Tucson Gem, Mineral, & Fossil Show

Sunny 74

First thing this morning we drove to the Gem & Lapidary Wholesalers Show. This is a big wholesale show (you have to have a business license to get in) held in two massive hard-sided tents called the Gem Mall. One of the tents is pretty much all beads. I will get to this tent later.

We started in the larger tent first. We had already covered two rows on the 29th. I thought we were doing well until Bonnie saw those high quality, precious gemstone faceted beads on one of the vendors tables. These are sparkly things, ruby, sapphire, emeralds, amethyst. I knew I was in trouble when the nice young lady who was in the booth was assisting her (sort of more like bonding with her) by pointing out the great prices (actually they were priced well, considering the quality). Anyone that has read my blog knows I do pay for quality; our customers deserve the best. How much she bought, as I patiently waited, would probably support a small third-world country. I may have found a couple cabs to buy, but not much. We found some nice gold-bonded chains of good quality. They were priced reasonably, so we are looking forward to giving our customers a good value on this new product.

We went into the smaller tent. The smaller tent is primarily beads, beads, beads. Bonnie was still in shock over how much she spent buying beads in the big tent, so we made a quick run-through and left.

We took a shuttle to the Grant Inn, another show sponsored by the G&LW. This is a smallish show at hotel near downtown. Vendors are in some rooms and they have a couple tents out back that we found contained a couple interesting things for sale.

One vendor had half a dozen dinosaur nests for sale. Some of these nests were $2,000 per egg, and some were $1,000 per egg. We found our long-time buddy Ken Flood, from Keweenaw Gem and Gift, in a tent on site, selling copper, Datolite, and other minerals from Michigan’s copper country. Even though a small show, we had some fun and did not spend much money. We took the shuttle back to the Gem Mall and broke for lunch.

After lunch we went to one of my favorite hotel shows, The Arizona Mineral & Fossil Show at the Hotel Tucson City Center on N. Granada Avenue.

There are really interesting things at this show. Outside the hotel entrance we saw a spectacular petrified Sequoia slab, some large amethyst geodes, and a huge slab of Mara Mamba Tiger Eye.

This hotel is filled with fossil, meteorite, specimen, and jewelry dealers. We love peaking in the rooms as you never know what you will see.

I purchased some nice quartz crystals that were drilled, What was unusual is they had iron stains in bands on the outside of them running in lines around the crystal. These were a newer thing out of China. We also got a couple of Tibetan Quartz crystals. I purchase some staurolite’s from a Russian vendor. These were nice crosses from the Kola Peninsula. I also bought a small piece of rough Eudalite from Quebec. This stuff usually is Russian.

A large hall at this hotel is filled with fossils of all sorts. The Black Hills Institute always has a great display of both real and replica fossils. Other dealers had fossil fish, and I saw a replica Megaladon mouth.

The “Meg” is the largest shark ever (think of a school bus with teeth). I make pendants out of megaladon teeth. Because these sharks fed on whales and had to consume a ton of food a day, it wasn’t long before they ran out of food. Being eating machines, they often ate each other….presto, no more Megalodons. Having no bones, the only fossil evidence are their teeth. Don’t you just love a good story?

We had another wonderful day. Tomorrow it may rain, which means I will search for some rough rock. Maybe we’ll go to the JOGS show where we find nice druzy quartz cabs.