75 and gusty
Steam-punked Water Buffalo was very bizarre.
We began today at an interesting smaller show, the Jewelry, Gem & Mineral Exposition (JGX in the tent you can see from the Interstate) on Simpson Street. Parking is good there, and the crowds are not as thick, there on the weekend, like some other shows. We recommend this show if you have walking issues or handicap issues and want to participate in the gem shows. They have a variety of products here, solid parking, a firm floor, smaller crowds, open to the public, and not such a huge venue.
Happy picking small cabs for earrings.
Good Chrysocolla seems to be in poor supply this year.
Pyrite crystals.
Atocha Treasures
A couple of dealers there always get some of our interest.
Very fine Yowah Opal.
Jeff and Kerry Chappell sell the most beautiful Yowah Opals which they mine and process in Australia. This booth is a marvel with purple, blue, green opal glistening up at you. He knows his work and is helpful and informative, and has lots of eye candy.
Bonnie made the rounds of the whole building, and then settled in with the first things we saw when we entered the tent! She proceeded to spend a long time choosing well-matched gemstone earring sets. Now she has plenty of work to do, but is excited to have such nice items to work with! I talked with a lot of vendors while she was there.
I discovered Lasco Diamond Products. They had a great selection of rotary tool bits. I purchased a couple of new slicer bits that just came out. I will definitely put these to use with my Dremel and Foredom when I get back to my shop. If you need a rotary tool bit, they will have what you need, and I found them to be very friendly and knowledgeable.
Feeding frenzy at one table.
A mechanical Gorilla swingnging a sighn in a circular motion. Hey it’s better and cheaper that a guy dancing in front of a pizza joint!
hese girls are so happy; “Look, we found seed beads”.
Turtle shells in a tub. I don’t explain em, I just sees em.
Bufallo skull pile is shrinking
The whole booth for sale.
My best find of the day was a coffee cup featuring Wingate Pass Agate. I was promised these would be available at the Tucson Gem Shows while at a street fair earlier in December.
We went back to the Kino show again, for some afternoon shopping adventures, with our daughter. Inside the tent, and outside in the vendor areas, we took another look at the normal quirky things there, including a reduced pile of buffalo heads from the last time we were there.
A large tent way in the back had vendors selling slabs of rare rocks. One vendor had slabs of Larimar. He had more Larimar than other vendors I have seen, and of good quality. He advised us that rough Larimar chunks are no longer coming out of the Dominican Republic, but only slabs are being shipped out. I picked out a special piece, and will likely go back to study his pieces further.
I bought a piece of Dinosaur Bone of an unknown color. I plan to cut it tomorrow and will show you the colors after I cut it. I love the gamble.
Ammonite Fossil Plate
A fine fossil plate containing ammonites, probably from Alberta Canada, as many of the fossils had an opalized exterior. I thought this would be a wonderful item to put bright lights on and trip over in your home.
Squid Tree
I saw a tree trunk carved into a giant squid, fish, and what not. I took a picture, since it is hard to explain.
Another quirky thing was a Steam-punked Water Buffalo skull, again hard to explain! We even saw a whole booth for sale for $1800. You could get right into business!
The weather returned to the mid 70s today, sunny, beautiful. It was a Saturday and very crowded and busy at Kino, so we decided to take off and return to shopping after the weekend is over. We like to shop, but not risk our lives doing it. We’ll take the day off tomorrow. We want to do a little work on some of those items we have acquired, so stay tuned!