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!

Miles of Beads at IGM

55 Rainy, snow sprinkles in the air (No kidding)

Three hours to just skim the surface here. The more we looked, the lighter our wallet.

Our day started earlier than usual at the International Gems & Minerals location at the Gem Mall. IGM is the largest bead dealer we’ve seen here in Tucson. Strictly a wholesale dealer, they open early, so they can sell to other vendors in town before they have to open at 10. It is really large, and not super well organized, so you might find something at one side, and they later find something similar that you like better several aisles over. And you have to ask for all prices (which is a pet peeve of Bonnie’s). But they had a large team and numerous people assisted us while we were there, and even though we are not a big buyer, they treated us very well.

In the Los Angeles area they have a shop and warehouse, with bead cutters and lapidarists that they employ worldwide. I chatted with Abdel Khattab, the owner of IGM, who has been in business for over 40 years. Bonnie shopped while I discussed products with him. It’s amazing the things you can learn by picking the brain of a someone that is a pioneer in the gem trade.

Bonnie loves her new “Bead Lady” Cart

You recall me speaking “lovingly” of Bead Ladies toting van-sized suitcases so they may deposit all their beads. Because we were such good customers today, IGM gave Bonnie a pull-behind two-wheel cart of her very own. Now she has a small cart like a Bead Lady wanna-be.

After lunch we had time for a quick stop at the Grand Luxe. This has some rocks, but mostly ethnic products, dresses, antiques, dragon sculptures, etc. Dan Lopacki has bead relics as well as hand crafted cabochons. We have often talked Victoria Stone over the years, and he has a pretty selection of them.

This show was so busy that I observed one vendor asleep in his room, apparently equally as excited about this show as we were. With cool temperatures, Bonnie was the only shopper in the courtyard.

Fine Amethyst in one gallery

Pictures for the wall

A 20′ Kings’ Table of Arizona Petrified Wood.

Coloroful Coffee Tables

Wall Decorations

Spheres anyone?

Bob

The worlds largest Mammoth Tusks

Around 1.3 million will put this in your home or office.

This Mamouth looks alive (at least one of them does)

From left: Baby Mammoth, Wooly Rhino, Mammoth

We left that excitement, and afterward stopped at the Mineral and Fossil Co-op. We read in the Arizona Daily Star about a rare Triceratops skeleton nicknamed Bob. One of the largest Triceratops skeletons ever assembled with original bones, this is 65% original bones, and was found on private property in North Dakota. It was found, and excavated from 2003-2014, when it went on display at the Barnes County Historical Society in North Dakota. A decline in oil revenue resulted in Bob being put up for sale. Everyone involved hopes Bob can continue to live in the US. It is for sale at GeoDecor inside the Mineral and Fossil Co-op. If you have a spare million plus, please buy him so he can continue his life in the Americas.

Here’s the Rhino sans fur (Buck Naked)

Where’s my mama?

A randon Raptor

Even though this co-op is a wholesale venue, the public can still go in and look at the fossils, including Bob. Other highlights here were wooly mammoth and mastodon fossils, a baby mammoth, a wooly rhino. A wooly mammoth skeleton was rebuilt with added fur, resembling what he probably looked like, as well as a wooly Rhino and a baby Mammoth with fur.

The largest pair of Mammoth tusks ever found (around 250 pounds each) is here. They were found by gold miners north of Fairbanks, Alaska, and were carefully preserved over six years before being ready to be shown.

Down the hall is a gallery featuring petrified wood furniture and décor. Most impressive was a 20 feet x 4 feet table slab from the Arizona Petrified Forest. Wall hangings, bright colors, browns, cut table slabs, this place has some real eye candy.

Almost eaten by a Megalodon

A Megaladon Mouth reproduction with real teeth hangs in one gallery. The real teeth are attached in their respective locations. These teeth were collected over many years with the intent to build an authentic representation. The largest tooth is over 7 inches. Measure that out and be in awe! We have seen this “guy” several times over the last few years. Each time I am reminded of how fortunate we are not to have these fellows filling our seas today. They had a voracious appetite!

If you can, you should stop into this interesting place, and if you can, be sure to buy “Bob”!

77 and Sunny

Fossil Books (Literally they are made of fossils)

We had a short stop at Kino, took a few pictures, and covered a little more of that show. The treasures of the day were several small Lodelite Cabs, as well as discovering a very fine small, Star Rutilated Quartz in a $30 pile. This one was worth at least five times that. I’ll get some pictures of these fine gemstones later. Bonnie found some very fine Turquoise Beads and I picked out a strand of Dino Beads for a future project.

Nice thick Tiger Eye at Wades (Kino)

Guards outside Kino Show

Smokey Quartz

Lights are great behind Quartz.

