This year, for the first time, I visited the Sainte Marie-aux-Mines mineral show in France, and as usual at shows I took plenty of video and photos for mindat, so here is my slightly-delayed show report.

Firstly, after arriving in town, I wandered into the center of town - the show occupies the entire center of the town, which is fenced off except for half a dozen admission points where you can buy tickets and enter/exit the show. Here I am walking towards one of the entrances.

Crystal Classics/Kristalle

As usual, Crystal Classics and Kristalle set up their joint display at the show. My eye was immediately drawn to this, a classic Cubanite sixling on matrix from the Henderson No.2 mine, Quebec, Canada. Specimens of this quality on matrix are far from common.



Another fabulous pieces was this Olmiite from the N'Chwanning Mines in South Africa.



And here's a short video of a Scorodite from the Clara Mine, Germany.

Brice and Christophe Gobin

Some Gold nuggets from Madagascar, from an old collection, were the highlight of Brice and Christophe's display, Here's one:



... and another ...



I also shot a little video of the specimens:

Nick Carruth

Nick Carruth had come across from England, and had a fine specimen of Cornish Ludlamite - from Wheal Jane on offer. This stuff is NOT common, in the last 15 years I've only seen two other equivalent specimens for sale (and I bought one of them!) - whoops. Apologies to both Nick and to Mike Brooke for getting the owner of this specimen wrong in my original posting of this report.

Escault Minerals

The most striking thing at the Escault Minerals booth was a huge selection of fabulous new Cobaltian Calcite specimens from the Mashamba West Mine in the Democratic Republic of the Congo - here's Eva who was hard at work looking after the booth next to the one of the cabinets containing the pieces.



Here's a close-up of one of the better pieces.

Gminerals.com

This dealer had a nice selection of eastern-european rareties, including this impressive sample of type-locality Fizélyite

Alfredo Petrov and Frank de Wit

Invariably strange things happen when Alfreo and Frank are nearby. Alfredo had this hydraulic rock drill to show how specimens are mined in Bolivia.



But then Alfredo explained that the drills have a secondary purpose in Bolivian Dentistry, and demonstrated the correct operation of the device on Frank



Alfredo had a very nice Metastibnite specimen from the San José Mine, Oruro City, Cercado Province, Oruro Department, Bolivia

Jordi Fabre

Jordi always takes time out to show me interesting things for my reports, and this trip was no exception. Firstly, some new zoned amethyst from Morocco (He wasn't the only dealer with these specimens, but he had some of the best ones, and one of them is now in my collection).



Another interesting find was Bismuth from China. These weren't crystals - the faces in the piece you see are where it grew against quartz crystals in the pocket, but it is still an attractive specimen.



And some particularly gemmy Grossular garnets from the Jeffrey Quarry, Quebec, Canada.

Luiz Menezes

Luiz had a new find of Dolomite with Magesite (what looks like a zoned crystal with dolomite inside and magnesite on the edges) from Brumado, Bahia, Brazil.

Spirifer Minerals

Tomasz Praszkier from Spirifer Minerals had some very interesting mixed balls of Variscite and Wavellite from Wisniowka Wielka in Poland.

Webminerals SAS

Webminerals had this specimen which wasn't one of the high-end specimen, wasn't expensive, but appealed to me because of the association and colour - Proustite on Rhodochrosite from the Uchucchacua Mine in Peru



Webminerals were also one of a couple of dealers who had niec Strüverite (variety of Rutile) crystals from Madagascar - such as this one:

Wendel Minerals

Wendel Minerals always have one of the more elegantly displayed selections of minerals at the show, and always a nice selection of classic European and worldwide minerals to fill them, including this fabulous Crocoite from Callenberg, Saxony, Germany

Lino Caserini

Lino Caserini had this spectacular specimen of Quartz on Datolite from D'alnegorsk, Russia

Mineral Displays

There were a couple of public displays of minerals at the show - firstly a cabinet of excellent French Fluorite specimens

There is a video of this cabinet included within my video walkthrough of the show I posted earlier this week, click here if you missed it.

But if you can't see the video then you'll appreciate this photo of a superb Fluorite from Le Beix mine, France



Secondly, a display of local minerals from the Alsace region. Here's one of my favourites, a large Fluorite with overgrowths of Pyromorphite from Maxonchamp, Vosges, France



I did a video of the cabinet with some commentary here:

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