Tucson Gem, Mineral, & Fossil Shows-Stripping for Skulls

Sunny 55

I covered the Freeway Strip today from one end to the other looking for odd stuff. I went out by myself early, and was at the shows when they opened. It was cold enough the car was frosted, but the sun came out and it seemed warmer than the 55 degrees it registered later in the day. It was cool in the shade.

I started at the Clarion Inn and worked my way north to the Howard Johnson, then all the way north until I got to the Days Inn, this incorporates 5 shows. Some of the vendors were on their last day. This means sellers were motivated to sell (bargains+). Later I drove further north to the Ramada Limited for the Arizona Mineral and Fossil Show. The Clarion Gem and Mineral Show has a wide variety of merchandise and in the rear is a large open space and tent where El Paso Rock Shop has the largest selection of rough rock in Tucson—by the barrel or by the piece. You can find almost any type and quantity there, making it a great place to dig around. I couldn’t help but choose several several of the Royal Imperial Jasper cabs that I have seen at the shows. This stone makes beautiful quality jewelry. I looked through the piles and barrels of rock and discovered a few fifty-gallon drums of crap! Coprolite you might call it.

It is always interesting to see the skulls at Skulls4U. Ivo Fuykschot from the Netherlands represents Leandro deSouza, a famous stone carver from Brazil. I saw the largest carved quartz skull in Tucson, around 315 pounds of clear smoky and yellow quartz available from Skuls4U for $150,000. It is the practice of Skulls4U to name their major skulls. This one is named Akator. He had numerous other large and small skulls, but none in the class of Akator. Ivo was a real nice guy, so if you have some spare change, this would be a good place to spend it.

I briefly looked over what was left over at the other shows and bought some really nice tourmaline-in-quartz and lapidolite from a Brazilian dealer. At the Arizona Mineral and Fossil Show I found a dealer on his last day who had Teepee Canyon and Dryhead Agate. I bought a nice selection from Tom Wooden of Fairburn Agates from Rapid City, SD, and he had hunted all the Teepee Canyon material himself. He told me that mechanized digging that they employed years ago is no longer allowed in this area. It is much more unusual to find these agates by only using surface collecting. Tom had a beautiful collection of Fairburn Agates at the Celebration of Agates display last summer.

I found some other small surprises that I intend to make jewelry out of, and I will show them to you later. Bonnie showed up later and we looked at the Tantric Shiva Linghams in the back tents. The grand daddy black one was 8’3″ and reminded me of the Goodyear Blimp, grounded! It is my Odd Stuff of the Day winner.