Once again it's time for the annual Bakewell Mineral show here in the UK, organized by the Peak Lapidary and Mineral Society.



One of the two major UK mineral shows (the other is the Haywards Heath show, in just under a month's time), the Bakewell Show is a major event for many UK mineral collectors and dealers.

First stop on my walk around the show was to see Peter Ward's cabinet of (mostly) Northern England minerals. He had some interesting epimorphs of quartz after Fluorite which were from a new find, although to be honest epimorphs after Fluorite don't excite me that much. But he also had some very nice barytocalcite specimens from Nentsbery Haggs mine.



He had two very nice large specimens of classic red barrel-shaped crystals of mimetite or, as it's known from this locality, campylite - from the Dry Gill mine in Cumbria.



Moving along, Ian Bruce of Crystal Classics brought along almost every UK mineral in his inventory to the show, flats of minerals were piled up and serious collectors settled down to an hour or two of slowly and carefully sifting through every box looking for something special.



Of course, I was no exception, and I went through boxes hunting out interesting things for this report. Firstly, this brochantite from the Caldbeck Fells, Cumbria. This specimen used to be in the Philadelphia Academy collection.



Next, a baryte from Cumbria.



and finally (I could have filled this report just with photos from Crystal Classics, but I have to find room for everyone else!), a nice langite specimen from the Tresavean mine in Cornwall.



Collector Steve Warren was selling minerals for the first time at the Bakewell show this year, good finds can often be found from people thinning their collections, and this was no exception. Firstly, two great blue fluorite specimens from the famous Florence Mine in Cumbria.



Another piece of his that I really liked was this chalcedony from the Trevascus mine in Cornwall.



Robert and John Lawson again had new finds to show me - first was this new find of black tourmaline, which they have labelled as schorl, from Co. Sligo, Ireland. This discovery was worked jointly with Stephen Moreton, who also had specimens from this find on offer.



Another very interesting offering was a new find of blue fluorite from Cumbria, but unlike the ones above not from the Florence Mine, but a new locality Gutterby Pit on Cleator Moor, Cumbria. This fluorite is interesting as it is directly associated with yellow fluorite. The specimens were apparently mined a year ago.



Broadstone Minerals had a bunch of nice specimens, I liked this rutile from Graves Mountain, Georgia, USA in particular.



Don Edwards had a selection of interesting smoky quartz crystals, from Mount Sinai, Egypt - a country you don't often see minerals from (with the exception of the hematite pseudomorphs after marcasite and pyrite that you see from time to time).



Nike Merry had his usual collection of mostly Devon and Cornwall minerals. This one, another specimen from the old Philadelphia Academy collection, struck me as interesting, it's argentine, which is an old name for a variety of calcite with a silvery lustre. This specimen is from the South Roskear mine in Cornwall.



And he had a nice minature cuprite and copper combination from , again in Cornwall, which was a nice inexpensive example from this mine.

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Moving on to Midland Minerals, I spotted a nice dolomite from the classic spanish locality of Eugui. I have wanted one of these for years, and hadn't seen any for sale at UK shows for around a decade. I finally found one and bought it at the Ste Marie-aux-Mines show in June this year, and now in October I see another one for sale in the UK again. It's probably the world's best locality for Dolomite.



Dave and Liz Hacker had their usual selection of fine Northern England and foreign minerals, and included in the latter was a group of really nice calcite specimens from the Edong mining district in Hubei, China. They were nice cabinet-sized specimens with exquisite crystal forms - each piece was very different, and I decided I would treat myself to one as a birthday gift - it was hard to choose which one to keep. Here is one I didn't keep (I'll take a photo of the one I bought later and upload it to mindat).



Finally, another new find, this time from the Isle of Arran, a place dreaded by undergraduate geologists for it's unforgiving climate. I can't recall ever seeing specimens on sale from Arran (although I do have some self-collected epidote from there as a reminder of my undergraduate geology mapping days). Mike Wood found a pocket of some rather nice smoky quartz crystals and twinned orthoclase. Here's one of the quartz crystals, about 6cm tall. Locality is Glen Rosa on the Isle of Arran, Scotland.



My next show will be the Munich Mineral Show at the end of October.

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