The Westward Look Mineral Show 2008

My first show visit for the 2008 season was the Westward Look show - a small show for high-end dealers to exhibit their best specimens for their best buyers. After a tortuous nearly 24-hour journey from grey wintery England I was justly rewarded with beautiful sunny skies and very fine minerals.

Collector's Edge

Steve from Collector's Edge showed some of his 'back room treasures' for our report. First, this gorgeous Red Dome Cuprite, which can only be shown best when backlit - here we backlit the top half to show the contrast between the normal view of the specimen in reflected light, and how it appears when light is shone straight through.



We have seen quite a few of the Apatite crystals from Sapo Mine in Brazil recently, but these new specimens of stacked crystals were absolutely incredible.



This specimen is a complete floater, perfectly terminated at each end, a curved string of crystals in a gentle arch - it is baffling to try to imagine how this formed.

Stuart Wilensky

There are several dealers selling this new pink/purple calcite from China, which has been described by some as pink calcite, rose calcite, and even amethystine calcite. Thankfully Stuart has just labelled his as 'Calcite on Calcite', but this specimen is almost certainly one of the best.

Crystal Classics

Crystal Classics had several cabinets of fine material, but a cabinet of minature specimens caught my eye - these are from the Rheinlander collection, and these were two of my favourites:

Victor Yount

Victor Yount had a large array of specimens spreading from the bedroom to the bathroom in his Westward Look room. Many were spectacular, but I especially liked this enormous Trona specimen from Owens Lake, California.



And sitting next to his bedside lamp was this enormous and gemmy plate of gem Sphalerite from Spain

Mineral Classics

Over in the Mineral Classics room I met up again with the Kosnars and they showed me some of their recent acquisitions. Firstly, a new find of Vauxite from Bolivia, but with a much more intense colour than other recent finds - these really glow.


And they had more of the neat pseudomorphs of Copper after Aragonite - but this time they have tried to match an original unaltered Aragonite with eac of the pseudomorphs to give you a 'before' and 'after' set - very nicely done!



Finally, they had a selection of very nice new Dioptase from Tantara mine, Congo, that could at first glance be easily mistaken for Tsumeb material - here is one example:

Jesse Fisher - UK Mining Ventures

Jesse wasn't exhibiting at Westward Look, but he couldn't resist showing off one of the better things of the 2007 finds at the Rogerley Mine in England - the 2007 finds of Fluorite are probably the best so far, and the 2008 mining season.

Gobin Minerals

The Gobin Brothers brought another suite of fine minerals to the show, including these:

Ausrox

Ausrox had an incredible selection of Tsumeb Azurite crystals - from the old Sam Gordon collection.



Finally, the most impressive specimen of the show by far is this incredible find of Gypsum on Shoe from the gypsum beds of South Australia - it's estimated the shoe is no more than five years old, and shows how quickly the gypsum grows in these deposits.



Now, has anyone seen an Australian collector wearing just one shoe?

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