65 cloudy
The 2013 Tucson Rock, Gem, Mineral and Fossil shows are ready to begin, but the city roads are a mess with orange cones and construction signs. If you are on your way here, be sure to bring your GPS to help navigate. Street construction is underway everywhere and I predict frequent bottlenecks.
Xiphactinus (TPI)
Turtle (TPI)
The only game in town today was the 22nd Street Show opening a day early. Their parking lot was filled up and they have a new hard sided tent this year, much larger than last year. There were a great many fossil dealers at this show this year, but a scattering of dealers selling jewelry, gems, rough rock, cabs, beads, wallets, old glass bottles. The majority of dealers were set up and ready, but we noticed a few dealers still sitting up. I would say there were in excess of 100 dealers.
My favorite of the show was Triebold Paleontology Inc (TPI)(www.trieboldpaleontology.com). Their fossils are always top notch. A tortoise and another small-ish Preditor that resembled a small T-Rex, but they were not sure if it was, in fact, a T-Rex or a new smaller Raptor (adult). But is was from the Hell Creek area in South Dakota. TPI also had a reproduction of a Xiphactinus fish over 15′ for $36,500 and if you have a room big enough he has an real Xiphactinus at home, 18 ½ foot long for just over $300,000. Great display guys!
Manatee
We saw a prehistoric Manatee at another dealer, the more common (in Tucson) fish plates, and many other assorted fossils.
Quartz Gems with Gem of a Woman.
I always enjoy the giant Quartz plates, and the one we saw at this show was great.
Elephant Bird Eggs
Protoceratops
One of the most unusual things we saw was someone selling Aepyornis Maximus (Elephant Bird) eggs. These are 12 foot tall Moa’s from Madagascar that weighed half a ton. The bird laid giant eggs, and it was obvious that the eggs we saw were reconstructed from many pieces found. The last known Aepyornis died in 1658 or so. It is surmised that they were killed by a disease transferred by chickens or Guinafowl imported by humans.
Nearly all the shows start tomorrow. We will keep you posted.