TUCSON 24 MAIN SHOW

 

Pegmatites—Crystals Big and Beautiful

Well, the big day finally arrived on February 8^th at the Tucson Convention Center—the largest, oldest and most prestigious gem and mineral show in the world. The Tucson Gem and Mineral Show has enjoyed international status since the 1970s and was the first gem and mineral show to bring the hobby enthusiast, the public, and the curator/professional together for discovery and discussion. Thousands of spectators ranging from local school attendees to international visitors line up each day to get their ”ticket punched” ($13) and head inside. The first day there is always a rush to get down the stairs and push into the main showroom. Perhaps they want to visit a special dealer—I don’t know; however, I try and stay out of their way! I was able to count around 200 vendors, most in the main ballroom upstairs, but a few gem merchants were in a small ballroom upstairs. food trucks were lined up outside in a private area and the nearby outside lots charged $10 to park. These nearby lots could not handle all of the visitors.

The theme for the 69^th show was “Pegmatites—Crystals Big and Beautiful” and allowed a large slate of symposium speakers throughout the four days of the Show. I was able to listen, off and on, to speakers throughout the Show but was very interested in the Saturday Symposium sponsored by the organization Friends of Mineralogy (of which I am a member). I learned much! 

 

It is always nice to see a Joe Dorris amazonite from their Smoky Hawk Claim.

 

I am always amazed at the carving skills 0f a few artistic rockhounds.

In fact, I thought the 2024 symposia were more interesting than displays on the main floor (my humble opinion only). It seems that many/several dealers of high end/fine minerals have left the main show and settled in Mineral City and/or Westward Look, and/or the Tucson Fine Minerals Gallery on St. Marys Road. Their fantastic displays of past years are no longer around downtown. I suppose that the driving force is economics—Tucson Fine Minerals, with its 20 or so dealers, is open year round and offers newsletters and special shows and speakers. For example, Collectors Edge of the Denver area has pulled out of the Main Show and is now at Tucson Fine Minerals. Arkenstone has a permanent type of structure at Mineral City as well as a giant presence on the internet. And so it goes, economics drive the market.

And the show does have many, many dealers displaying mineral and jewelry.

And never forget the sunsets of Arizona.
 

TUCSON 24: MINERAL CITY, GUACAMOLE, AND SOFTBALL

 

OK, if Tucson Show attendees came down to Arizona to see minerals, all sorts of minerals, beautiful minerals from micros to cabinet, no brass bells and other do-dads, but just great minerals, then Mineral City is the place to go.  Located noth of downtown along main drag Oracle Road with an address on Lester, Mineral City was like the Phoenix rising from the ashes. The brainchild of Graham Sutton, Mineral City has expanded, in five short years, from “nothing in an empty lot, to a series of warehouse-like buildings holding, in 2024, over 120 mineral dealers. These buildings are single story and each with a central hallway supporting individual rooms on either side. Dealers may “decorate” as desired with chairs, cases of all sorts, coffee pots, a wine decanter or two, and throw in good conversations. Building D offers The Stope, a mining themed relaxation room complete with wine, coffee, beer, dispalys and conversation with Chric DeStafano holding down the home of Mineralogical Record. Hallways in Buildings C & D have display cases filled with specimens from the Young Mineral Collectors (including Austin Cockell from CSMS). Phil Persson from Denver and Leonard Himes from Monument have great specimens displayed and for sale. Want to visit about adventures while collecting in Mexico? Stop in and see Dennis Beals from Denver. 

 

Erin Deventhal from the Four Corners area has a mineral booth and was also selected as the 2323 “street artist” to paint a mural on the outside wall of Building D  (see recent issue of Rocks and Minerals, Vol. 98, issue 6, 2023).

One of my favorite show specimens: chrysocolla and malachite from the DR Congo. 

Tourmaline from the mines of Brazil.

Aquamarine from Pakistan priced at $35,000.

Above two specimens are beautiful fluorite from Illinois. One is $9,500 while the lower is $20,000. I keep dreaming about a student field trip in the 1960s where the "locals" had piles of fluorite in their yards for sale-nice specimens for fifty cents more or less. However, a half buck to a student was serious money but I did bring home a few crystals.

Dennis Beals from Denver spinning yarns about collecting in Mexico.

Arkfeld Minerals had a wide variety of reasonably priced minerals in the display case above. The bottom photo is a nice display of the fairly rare cesium mineral pezzottaite.
 

 

And by-the-way, California still produces gold! 

 

Adjacent to the warehouse buildings are other structures with more dealers including our friends the Pinnacle Five Minerals (Joe Dorris family) situated in Mineral Village selling prized amazonite specimens from his claims near Lake George, Colorado.  At the corner of Oracle and Lester (east end of Mineral City) is a former eating establishment (a bright pink color), La Fuente de Piedras connected to a large tent, housing a number of dealers including a large Arkenstone with displays of very fine minerals, the Rock Currier Collection, Rocks and Minerals Magazine, and a fine collection of micros and thumbnails at Petr Sztacho Minerals. At the far west end of Mineral City are a variety of stand-alone buildings housing dealers selling large specimens like The Rock Yard and Barlows.

The nearby Catalina Mountains, one of the Madrean Sky Islands with the Pusch Ridge Wilderness Area, offer fantastic views for show attendees as they are visible throughout Tucson. This particular view is from my brother's back patio at sunset.

