Denver 2010

In the third week in September, the Gem and Mineral clubs of the Denver area hold a joint show with exhibits from many private collectors as well as from a number of museums. There are nine other privately organized shows with dealers, a number of which are clustered around the Denver Coliseum. A major venue for minerals is the Holiday Inn show promoted by Marty Zinn. He also has a fossil show that is in the Merchandise Mart. The attendance did seem to be down a bit this year, it was pretty easy to find a parking space at the Holiday Inn, unlike previous years.




A nice selection of large and sharp octahedrons of cuprite were available from a number of dealers. These will most likely be instant classics for cuprite.




Thursday is setup day for dealers and exhibitors.




Denver is sort of unique in that dealers have rooms where they can set up their wares.






























The show emphasizes getting youngsters involved in the hobby with school class field trips to the show on Friday morning and scout excursions on Saturday. In addition to the displays, the eastern area of the hall contains many educational and fun activities. Grab bags can be purchased, there is gold panning, several federal and state agencies provides outreach and free literature to the public. Many of the area clubs also have demonstrations of various aspects of the hobby and there was mineral and rock identification services. Mr. Bones also provided entertainment to many by "eating" attendees.






























The Creede mining district was the theme for the show. Many fine specimens of native silver, amethyst and barite were on display, along with some good examples of the rarer minerals from the area.


























Dave Bunk put in a major case of Creede minerals with mining stocks as background.































It wasn't all Creede.
























Adjacent to the main show was the Fossil Expo.












There were even some fossils scattered throughout the main show.




Dealers had some new finds and some nice recycled material.















One could find some old (and new) books at the show.



There was the release of the "Jim and Dawn Minette Collection" book at the show. Saturday afternoon some of the authors and photographer were on hand to sign the book. I tend not to like "vanity" press books put out by people who have built collections by "silver picking", but many of the pieces in the book were field collected, exchanged or purchased serendipitously and the descriptions detail how they were obtained. Their major collections were borates, smithsonites, thumbnails and "mistresses".











Next year the theme of the show will be Russian minerals.











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