Tokyo gem and mineral show, June 2011
Reported by Yuko Tanaka; photos by Yuko Tanaka



Considering the recent huge magnitude 9 earthquake in Japan, followed by catastrophic tsunami, meltdown of 3 nuclear power reactors, and resulting electric power shortage, Japan got a lot of negative news recently and many collectors were wondering how the Tokyo gem and mineral show would be affected. We want to show the world that the situation is surprisingly normal in Tokyo and we enjoyed a very successful show.

Several foreign dealers got scared and didn't come to Japan for the show this year, so the smaller second floor displays were cancelled and everybody fit on the main show floor. But we still got 67 Japanese dealers and 63 dealers from foreign countries.





There are still daily small aftershocks, and a few escalators and rolling sidewalks weren't operating, to save power, and a few train lines have reduced service, but otherwise the city has gone back to its usual rhythm of hard work in the daytime and parties at night!


He had meteoritic forsterites from many different pallasites - true ET gemstones!






Carion had a new find of fossils replaced by chalcedony from Western Sahara (currently occupied by Morocco).


Denis' sapphires from France and Colombia, jeremejevite, beautiful flourites.



The beer vendor sits high above the crowd, overlooking the main floor.



























The beer vendor gets money from Alfredo and Denis.



Amber is popular in Japan, and this American dealer brought REAL amber from the Dominican Republic. Some other booths had real amber too, but some had just young tree sap from Columbia.


Charles Mark trying to catch some of Australian dealer Anthony Fraser's gold with his teeth.


Wayne Leicht and Lois Nelson of Kristalle have been coming to the Tokyo show for many years, since it first started. This year, one of their specimens was the most talked about in the show: a 25cm Japan-law twin from Yamanashi prefecture that they repatriated to Japan from the Philadelphia Academy collection!


Foreigners might expect to see lots of ladies wearing kimonos, but its not so common, except in festivals. But here you see one customer in a kimono, visiting a table where amateur field collectors sell their local japanese minerals.


A couple of the Japanese dealers had pieces from a small new find in Japan: Crystallized benitoite - very rare from anywhere outside the USA! But don't get worried, California - the japanese crystals are only 1 or 2mm size. I couldn't find one big enough to cut yet :(


Many people, dealers and customers, commented how happy the atmosphere was, which was surprising, considering how miserable and depressed people were the month before, after the horrendous disasters. A big thanks to TIMA (Tokyo International Mineral Association) for their efficient organization of this happy event.

PS: In case anyone is wondering why several faces on these photos have white glare spots on them... No, it isn`t a camera defect, it`s just that in Japan, for privacy reasons, it`s considered unacceptable to publish peoples` faces, even in crowd photos, without their permission. Sorry about that :)

---

In order to leave comments to this article, you must be registered