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Mineral ShowsThe Denver Show

8th Sep 2013 01:30 UTCRock Currier Expert

We drove into Denver yesterday afternoon and got there three hours later than we should have because a loaded lumber truck turned over in the east bound lane causing the East bound I70 to close and a 20 mile traffic jam. Just finished setting up our tent which will open tomorrow at 10AM. It has been very hot, in excess of 90 degrees although the weather man promises lower temperatures tomorrow. One Mexican dealer over at the show in the Coliseum parking lot apparently has some fine new scorodites on pyrite from Mexico at high prices. That's all the news that is fit to print for now.

8th Sep 2013 02:42 UTCRudy Bolona Expert

An overturned semi truck on I-70? You're kidding! This is almost a daily occurrence on this overcrowded, outdated highway.

8th Sep 2013 03:25 UTCAaron Cross

Rudy's right about that! Don't trust the weather people here, they are wrong 90% of the time, but it "should" get cooler later this week. Have a great show and hope to see you there, this week is going to be great!

8th Sep 2013 03:55 UTCDean Allum Expert

Rock, It has not been a good year for traffic in Colorado, but that is the first time I heard about a log-jam on I-70.

8th Sep 2013 04:45 UTCSteve Hardinger 🌟 Expert

Not as bad as the I-70 closure when the big rock rolled down in Glen Canyon a few years ago?

8th Sep 2013 17:24 UTCPhilip Persson Expert

Hi Rock, Dean, Rudy, Aaron and gang,

Meant to post something on here earlier but I figure I'll throw it out as a possibility now- I'm having a BBQ get together at my house in Denver, ~2 miles from the show venues on Larimer Street just north of Downtown, on Friday the 13th, or possibly Thursday the 12th if that works better for folks (right now I have sent out the invite for Friday.) I know that you usually do the Mindat meeting in your tent space Rock, but I wanted to toss out the possibility of having it at my house after the show hours on Friday, as I have a large backyard/picnic table with lots of chairs etc... and we could probably grill some food and have a little beer as well. Anyways, Other Mindat friends are certainly invited for the BBQ Friday night, and if you're interested in having the Mindat meeting there as well, that would be great. I was thinking around 6:30-7 PM, and have it be potluck style; ie bring something to put on the grill or an adult beverage. There will also be lots of various Colorado rare species 'yard rocks' around the house for the taking for anyone interested. :) If you'd like to RSVP; send me a PM and I'll give you my address, or search 'Mindat Mineral Friends BBQ' on Facebook.

cheers,

Phil Persson

9th Sep 2013 02:59 UTCRock Currier Expert

Philip,

That sounds like a plan and a better place to have a mindat meeting. Jolyon won't be here in Denver and your back yard sounds like a much nicer place to have a meeting than my tent. Just set a definite evening and Ill be there and being some grub and drink. If past years attendance is any indication would suspect that we are probably talking about 20 people at the most, but set a date and time and lets see how many respond. Who ever responds you can send your address by private message.

9th Sep 2013 13:48 UTCChris Stefano Expert

I'd like to attend

9th Sep 2013 15:57 UTCPhilip Persson Expert

Hi Rock,

Great, should we say Friday September 13th at 7:00 PM? Is there a way to make this a Mindat event of some sort, or perhaps a different thread topic on the message boards, so that people see it? I am actually setting up at the merchandise mart on Friday through Sunday, selling a portion of my personal collection to help finance grad school, but I'm hoping to head directly home after the show ends at 6:00 PM Friday and it shouldn't take too long to set things up. I'm fine with 20-ish people.

I don't foresee anyone reading this whom I wouldn't want to attend the meeting/BBQ so I'll just post my address here:

3139 Larimer St.

Denver, CO, 80205

From the show venues, take Washington street south to 38th Avenue, where you hang a left/continue straight under the railroad bridge to Walnut St., hang a right here, then left at the next light and stay in your right lane which turns onto Larimer... follow Larimer St. south to 33rd St. and park on the right between 33rd and 32nd; we are the house with the wooden fence and garden between the two larger buildings.

Cheers,

Phil Persson

10th Sep 2013 01:42 UTCAaron Cross

That sounds great Phil. I'll try and make it, I have my sons that night so we'll have to see! I do know my boys and I are going to have a great weekend with the shows!

10th Sep 2013 08:43 UTCRock Currier Expert

That sounds good. See you then.

