The Munich Mineral Show Report 2007

by Jolyon Ralph

Welcome to my new-style show report for the Munich Mineral Show 2007. I'll try and give a taste of what the largest single-venue mineral show in the world is like to visit, and if you visited the show you have the option of adding your own comments and photos below to expand on what I've reported. Did I miss something interesting? Tell me and everyone else below!

There are three distinct types of dealers who sell at the Munich Show, and it is almost unique worldwide in having all three types cohabiting the same venue. The three types can be identified by how they display their specimens:

1. On individually-labelled perspex bases in locked cabinets.
2. In white card boxes.
3. Strewn randomly across the tablecloth.

I've tried to not just concentrate on the first category, as many show reports do, but instead to give an idea about specimens at all levels. Of course, not all things photograph as nicely as others, and there is a bias towards 'pretty' specimens. But I've thrown in a few photos of the rare things that I know many of you love.

Barras-Gaultier Mineraux

Click on the play button on the videos below to view two of the minerals that Barras-Gaultier Mineraux were displaying at Munich 2007.

Crystal Classics/Kristalle

Crystal Classics and Kristalle had the largest booth of the 'locked-cabinet' dealers at the show, and they were offering a mixture of material from the Philadelphia Academy collection along with other material from more recent purchases, including some brand-new and very attractive calcite crystals from the Dalen-Kjørholt Mine in Norway.















And some other samples from their cabinets...

Mineral Classics

The Kosnar Brothers had a great selection of minerals, but the two that stood out for me were firstly this super Bournonite:



And also this huge and impressive Teallite (I had seen this previously at Denver, but the photo I took then didn't come out well enough for the show report).

Jordi Fabre

Jordi had some interesting Corundum crystals from Madagascar that had interesting crystal morphology - here's a quick video of one of these (you need broadband to view this):



And another video, this one is an Ilmenite crystal with expitaxial Rutile.



Some other photos:

Gunnar Färber

Gunnar was showing off large and heavy pieces of native silver he had recently brought back from Bolivia.

Cristophe and Brice Gobin

Rob Lavinsky - The Arkenstone

And more things from Rob Lavinsky...

Francois Lietard

Francois had a Bastanasite-(Ce) for sale every bit as good, if not better, than the specimens on display in the Himalayan Mineral display (see below).

Mineralien

Ottens Mineralien

Berthold Ottens had a good selection of good quality Chinese minerals, including these that struck me as interesting:

Alfredo Petrov

Alfredo had some slices of natural Ametrine which, although not new to this show, were interesting enough to be noted. The curious thing is how they can be formed - how part of the crystal can be Amethyst and the other part turned to Citrine. Click on the photo below for one possible explanation.

Ricardo Prato

Dan Weinrich

Dan had brought a selection of great pieces over from the US for the show, here are a few short video clips of some of these pieces:

Wendell Minerals

Other Dealers

One of the many Chinese dealers (unfortunately I did not manage to get their name) had some very large and impressive samples of Wulfenite from China. Here are some of the pieces - note that these are large - sitting in standard mineral flat boxes! Apparently at least one of these pieces had already been offered (at a higher price!) at the Ste Marie show, but they are certainly new to me:

The Displays

The theme for the show this year was Alpine-type minerals, with two excellent displays in opposite ends of the show - in hall A6, an exhibit of Himalayan minerals (with particluar reference to Afghanistan and Pakistan), and in hall A4 a selection of displays relating to Alpine - particularly Swiss - minerals.











More photos from the displays:

Rogue's Gallery

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