Sunny mid 70’s
We noticed in the show guide a couple of shows we haven’t visited yet this year. We think of this first show as the Bazaar, because of all the Middle Eastern jewelry, clothing, small metal containers, a dark passageway filled with colorful lights. The main ballroom was filled with bead suppliers, and a smaller central room had ancient pieces with big chunky rough beads. There was lots of jade beads of various types and things an archeologist would love to find.
Speaking of dangers, an American with mixed heritage regularly goes to Pakistan. He said everything is done in cash. Imagine dealing with tribes in the mountains and carrying thousands or hundreds of thousands, and trying to stay safe.
There were rooms of beads, wonderful natural Southwest turquoise, and various hand made jewelry items of varying interest. A fellow in the center area had rocks and I found a solid looking azurite piece that I plan to make into jewelry.
As we were driving away we came across another Arizona Mineral and Fossil show (there are 3 locations with the same name), and they had parking available so we kicked around there a bit. This is at the Ramada Inn where most of the vendors are in the hotel rooms, but there is a large tent featuring Alaskan carved deer, elk antlers and moose buttons. A couple years ago I met a dealer sold me a piece of mammoth tooth that I made into jewelry as an experiment. I saw him again today and bought a couple more slices that looked hard enough to be wire wrapped. They are stabilized, but still a lapidary artist might have trouble with the variation in softness of the areas of the tooth, so they are tricky.
The Russian guy, that I could not understand, had some nice fossils. He moved everything out of his room so he could get the fossils in.
One room I attempted to speak to a Russian and I found that I really have a problem understanding Russian, but he seemed to be very proud of his fossils. He had his room set up like a little museum.
Miles’ Mastodon Tusk.
Miles had fair prices for tusks ivory.
I bought a few slabs of Mastodon Ivory to make jewelry.
We saw a lot of fossil mammal parts, and we noticed a large mastodon tusk for sale. Miles Martin from Alaska had photos of his recovery of mastodon tusk near Denali. He had a large collection of mastodon tusk pieces, pairs you could make knife handles with and mastodon slices for lapidary work. I have never made jewelry from mastodon tusk, but I will this year. Miles recounted how he takes a flat bottom boat 400 miles down a river with no gas stations to find and extract tusks that may be emerging from melting permafrost. He mentioned several dangers, isolation, river sand bars, bears, and “scary weird people” that might be living out there dodging the law because they are “wanted” elsewhere. He’s written seven books about his adventures. He was a colorful character.
A couple Mammoth Teeth slabs were bought from this pile; jewelry to follow in the near future.
One of our pleasures is learning the stories of the people we meet, how they got into what they are doing, and what their challenges are to get their rock products to us.
Moose “Buttons”
Carvings galore
At the Ramada Inn, Alaska Creations had unique carvings made from “Moose Buttons”. The “Buttons” are where the antlers attach to the skull. The antlers are shed and he cut these buttons off and carved these amazing things. He had lots of carvings from Antlers of all kinds.
Carborundum from China. Pretty but not for jewelry. See the yellow material? It’s Orpiment, a dangerous toxic Arsenic Sulfide. Most people would never know what this is.
The colors of this carborundum is similar to Peacock Ore. A picture does not do justice to the colors.
Shiva Linghams Increases Vitality and Pranic Energy. The dirty little secret is most of these are not real Linghams, but are made.
There were more Linghams here than anywhere in Tucson.
Lots of fun in the sun today. See you tomorrow.