Mineral City is an amazing place, and I spent the better part of three days ogling and conversing and even buying a few specimens (described later). I can’t begin to describe the many sights, smells, tastes and sounds (of happy rockhounds).

And food, did I mention some fantastic eating, like made at your table guacamole and a frosty IPA (photo courtesy of Baja Brewing).

And, if you are a little tired of minerals consider that the U of A women's softball team is nationally ranked and the other night it was 74 degrees at 6:00 pm. The beautiful stadium is near the center of campus.

For additional excitement the successful women's basketball team plays before a home crowd of 7000+.

 

Tucson and the mineral shows are an exciting place to visit and explore. If you plan to attend in 2024 get your motel or camping sites early. Then plan to whoop it up.

TUCSON 24: MONTGOMERYITE (BLACK HILLS SD) FROM AN OLD TIMEY SHOW

 

55 or so dealers spread out at the Miners Coop Show

One of the many Tucson shows that I make time to attend is the Miners Coop Rock Show. This venue seems to be the most western and most northern show situated at Mike Jacobs Sports Park at the corner of Ina Road and I-10. The location is away from the hustle and bustle of the major venues in and near the city center, southeast near the Kino and Holiday Inn Shows, along the Oracle road and I-10 motel strips and the 22^nd street monster. The Coop show is a mom & pop, old timey show where vendors are outside or small open tents displaying thjeir wares.  Don’t worry about a rainstorm, of which are numerous, just throw a tarp over the specimen tables and retreat to their small RVs parked behind the tables. The show is described as the people who dig and mine and the home of the diggers and do-ers. 

 

All sorts of rocks, minerals, and fossils for sale.

Not all minerals are what they appear to be! m This is a sack of nice fresh oak acorns.

The vendors are likely to be perched on a lawn chair and snoozing in the sun but are more than willing to engage in a lively conversation. These are the vendors who may have come from a month in Quartzite and may be heading to February/March New Mexico shows in Los Cruces, then Deming,  Albuquerque, Santa Fe, and Truth or Consequences—any place to avoid snow shoveling back at their home base. 

Kim and Bodie from Runnin Boar Minerals sell a variety minerals including amazonite from their quarry.

 
Generally speaking the vendors are about the same each year and I enjoy talking to a parrot from Arkansas, the azurite blueberry dealer from Moab, and Kim and Bodie from Divide, Colorado, just up the road from my home base in Colorado Springs. No expensive motel rooms or giant tents or the convention center –just a bunch of friendly diggers and do-ers! 

What I found at the show was small box, still partially damp from a rain, that had been tossed in a flat of minerals with other specimens. Always curious, I pulled out my loupe to take a peak at the specimen labeled “ montgomeryite, Tip Top Mine, Black Hills”.  Wow. I zealously guarded the box and continued to peak at others but none piqued my interest. “How much do you want for this mineral? How about three bucks.” I hesitated but pulled out the money and was happily on my way. I had previously blogged about the mineral a couple of times. However, montgomeryite is a pretty rare secondary phosphate named for Arthur Montgomery and is associated with Colorado Springs, the Black Hills, and Utah—three of my favorite places.

In 1940 E.S. Larsen of Harvard University described two new minerals collected from phosphate nodules near Fairfield, Utah.  Larsen had been working and describing minerals from this area for at least a decade and finally “got around” to formally naming the hydrated calcium magnesium aluminum phosphates: overite [CaMgAl(PO₄)₂(OH)-4H₂O], named for Edwin Over of Colorado Springs, and montgomeryite [Ca₄MgAl₄(PO₄)₆(OH)₄-12H₂O] for Arthur Montgomery of New York City.

Over and Montgomery had spent part of the years 1936-1940 prospecting and mining phosphate nodules from Clay Canyon near Fairfield in the Oquirrh Mountains southwest of Salt Lake City. They were mainly after variscite, a beautiful green, hydrated aluminum phosphate [AlPO₄-H₂O] that was sliced for mineral collectors and cabbed for jewelry. However, these nodules also contained a plethora of micro minerals that were of great interest to collectors. Today the Fairfield site is closed and remediated or perhaps open to the claim owner every few years?

Today, the best-known montgomeryite crystals are found from a few mines in the Black Hills of South Dakota, especially the Tip Top Mine near Custer, formally a lithium mine in pegmatites associated with the Precambrian Harney Peak Granite.  Here montgomeryite generally occurs as small lath-like crystals that are flattened, striated, elongated and capped by a pyramid.   Crystals are translucent, have a vitreous luster, and a hardness of ~4.0 (Mohs).  At the type locality at the Little Green Monster Mine in Utah the crystals are generally colorless to pale green and occur in nodules that are of sedimentary origin.  At the Tip Top Mine the lath-like crystals are colorless to some sort of a red to orange to salmon to pale yellow color and are associated with several other secondary phosphate minerals and primary phosphates like triphylite as well as and the pegmatitic microcline feldspar.

Montgomery laths on a microcline matrix. Black mineral is some sort of a phosphate perhaps rockbridgeite and/or triphylite. Width FOV ~ 7 mm.

I felt fortunate to locate the specimen, especially with the low price, and will continue to seek other Tip Top and Fairfield specimens such as the millisite found at 22^nd Street show described in the February 6 post.