As with work, friends marked the passing hours as more and more folks started showing up and dropped by to say hello. This is the truest thing I can tell you about Tucson, the rocks are incredible, the scenery beautiful, the food divine, but it's the friends, that's the absolute best part of the entire experience! They, like me, come from all over the globe, and each year at this time and in this place, we all come together, smiling a little bit easier, thankful that through all the craziness, we've all made it back to this, the center of the ever changing, ever evolving mineral universe.
And so, between smiles, I continued to fine tune my room. I made up a 9 compartment set of glass cubes and set it up with specimens and then went through all my stock relabeling and pricing as needed. I'd brought more stock then I needed for this room and planned on offering a selection of my heulandites in my friend Allan's ( http://www.langsfossils.com/home.htm ) room at the Executive Inn too. Allan offers incredible eurypterids from his quarry in New York (see my 1/1/2004 paper, Jump In, The Waters Fine; Eurypterid Collecting In New York) and meteorites there and then later, in his second room at the Westward Look Mineral Show, and I felt very honored that he'd offered to host my specimens. They'll be coming by sometime soon to pick up my stock (specimens, receipt books, packing material, etc.) and I wanted to be 100% ready.
As it turned out, I had plenty of time. In addition to my heulandite and mordenites from my Idaho Rat's Nest claim, I also have a selection of World specimens which I offer. These are brought to me at the show by friends and at this point, none of my other stock had shown up. No problem, like I mentioned, this just gave me plenty of unhurried time to gather everything together. Now of course, when my stock did come in, it all came at the same time and boy was I hopping! Among the treasures I was receiving was a lot of golds from a lost prospect in Alaska that had been offered to a friend of mine. My friend cut me in on the deal and right in the midst of everything these showed up.
Have you ever heard the saying, buyer beware? Again, no truer words could be spoken! This guy was a stranger and I'd never met him before. He seemed to know folks, but at the same time, seemed only to know them by reputation. I wasn't suspicious and everything seemed fine until he said, "Are ya ready, these things sure are heavy!", and then proceeded to hand me the lot... and immediately things seemed wrong. Where was the weight? The rock was right... for California, and seemed rich enough on the surface (the gold didn't plunge into fractures like I'd have expected) and looked just fine (until I took my dental pick to it and scraped the gold right off the rock!!!). Holy expletive here! The lot was valued at over $80,000.00 and sample after sample I tested, every one was a fake.
I felt like I was going to be sick. Thank goodness I'd questioned my feelings and hadn't offered any of these for sale. I called my partner next to have him contact the guy to have him pick up his trash, I didn't want it in the room a second longer! Eww, what a gross, sleazy feeling. When the guy showed up the next day, I had him take his stuff and washed my hands. He sat out in his truck for an hour or so before finally leaving... and parking across the way where I couldn't see, and took his rocks back into the show to try and sell to someone else. I didn't know this until Scott ( http://www.greatbasinminerals.com/ ), who I'd told about the golds and who had confirmed my suspicions, called to say the guy had just come into his room to offer the fakes. Unbelievable some people. He'd lied again and told Scott the same tale and agreed to come back tomorrow as Scott suggested with the lot. Scott called me right after the guy had left. I next called the Show Desk and then filed a report with the Tucson Police Officer they sent over regarding the whole scam. We'd be ready tomorrow if the guy showed... he didn't.
This was the first time this type of malarkey had come so close to home and I was so very thankful I'd not been deceived. It means so much to know the people you're dealing with, not everyone is decent.
Fake gold photographed before its return.
The largest of the fake gold's.
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Needing to feel good about things, we went out and enjoyed a spectacular Sushi dinner at Shogun Sushi that night and then later, I selected my first two rocks of the show, both for Gloria.
My first rock for Gloria, a stunning
malachite over cobaltian calcite from Zaire.
My 2nd choice for Gloria, a beautiful
pink manganoan calcite from Peru
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With real legitimate stock in the room awaiting my attentions, my next moves were in this direction and I was soon back at it. The boys showed up later and took everything over to set up in the Executive Inn and by the time Friday the 27th of January, the unofficial opening day of our show rolled around, I was more than up and running and already had met with some great friends, sold some crystal treasures and was really starting to get excited, tomorrow was opening day!
