A view from atop "A" Mountain looking down on the GJX tent and The Tucson Convention Center to the right of the tent and across the street.
We recovered a bit this morning and did not go exploring until 11am. We decided to see what the parking situation was around the convention center. The lots were full, even though they raised parking to $10. I was leaving the area and a miracle happened. An empty, metered, on street parking place appeared. I backed right in and paid for 2 hours ($1). Later we gave it another $1. A lot better than $10!
Entry to the Tucson Convention Center
The red carpet welcomes Wholesale buyers.
The American Gem Trade Association (AGTA) in a massive show (Wholesale Credentials required). The show has massive amounts of common faceted gemstones (as you would expect from a gem trade show) with dealers from around the world. I’ve found better bargains at lesser shows, but walking the aisles at the convention center is interesting.
Security is tight, very tight. When millions in gems are sitting out and in cases, you need this police presence. The gem show provide overtime pay for police protection, and the Tucson Police does a great job.
This is not my niche show, but it is indeed the best place in the world to buy gemstones. The really big deals take place in the hotel rooms, but big deals take place on the show floors and in the case of the giant tent across from the Tucson Convention Center that harbors the GJX (Gem & Jewelry Exchange).
AGTA Credentials will also get you in to the GJX. Even though there are loads of gems, there are also several dealers of interest to me and many others. One dealer in particular, my friend Gary Wilson is consistently one of the busiest booths. He specializes in one-of-a-kind cabochons and his excited clientele include wire-wrappers, silver and goldsmiths, and other jewelry designers. Gary also has a business in our home area of Traverse City, Michigan.
Photos are banned on the Convention Center Floor, but I took this a couple from the observation window on the upper level so you can get an idea of the set up.
My observations at the Tucson shows is that there is a mixed bag about price, where some things at the wholesale show have skyrocketed prices. One Russian dealer had some fantastic Staurolite that used to be priced reasonably, but it seems that over the last couple of years grade “A” Staurolite has had a large price increase. I bought some today because they were a good quality, but he assured us that in a few years this is likely to not be even available. Opals and Jade were other stones we looked at and passed on because the prices seem to have soared.
The funniest moment of the day was when Bonnie was asking a Brazilian vendor about the blue Tourmaline from Paraiba. She assured Bonnie that is was “very hair”. Hmmm. What? “very hair–not very much of it”. Oh, Rare! Bonnie tried to coach her to say “rare” not “hair”, but didn’t have much luck. We saw many vendors with beautiful pieces of the “hair” precious gemstone.
If you read my blog last year, I mentioned purchasing a very nice Thomsonite This year the same vendor had three little trays of cabochons with fair prices, and we had fun rooting through these little trays. Tomorrow in daylight I will take some pictures of the finds of the day.
The GJX also has three smaller side areas of special interest One features special gems and Jewelry, one is Brazilian ,and one features the German jewelry makers. If you know anything about the history of cutting gemstones the Idar-Oberstein gem cutters were considered some of the best in the world. They became famous originally for working and carving agates. We saw a special display of two large carved blue/white agates (maybe 8″) with high detail, and shown with some other fabulous, creative mixed-gem jewelry.
I tried to get my hand blocking a carved Sonoran Sunset octopus. I wasn’t quick enough to keep Bonnie the Sonoran Sunrise (we’ve seen both names here) lover from spotting it. Another favorite carving of the day was a chess set carved out of ruby part of ruby-zoisite. The king and queen were whimsical with golden crowns, and each of the other pieces had golden musical instruments they were holding-harps, violins, etc. The board was black onyx and white onyx. Sorry we couldn’t take a picture, it was very cute.
Another favorite item of the day was a pink tourmaline necklace. It was comprised of several pink hearts maybe 2 -3 inches each separated by smaller pink beads. Several as is 5-7 of them. Each one would have made a great necklace by itself, together it was just jaw-dropping. We have some friends in our rock club who treasure tourmaline and we thought about them when we saw this.
These were the shows of diamonds, pearls, emeralds, tourmaline, ruby, tanzanite, and in general sparkle, sparkle, sparkle. But you may know that a good agate interests me more, so I hope to get back to see my kind of rocks tomorrow.