Gibeon Meteoite skull. Really amazing and a foot tall

Somebody placed little skulls in the eye sockets of this big skull.

Ruby in Zoisite

The largest quartz sphere we’ve seen (Riverpark Inn)

New parking lot next to the Pueblo Show. $10 all day. There is cheaper, but it is handy.

Front of Riverpark

Notice the Lapis Table

Green on Red

Purple Passion Agate

Jeff Anderson showing his agates.

Hotel Courtyard

Sphalerite/Gelena

Orange happend when Amethyst is heated up.

Close on the Citrine

Pyrite shining in the sun.

After a break, we spent the rest of the day searching through the shows at the strip. Yes, we found many treasures at these Hotel Shows. I bought some Sphalerite/Galenite; this stuff is very cool. I just skimmed the surface of these Hotel Shows. For those never having attended these shows, all the hotel rooms and the courtyards are filled with rocks, gems, and fossils. I also found an Owyhee Agate Cab that looks exactly like Sleeping Bear Dunes.

The shows we attended were The Rapa River Show where our friend Jeff Anderson sells agates. He showed me a spectacular Purple Passion Agate. I bought some Blue Lace Druzy, and a couple of colorful agates from Patagonia (Not Condor). I hope you enjoy all the pictures from today.

I’ve been in an angel making flurry the past week. I’ve made many pendants and earrings to match in my bout of festivity. Bonnie has to re-order a bunch of beads, and I have had fun creating festive Christmas jewelry. here are a few of these angels for your enjoyment.

Halloween 2014

I saw something in this picture I'd not previously noticed.

I was looking through some old photos Bonnie took of the historic Quincy Mine #2 Hoist Building in Hancock, Michigan today. I saw something I have never seen in the picture. Something ghostly and very frightening. (Twilight zone music playing).

Close-up WOE! I'm not going to be able to sleep tonight.

The mine was opened in 1846 and continued operation until the early 1967. Deaths were not uncommon in all the copper mines. No one knows exactly how many miners died while mining Native Copper as records were not carefully compiled, but I assume many spirits still lurk about around these old mines. The picture certainly proves that, don’t you think?

Beautiful Turquoise from Battle Mountain, Nevada

I am hesitant sometimes to try new Gemstone material, but I bought a piece of Turquoise from Battle Mountain, Nevada, at one of the Arizona shows. After cutting this stuff, I found it is absolutely wonderful. I have never cut natural Turquoise so hard. It was almost Quartz-hard. You can see why I like it. it sold the first time I put it out.

Custom jewelry pieces have been a backbone of our business for as long as we have existed. I love when someone contacts me in person or via the web, with an idea for a piece of jewelry, or simply brings a rock to one of our art shows to make something for them. Unlike most people that wire wrap, I cut most of my cabochons from rough rock. I know most wire wrappers don’t cut because of the crowds around cabochon dealers at the major trade shows; all wearing wire jewelry that they made from these cabochon. Even I, on occasion, find a cabochon I cannot pass up. Pre-holidays is a busy time around here, whether it be cutting rocks people find, or making custom pieces from rocks/gemstones that patrons provide.

A quality Petoskey Stone was removed from this ugly wire pendant.

Over the years, after seeing what kind of work I do, people will bring in jewelry that some other artist has created. Generally these are what I refer to as “amateur jobs”, and they generally are from the “Lee” family. Most of you know the Lees’; Home-Lee and Ug-Lee. One time a lady had a gorgeous Victoria Stone Ug-Lee wrapped in tarnished Sterling. Sometimes I am brutally honest, and in this case I told the lady that her pretty Victoria Stone deserved better. It wasn’t long before she came back to my booth and told me to fix the Lee wrapping. I did a rush job, and she was delighted when she returned the next day. I even wrote a blog on this, if you care to take a look.

http://www.snobappealjewelry.com/blog/2011/07/victoria-stone… y-to-beautiful/

After removing the Petoskey cabochon, I re-wrapped the stone as it deserved.

Janet brought in a very fine Petoskey Stone in a Lee wrap. If you know anything about Petoskey Stones, they are almost pure Calcite, and Calcite is a softer stone. This particular stone was grooved around the edge with a single piece of 16 or 18 gauge Sterling surrounding the stone in the aforementioned groove. It was twisted wire, making it even more distracting from this lovely, clear, stone. This technique of “grooving” is a simple way to created a fast, cheap, wrap, and in general is used for harder Silica stones.

