This weekend Mandy and I went to what is known as "the Franklin Show." Technically it was the 36th Annual New Jersey Earth Science Association Gem & Mineral Show sponsored by the Franklin-Ogdensburg Mineralogical Society - but everyone just calls it "the Franklin Show." Mandy and I have been coming to the show for years and it is always a great time. There are many well-known East Coast dealers that attend the show and there is always a good showing of mineral "characters" too! Above is a view of the outdoor dealers area. If you can believe it, we talked to one of the dealers who actually slept in his car in order to get the best spot!



















Just minutes after Mandy snapped this picture of me waving like an idiot, we ran into Chet Lemanski. Chet had just come from the "Garage Sale" over at the Sterling Hill Mining Museum. Mandy and I had been coming to mineral shows at Franklin for years now and we never knew about this mineral sale that goes on over at the Sterling Hill Mining Museum that is just a few miles away. Boy, was I jealous when I saw the specimens that Chet snatched up. The most impressive specimen that he showed me was a dazzling, cabinet-sized cubanite specimen that hosted what was probably a 2.5cm cubanite SIXLING beautifully centered on the matrix. Needless to say, the second I saw that Mandy and I made tracks to the museum!





















Believe it or not, after all of our trips to Franklin over the years, we have never visited the Sterling Hill Mining Museum. On the premises there are numerous displays of old mining equipment, rows of mine cars lining "Joe Cilen Street" - the main road into the facility, a giant stamp mill that was hauled all the way from the Old Terrible Mine that was located in the Dragoon Mountains of Arizona, and all kinds of giant machine parts strewn about. Aside from giant artifacts, there are numerous bronze sculptures around the property. What is really fascinating about them is that they are very detailed in terms of the old mining equipment they are carrying.




















If you look closely, you can see that there is a group of people congregated under that roof in the distance. This is where the museum's "Garage Sale" was being held. Unfortunately we got here too late and things were already quite picked over. However, they were putting out new material througout the day and there were numerous collectors hovering about like buzzards waiting for the next batch of material. Unfortunately we didn't have time to do this because we were meeting up with someone who had a collection for us of both worldwide specimens and an incredible suite of 40 or so Langban specimens! There are 40+ Langban specimens from the Harvard Museum that we just acquired and, after we get some help with some ID's, we'll figure out what to do with them - certainly we'll be adding some pictures to the mindat database of course!



















































Mandy and I got a great laugh out of this sculpture. It looked more like an illustration of "Stranger Danger" than that of an inquisitive young child being mentored by a kindly old miner. From this angle it looks as though this creepy miner was dragging a struggling child off to his lair in the deep, dark, underworld below. If I had seen this statue as a child I think it would've scared me away from the hobby!


P.S. If you enjoyed this blog, this is only the abridged version - you can see much more at www.mineralman.com!

Also, if you missed Blog Entry #1, you can see it HERE!

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