The 27th Sussex Mineral Show, Haywards Heath, Sussex, England. November 13th 2010

Yesterday was the 27th annual Sussex Mineral and Lapidary Society show, held ever November in Haywards Heath, Sussex. Held, as usual, in Clair Hall this one-day show is one of two major UK mineral shows for collectors, the other being the Bakewell Show I reported on last month.



One of the main reasons for the show is to promote the society, at the entrance was the
club desk, where prospective members could find out more about the club activities and, if they wanted to, sign up.



Next to it was a small display of minerals and lapidary creations from members.



In front of the display, a selection of club photos from years gone past, including in some a much younger Jolyon! But here's a photo from the album of dealer Ian Bruce, who put on a display of Australian Minerals for the show in the mid 1990s



One of the most important parts of the Sussex Club show, and unique within UK mineral shows, are the talks held in the small hall adjacent to the show. The 1pm talk was from Jan Freedman, keeper of Natural History at the Plymouth Museum and Art Gallery, discussing the collections of Sir John St. Aubyn (17 May 1758 - 10 August 1839), one of the most important mineral collectors in Britain during the 18th and early 19th centuries.



Back in the main hall, the Plymouth Museum hosted a small display of minerals from the Sir John St. Aubyn collection



Note the distinctive label on the cylinder of Alum from Siciliy below.



During the talk, Jan described that type of label and several others. They are building an online database of specimens from the collection (many were sold off during his lifetime, so only a percentage are now held in Plymouth). As part of this process, they are asking for people who may have seen his characteristic labels on other specimens to get in touch. Here is the link to see the different types of labels on the collection.

And, as I was watching, I thought I recognised the label from one of my own specimens. When I got home I checked, and yes, I had one on this old specimen of Cuprite from "Siberia". I'll be emailing the photos to the the museum as soon as I've finished this article!



The museum is famed for a second, far more recent collection, it houses - the Richard Barstow collection. Richard was a UK mineral dealer in the 1970s and 1980s who tragically died very young. His collection came to the Plymouth Museum, and some of the specimens were on display at the show.







Back with the dealers, SMLS member Peter Moore, who now lives in France, had returned to sell off excess material from his collection, much of it self-collected. The prices were very reasonable and he was able to sell almost everything before he packed for home.



The biggest surprise for me at the show was seeing Californian mineral dealer, Wayne Leicht (Kristalle). Here he is with Ian Bruce and Ian's daughter Verity.



Crystal Classics/Kristalle had, as usual, the biggest selection of classic British and worldwide minerals at the show.







SMLS members Allan Mortimer (left) and Nick Hawes examine a Cumbrian baryte specimen found amongst the Crystal Classics flats.





Natural History Museum curator Alan Hart stops for a tea break with Ed from Crystal Classics



Moving along, Liz and Dave Hacker were again offering minerals for sale - here is Liz enjoying the benefits of the show bar.



In one of the smaller halls, Peter Briscoe was taking a break from his own table to look through the stock on Andy Castleton's table



While back on Peter's own table, he was offering some samples of uvarovite and yushkinite from Pakistan, including this nice specimen which I almost bought (somebody else beat me to it however).



Of course, the show offers specimens to suit all collectors at every price range, including the popular and relatively inexpensive Spanish pyrite cubes.



Ian Jones (Unity Minerals) had a rather rich sphalerite from the Mogul Mine in Ireland.



G4 Gems had nice rough gemstones, and some very interesting and unusual cut stones. Here are some of their rough gem crystals.



A regular part of the show is the competition, where invited entrants put on a display of minerals for the theme of the show, which this year was Iron Minerals.

Cabinet one was from Peter Taylor. It showed minerals from the Florence Mine in Cumbria. While not every mineral shown is an iron mineral, the mine is a classic locality for English hematite and associated minerals, and at least the matrix on each specimen is highly iron-rich!



Centerpiece was this magnificent 'kidney ore' hematite, and alongside it the classic 'pencil ore' form of the mineral.



Blue fluorite is one of the most highly regarded minerals from this locality, and this was a very nice specimen.



Here is a specimen of bladed baryte crystals.



Cabinet two was from Steve Warren.



It included this excellent ludlamite from Wheal Jane, Cornwall (38).



And this excellent hematite specimen



Cabinet three was from Paul Nicholson



First, a specimen of sphalerite from Kosovo. Dark sphalerite such as this always contains some iron, but the specimen also has siderite, an iron carbonate mineral.



Chalcopyrite is usually thought of as a copper mineral, but of course it contains iron as well as copper.



Cabinet four was from Nick Peters



A nice group of limonite pseudomorphs after pyrite from the Blaengwynlais quarry in Wales. I've been there and collected these pseudomorphs many times - this is a very nice example.



Pyrite crystals in matrix from Co. Galway, Ireland



Cabinet five was from Richard Bell



A very nice 'box' epimorph of siderite after (presumably) fluorite from the Virtuous Lady mine in Devon.



Cabinet six was from Trevor Devon. Trevor tried to show the diversity of iron mineralogy by including many different species from across the whole mineral kingdom.



Unusual minerals including this jervisite from Spain.



and this balangeroite from Italy.



Neither of these two minerals are what I'd call a true "iron mineral", as they don't have essential iron in their formula. Fortunately I wasn't judging the competition this year, this time was the turn of Mike Rumsey from the Natural History Museum.
Clearly he decided that these two minerals were, indeed, iron minerals, because he chose Trevor Devon's cabinet (number six) as the winner. Well done Trevor! Trevor is of course a member of the SMLS, and now for two years running the entrant from the club has won the competition - I would be very suspicious about this if I wasn't the person who judged the result last year!

Thanks to the SMLS for putting on another great show.

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