By grooving a Petoskey Stone, it makes a weak edge, and two things can happen. 1. When you tighten the wire, the edge can (and often does) flake or break. 2. Because of the soft stone, the wire cannot be tightened enough to secure the stone in its’ grip tightly enough. Glue can be used, but then you see glue around the edge. In this case Janet’s pendant was literally falling out of its frame. Some related advise–I recommend no one buy a Petoskey Stone Ring. No matter what you are told by anyone selling you a Petoskey Stone Ring, they do scratch. I am constantly re-polishing them for people, but you can only do so much. Never buy any ring with soft material in it. Petoskey Stone Pendants are generally great, but still if you are wearing them, they can be scratched by zippers, metal buttons, or other harder objects. Pendants, unlike rings, can easily be re-polished.

Another customer brought in a couple large rectangular beads with holes drilled through them at the top with a mediocre finish. I cut across the beads just below the hole, re-shaped the cabochons so they were thinner, and less harsh. By rounding the edges and re-shaping these, I was able to produce a more pleasing shape to wrap. After reshaping them, I polished them and was pleased at how much better they looked. You can see the finished results.

I am also including a couple other recent projects for your viewing pleasure. Did I mention the 22 9mm Greenstones I made for one discriminating lady?

Nancy always brings me interesting projects. This is an example of a Laker she brought me for cutting and wrapping. It turned out so wonderful.

Greenstone always looks great with pink gold.

As Christmas approaches, I become more and more busy, so get your custom suggestions to me as soon as you can. At my age, I can’t take the stress of rush jobs like I could in my younger days. It’s not too early to start your shopping. Why do the big box stores have to put their Christmas stuff up before Halloween? I guess you could, theoretically, buy a Santa Costume and wear it for two holidays!!

Feathery Thompsonite from the north shore.

Pink Petoskey Stones don't come much better.

Hey! that’s just the way I think!!

Giant Pima Mine with mill complex in background

Eighteen miles south of Tucson near the town of Sahuarita is the giant Pima copper mine. Currently the mine is 2.5 miles long by 1.5 miles wide and approximately 1200 feet deep. Each bench within the mine is 40 feet high. In 2012 the mine produced 134.3 million pounds of copper, in concentrate.

The Pima Mine is part of the Mission Complex of mines.

Unlike the mines in the Copper Country of Michigan where large solid masses of native copper where the norm, the copper in the Pima mine is microscopic and is extracted from the ore by crushing the rock four times in ball mills which resemble large rock tumblers and the copper ore is crushed by steel balls within the tumblers for copper extraction, until it is a dust-like concentrate. When the metal is extracted the remaining crushed rock is hauled away to huge waste piles and the copper concentrate is sent by truck to a mill in El Paso where copper plates are formed. Also in this concentrate is small amounts of gold, silver and molybdenum. Enough of these minerals are extracted to pay the almost $2 million electric bill each month!

Floating Copper??

Pine Oil made the Ball Mill smell squeaky clean.

Giant Ball Mills crush the copper bearing ore in three stages.

Blast hole drills.

I love this stuff from the Ray Mine.

Giant dump trucks look small in the distance.

Giant dump trucks that are so big they need to be brought in in parts and assembled onsite work up and down the ledges within the pit. After being loaded with copper ore by a gigantic electric crane the copper ore is transported to the onsite Ball Mill building. When the pit is so massive and deep when you look at the trucks from the top, they appear to be very small, but standing next to them, you would see that one tire is around 12 feet tall.

We saw a large area within the mine where drills were working to make holes for explosives. Each day between noon and three explosives are set off in the mine. Their job is to lift the ground up and then settle right back down, loosening the ground so that the giant shovels can do their work. The reserve life of the Mission Mine which includes the Pima Mine is 2033.

No harsh chemicals are used at this mine. This fact is stressed by the tour guide. Some mild acid is used, but the extraction of copper concentrate takes place in giant open vats where the copper floats to the top and is skimmed off and dried to form the copper concentrate. How does copper float in water? The answer is old technology used in washing miner’s clothes! A wash lady discovered that by adding pine oil to the soap the tiny bubbles would float to the top with attached dirt from the miner’s dirty clothes. The mine uses this same technology using pine oil to float copper to the top, skim it, and the oil is recirculated to combine and rise again.

ASARCO (American Smelting and Refining Company) Grupo Mexico obviously the company started out as an American owned company but was bought out by Grupo Mexico. They have been producing copper for over 100 years. Beside the Mission Mine complex the company also owns the Silver Bell and the Ray Open Pit Mines in Arizona.

From a rockhound standpoint other interesting copper related minerals are occasionally found in the Pima and other mines of Arizona. Those include malachite, azurite, cuprite, chalcopyrite, some other arsenides, and rare earth minerals. It seems unusual to me that the Arizona mines have slightly different associated minerals than Michigan mines. Datolite, Chlorastrolite, Mohawkite, and Prehnite are distinctive to Michigan mines.

If you get a chance and are in the Tucson area, this is an interesting and inexpensive tour to take.