Among the trickest stories I have from this time involved a specimen I sold to a gentleman from New York. He was purchasing perfect large single crystals to have carved into deities for a temple in New York. Apparently he has hundreds of these types of carvings. From my selection, he choose a near perfect 4-inch (10 cm) cube of galena. It was a glorious thing all bright and shiny and perfectly formed and he was absolutely delighted as he shifted it about in his hands, judging its qualities. As I wrapped his specimen his story unfolded and I marveled that such a thing could be. Both he and I were happy with the exchange and next year, next year he said he'd bring photos of selected carvings to show, sharing his passion for minerals with all those interested.
Some of my wildly colorful
World treasures on display
The wonderful, soon to be carved galena!
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Saturday the 28th of January and the opening day of Marty Zinn's Arizona Mineral and Fossil Show in the Inn Suites ( http://www.mzexpos.com/ ) arrives and it's another beautiful, sunny, t-shirt kind of day. The weather is perfect and everything is right. I started out the day by placing our first Rat's Nest heulandite of the show into a new Museum. This one, the Arizona Mining and Mineral Museum in Phoenix ( http://www.admmr.state.az.us/musgen.htm ) is our first for Arizona. To my way of thinking, this is the truest measure of our material, when institutions recognize the relevancy of things I've collected with my own two hands! For me, this is when it gets really cool!
As a additional cool for opening day, my friend Paul brought over a phenomenal group of specimens selected from his superb Arizona collection which were quite honestly really right out of this World. Unbelievable specimens, stout columnar nests of brochantite, superb bright blue diaboleite, bright yellow wulfenites and the wonderful dreamy blue of thick chrysocolla gem silica. Azurite rosettes and stunning rosasite hemispheres. This case generated quite a buzz throughout the show and many folks were brought over just to see the goodies. What a great day.
On Sunday I sold the largest mordenite specimen the Rat's Nest claim has ever produced weighing 49 pounds (22 kg). This is North America's largest mordenite specimen and is associated with heulandite-CA and -NA, and calcite. Good one Joe!
Monday the 30th began with a flurry as I took off with Wayne Leicht ( http://www.kristalle.com/ ) to look at 2 display cases and some glass he was wanting to get rid of. Free, the price was right so why not. At his storage unit I found the cases a bit worse for the wear, but very workable and shook hands with Wayne sealing the deal. I'd just taken on the responsibility of 2 display cases and a couple hundred pounds of display glass and truth to tell, I had no idea where I was going to put them! Ah well, I'll work out the details later! Back at the room, it was a wonderful busy day where almost everyone showed up to say hi. Friends from near and far and it was really a blast.
On Tuesday the 31st, everything just sort of fell into place. First Robert, a great guy and a local friend of Allan's, offered to store the display cases for me. Ya Hoo, one less thing to worry about and boy was this ever welcome news. While being influenced by display cases, another friend of mine, Jimmy ( http://www.49erminerals.com/ ) came by and offered me three of his counter top display cases for half their cost. Again, how could I refuse! With everything going so cool, I even decided to pick up another couple rocks for Gloria and I. What a terrific day!
A neat pyrite just too cool for
me to resist. It's a complete floater
group from Hannibal, Missouri.
A great *terminated* crocoite from
the famous Adelaide Mine in Tasmania.
Thanks Neal!
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Wednesday, and my friend Dave arrives in town and came by to visit. Dave promotes the wonderful high end mineral show at the Westward Look Resort ( http://www.westwardlook.com/ ) and has been hearing about all the excitement when I've had a chance to call and bug him. Other then this, my big thrill for the day was just getting out from the room for a little bit to enjoy the show here at the Inn Suites. My goal in exploring was the Fossil Hall, there, as always, they had an awesome array of prehistoric treasures and it was a thrill to see some of the great things found and or cast from real specimens.
Are not these just the most
beautiful things you've ever seen?
They just take my breath away!
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That's a mighty big fish! A cast.
Even more so when you see it in action.
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Woolly mammoth hair, how cool!
Scared more then the pants off
these two! More casts.
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Report continued . . . . . . .
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