverpark Inn. (all day $5). We walked all the way north,then headed back toward where we parked. Experience has taught us that the rock bags get heavier as you go, so start light and work back as they fill.

As we walked from the lot I spotted Mike Carlson, the author of the fabulous and beautiful book, “The Beauty of Banded Agates”. We chatted a while, catching up on various topics. Snob Appeal Jewelry participated as vendors at the past two International Agate shows, where we met Mike.

I did stop to say hi to my buddy, and agate dealer, Jeff Anderson of Dwarves Earth Treasures at his booth at the Rapa River Show, before walking north.

The first show we visited was the Globe X show at the Days Inn. As with all hotel shows vending takes place in rooms, tents, and courtyards. The aisles are crowded with an array of rock and non-rock goods. It is not uncommon to see rugs next to gemstones. It’s all part of the fun.

I’ll attempt to remember what I purchased and where, but as anyone that comes here knows, the mind gets overloaded, so I apologize in advance for my “oldsheimers”. Bonnie says she can’t help much..”Where did you buy those little opals?” Bonnie: “I don’t know, it all runs together.” That made me feel A LOT better.

I was very excited about a couple items. I was just wandering along and on a table outside a room was a rock I did not know. It was a reddish-purple and light green, a very striking and unusual combination. I asked the man in the hotel room, and he said in was Kammererite, a stone from a new secret locale in the mountains in the northern part of India. It also can be found in Turkey and California, among other places. It is a red form of Clinochlore– I liked the stuff. We always like the rare and unusual, so I bought a piece of rough.

The priciest purchase today was a Watermelon Tourmaline slice. I bundled it with a piece of Blue Tourmaline inside pink Tourmaline. A couple real stunners.

After the Globex show we continued south to the Rapa River Show and the Pueblo Gem and Mineral Show (Riverpark Inn), looking at and purchasing random items of interest. The RiverPark show is alsways interesting because they feature massive quartz crystals and large amethyst geodes as well as amethyst furniture (tables). At some of these vendors you would think you were in Bedrock. The most impressive thing was a large Jade table with 6 rock benches that you could take home for $12,000. If I had the money to buy it, reinforce my house, ship this tonnage, and try to find someone foolish enough to put it in my house, I would have bought this in a heartbeat. Oh wait–I think that was lawn furniture!

A cursory look at these three shows took about 4 hours. We will go back later to look at hallways and items we missed I had to go back to J.O.G.S. and pick up a parcel of Bullseye Malchite and some assorted Craft Stones.

Even though the Tucson shows are exciting and fun, they are also quite mind-numbing and wearing, especially on aging bodies. Where I used to go from daylight to dark, I really need to quit early in the afternoon now. This is why we spread out our shopping over the two weeks of the shows. Though there is a certain frenzy to get there first and have the “best pick”, you just can’t do everything the first day!