Sunny, Breezy, and 75
MY DOGS ARE TIRED!
Today we ventured to Electric Park for the shows. Electric Park used to be the home of the Arizona Diamondbacks farm club called the Sidewinders, but that team has moved on. There is a large and eclectic show in a large tent, and several dealers have smaller tents surrounding a large central plaza where things could be described a hodgepodge of dealers peddling their
Show tents scattered about at Electric Park.
wares. Most have pop-up type tents with their good both inside and outside. This merchandise is not just rock related. We saw someone selling animal pelts, dyed boas, and even a peacock pelt.
You thought I was kidding about the peacock pelt, didn't you?
Another place had old guns, and another piles of deer antlers and steer skulls. You never know what you’ll see at Electric Park.
We saw large and small sculptures, Onyx pedistals, water fountains, and the largest selection of amethyst geodes I’ve see in recent years. I looked at lapidary equipment at both Graves and Diamond Pacific, as well as other brands. I saw my dream machine, the awesome Diamond Pacific Titan cab machine.
A large water feature and a gem tree. Cool!
Our rock club buddies Marshall and Mary Collins were as usual selling their Petoskey Stones. Marshall enjoys teaching the kids about these fossils.
The Collin's at their Petoskey Stone booth.
Inside the big tent many venders were selling beads, jewelry (lots of the completed jewelry was from India), and gems. They seemed to be doing a good business. I am really not a fan of this buy-sell stuff from over seas. Jewelry makers like myself cannot compete with the cheap labor that manufactures this stuff. I like and recommend American made jewelry.
Imported goods all over the show.
Bonnie in beadland.
Most of us buy imported beads out of necessity as these things are primarily not available except on the import market.
The second part of the Electric Park show is located across an access drive. Vendors drive in their RV’s and stay in them while selling their wares around their units. This is a big tailgate sale. Their are loads of slabs, much rough, and some jewelry.
RV show at Electric Park.
Last year it rained so hard it flooded the show and no buyers wanted to slog through mud. Vendors obviously complained, so this year they put light brown artificial grass over the whole area. It was sort of nice because it looked like grass that had not been watered. As a bonus, it was very comfortable to walk on.
Yes, grasshopper, we did spend some money.
Who would buy a piece of petrified wood this big?
Crystal Man! or Man what a crystal.
Let me look and see what we bought: at Electric park Bonnie bought quantities of beads. I won’t even go their, except to say how nice the Dinosaur Bone strand was. I acquired some lovely pink opal rough, some rare Bull Canyon Agate, Holley Blue agate from western Oregon, some rare and expensive red and black Kentucky Agate, a couple Queensland agates, a rare and large slab of Luna agate. and a few more assorted small slabs.
Geoff Notkin-half the the "Meteorite Men".
Cute!!!
I ran into one of the Meteorite Men, Geoff Notkin, as he was pricing some wonderful Campo Del Cielo Meteorites. Geoff’s voice had given out so he was not very conversational, but I mentioned how much I liked the show on Muonionalusta Meteorites, as they are my favorite. I think Muonionalusta’s have the very best patterns of any other meteorites, and I make amazing jewelry out of them. Occasionally one gets on my website.
I never saw anything like this before.
We really wore ourselves out today. Stay tuned tomorrow as we explore the large wholesale only show at the Gem Mall promoted by the Gem & Lapidary Wholesalers (G&LW).
Bonus funny. Is there a height restriction on pickups in Arizona?