Earth Science and Natural Science Show Journal - Annual Tucson Gem and Mineral Show

48th Annual Tucson Gem & Mineral Show (2002)
Show Journal
By Rick Dillhoff, Sammamish, Washington

The Tucson show originally began as a three day mineral show but it has since grown into an international bazaar where beads, gemstones, carvings, artifacts, fossils and even the odd mineral can be found. It is now a monster with nearly thirty separate venues that officially span two weeks. In fact, if you're interested in buying from the source, you need to be there a few days before the official show starts. That's when there is a frenzy of buying, often by dealers, with many of the foreign bargains offered for sale the next day in a new room at a much higher price. This report covers the early days at three of the motel shows: The Executive Inn, Ramada and Inn Suites motels. Having said that, they have nearly 400 separate dealers combined in just those three hotels with the highest concentration of minerals and fossil specimens. We started Friday afternoon, two days before the show "officially" opened but already more than half the rooms were open. It took most of three days just to go through these hotels.

The show becomes more international every year and American dealers are probably in the minority at this point. From a buyer's perspective, that is good news because too few of the Americans are producers anymore. Most of them are resellers while many more of the foreign deals are bringing in fresh material. The bad news for buyers is that dealers represent the main competition. Over the years a succession of Mexican, South American, Afgan, Russian and most recently the Chinese dealers have each become the new wave but by now there are dealers from just about everywhere. A major part of the show experience is meeting and interacting with people from all over the planet.

The Executive Inn stops functioning as a normal motel for two weeks and nearly every room one of its 150 rooms becomes a mineral display. Dealers from Germany, France, Spain, Portugal, England, Madagascar, Pakistan, India, China, Russia and America all gather under one roof. This show is probably 90% mineral specimens with a few nice fossils and the odd mineral object de art thrown in. The Chinese dealers offered pyromorphite, quartz, cinnabar, cassiterite, fluorite and calcite to name a few. This year one of the major new offerings were Japan Law Twin quartzes from the Daye Mine near Hubei, China. The few rooms that offered these priced them as relative bargains and they were snatched up quickly. Nothing new of significance seems to have come in from Russia or Pakistan this year. German dealers offered mostly African and South American minerals along with some of the better Moroccan trilobites and Brazilian fossil insects. You could buy a dinner plate sized Japan Law Twin quartz crystal on matrix from Brazil - for a mere $15,000. Personally I liked an undamaged one in a South American dealers room that was smaller and undamaged but it was still nearly $3,000.

The Ramada Inn dedicates close to 100 - basically all of its ground level rooms to fossil dealers. Some are wholesale only and require proof of your business although most will sell to anyone with dollars in hand. Besides the room dealers, there are displays in the lobby and a larger room dedicated to displays of dinosaurs and other vertebrate fossils. Chinese dealers offered plants, insects, fish and occasionally amphibians and reptiles primarily from the from Liaoning Province deposits. This year there were literally thousands of Sinohydrosaurus, the reptilian otter of the cretaceous, along with a few of their larger kin from China. Chinese dinosaur eggs are much less commonly offered for sale than they were a few years ago but can still be found. Several rooms offer fish from the famous Wyoming Green River formation. There are thousands of specimens of the common Knightia and Diplomystus and as few as one or two of the rarer species such as Paddlefish, Gars and Bowfins. Some of those ranged as high as $45,000 while $7 will get you a nice Knightia. The nearly complete mammoth tusks from Canada were worth seeing. From Russia there are rooms with incredible trilobites with armored shells and eyes on stalks. They also sell more recent vertebrate material. The two mounted cave bears arranged as if they were dancing was a nice touch.

The Inn Suites show was the most recent to start but has 140 ground floor dealer rooms in arguably the nicest surroundings of the three. While the Ramada and Executive pretty much fall into the fossil or mineral camp respectively. It has more variety of cut stones, minerals, fossils, petrified wood and even a few seashells. Larger ballrooms become wholesale only venues for everything from fossil fish to cut gemstones. Several rooms offer mineral art such as figurines and rare types of cut stones. A dealer from Nevada had opalized petrified wood and pinecones. Another from Australia had belemites and other shells replaced by precious opal. There were producers here that are making new collections from classic localities such as English fluorites and Tsumeb minerals as well as American producers who brought quartz scepters from Nevada, Herkimer "diamonds" from New York and green fluorite from New Hampshire. The Inn Suites probably offers the best variety and range of quality if you were going to only see one show.