A small number of vendors at "The Rock Show".
It has cooled off a bit here in Tucson, but low 60’s is still good for us. We anticipated big crowds today, so we headed off to The Hotel Tucson City Center early, got a great parking space, had coffee, and got busy looking around.
I learned something new..Some Dino's were Chrome; Cool!
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We love the Orange Trees in the courtyard and found the dinosaurs feeding on the fresh fruit.
$17,500
Meteorites for my buddy Chris.
I marveled at beautiful Ammonites as usual. It seemed there were more of these Ammonites than usual. I was told there indeed were more because it is Chinese New Year and the Chinese seem to favor these fossils. I saw several with “Sold” on them.
The main room at the HTCC is where you will many major fossils, including large impressive Ammonites. I saw a 9′ long fossil Swordfish called a Protosphyraena nitida (Late Cretaceous). The room seemed to be busy, but not overwhelming. We had a great time at this show and will return.
I have a couple very special things I found today.
As usual I had to curb Bonnie’s lust for Sonoran Sunrise, but I did allow her to look at some, so I did solve her addiction for another day.
Vendors occupy rooms as with other hotel shows.
No telling what may be in a room.
The vendors occupy rooms at the hotel, many with amazing displays. One of the oddest contained carved Mammoth Tusks. If you are a specimen collector, or meteorite collector, this is the show. I saw Geoff Notkin (The Meteorite Men), selling assorted meteorites, including Muonionalusta slabs from meteorites actually found on the show. There were loads of space rock to be had here.
I saw my buddy Ken Flood at his Keeweenaw Gem & Gift Booth. He was very busy as usual. He had something very special to show me. This is one of the items I have to show you tomorrow. I have been hunting rocks in Michigan’s Keweenaw Peninsula for many years , and have never encountered anything like I purchased from Ken. NOW you’re curious, I’ll bet.
After lunch we drove about 10 miles north of the city center to a new show called The Rock Show. The Rock Show used to be adjacent to Electric Park (now Kino), but the property was sold, and the show went seeking a new location. We were glad someone at Quartzsite told us about this which was good because is isn’t even listed in the big book of shows. We did find it in a small brochure, so decided to head out to see what was there.
Bracciated Mookaite
Bonnie getting her fix. Her comment "Someone put a lot of time into polishing this, so I should admire it."
The Fossil Fish.
A nice selection from someone's cast off pile.
My gently used new saw.
Aspenite and Mexican Crazy Lace.
Check out the Thomsonite I found.
The most amazing Larimar I've seen. I mentioned it yesterday. I think the soft yellow with the Larimar Island is remarkable and unique.
A small group of vendors comprised the show, some who previously sold goods at the old Rock Show, and some new vendors. This is a dirt lot, east of I-10, we exited at #251. It looked like about 10-15 tents, a few RVs, sparsely populated. It didn’t look real promising, but since we drove out there, we decided to look around. This was a Sunday afternoon and only a handful of shoppers were around. Vendors were friendly, and there was good conversation and relaxed personal attention. No imported goods, and hardly any beads. It was like a tiny version of Desert Gardens at Quartzsite. One vendor had a tub filled with random slabs and rocks, many agates and jaspers that I like. Digging through the water in this tub produced some real surprises including gem silica, Condor Agates, shadow agates, picture petrified wood, Queensland Agates, and other “good stuff”. So far this was my favorite few minutes of the day–I love to look through other people’s discards. I ended up with about 5 pounds of treasures.
Another vendor had something I have not seen before, called Aspenite. it is a silicated limonite with chrysocolla from Oro De Conception in north central Mexico. Some of this rock had been sent to the GIA for identification, and they identified the minerals, but said it had no name. Not much has been found, and I splurged on a single small cabochons because the orange and green colors were so striking! And I love the unusual. I also bought the Crazy Lace Agate cabochon that you see in the picture because I liked the colors.
One vendor had an assortment of lapidary equipment on his table, some new and some used. I was attracted to a used 6″ Wizard rock saw. These are sturdy little units from Diamond Pacific. This one had been gently used and was in good condition, and included a saw blade. This was my equipment purchase for this year. Even though I have a few saws (maybe 7 or 8), each one has key attributes. I might have to sell off another old 6″ saw.
I guess the moral of this story is “You can’t judge a book by it’s cover.” You never know when treasures might be lurking in out of the way places. I hope this show succeeds, but they will need to do much more publicity in future years.