10th Sep 2013 08:57 UTCRock Currier Expert

Today (Monday) at the Denver show the temperature dropped into the 80s, But in the late afternoon there was a violent rain, wind and hail storm that blew through and we were worried that the tent would collapse. Some dealers in the small tents had enough water blow in to ruin their flats. The tent to the south of us was so torked out of shape they had to evacuate it till they could fix it. An Indian dealer, Fasi Makki from Pune is here with some disco balls of green apophyllite. One of the Russians had some azurite nodules about walnut size that had been cut in half and polished that showed nice concentric banding inside the nodule.The number of customers at the Ramada Inn seemed much less today than yesterday.

11th Sep 2013 02:39 UTCAaron Cross

That sucks rock! Not much better today either, and tomorrow is calling for morning rain. Hopefully it clears up later this week!

17th Sep 2013 22:35 UTCRock Currier Expert

The Denver show is over and at least we didn't get washed away, at least not in our tent. There was one ripper of a storm that had us looking for which table we were going to dive under when the tent collapsed, but it didn't come to that. There was plenty of water that came washing in over the asphalt in out tent and out the other side down into the tent to the east of us in the front parking area of the Ramada hotel. We had all of our stuff up on pallets, so none of our flats got trashed. Some of the other dealers who were not prepared had large numbers of boxes and flats turned into paste by leaving them on the floor. One small tent lost its roof, and the tent to the east of it had its tent poles lifted off the ground and walked around inspire of people hanging on to them to keep them down and the tent had to be evacuated till the supporting poles were repositioned and a few extra tie downs added. The rain didn't seem to hurt sales however and we did at least as good as we have ever done in Denver and one of the heavy rain days turned out to be the single best day we have ever had in Denver. I don't have a clue as to why that happened. Most people thought the storm (supposedly a 500 year storm) kept people away. We saw the same images on TV as the rest of the people in the country, but we did not persoanlly see anything like what was shown on TV. I think that the club show in the Merchandise Mart that opened later than any of the other shows was hurt more by the storm than the others. All the time devoted to the "disaster" I think kept people away. Those that came earlier didn't see all the stuff that came later on TV. The fact that a couple of storms in Mexico killed more people was hardly acknowledged compared to all the media frenzy that went with the Colorado rain. Just another of the examples of the press blowing things out off proportion in the scramble to increase viewer share.

18th Sep 2013 08:21 UTCJohn Lindell Expert

Phillip, thanks for hosting us. Greatly enjoyed meeting you. Thanks to Ray Hill for his excellent cooking. Short but informative meeting followed by short but intense partying. The event definitely fueled the gossip next day at the show. Nuf said. Had a great time. John

18th Sep 2013 13:38 UTCVincent Rigatti

I have to agree with Rock attendance seemed down this year at all the shows, no pushing or shoving or big crowds. I think the rain and weather was to blame for that. Saw lots of good rocks though, the Lillie collection was truly amazing and so were the prices. The Spann exhibit of tourmaline at the Merchandise Mart was mind blowing and worth the price of admission. Overall prices seemed higher than past years and I didnt see as many tourmalines, and what I saw was very pricey.

I have to disagree with Rock on his assessment of the flooding we experienced in Colorado. It kept people away for sure , especially those that lived north of Denver. In Denver it was not that bad with around 8 inches of rain, but still a lot for our dry climate, and we were lucky. But go north to Boulder, Longmont, Estes Park where they received over 15 inches and the damage is epic. Consider that is steeper terrain with a few major canyons that drain water from the mountains, put that much rain in the system and there is nothing to stop it. Thousands of homes destroyed, bridges and roads washed out, rock slides, mud slides, multiple dams breached, and towns like Estes isolated except from the west through RMNP. It will be a long, long time before all the road damage and homes are replaced or repaired, and winter is right around the corner. There are still lots of people missing and unaccounted for and 8 confirmed deaths.On top of that 1,500 homes destroyed, 18,000 homes damaged, 30 bridges destroyed. I have seen videos of the damage from the air and it is truly epic on a large scale.I agree that the press does blow things out of proportion many times but this was a 500 year flood event and a real disaster.

18th Sep 2013 20:03 UTCRock Currier Expert

Yes the 500 year rain event, (some were saying a 1000 year event) did cause some damage, even considerable damage, but the loss of life was small compared to other storm related events in the world. Probably we had more people killed on the highways outside of Colorado than in that rain event. Usually on Saturday we have a large number of families with children coming through our tent with the kids looking to grab and pick up any pretty rock that strikes their fancy. If they are unattended by parents we usually end up selling them as slaves to the middle east. (That's a joke by the way.) I think the rain effectively kept these to a minimum.

The mindat party was really fun. We were worried that it might be rained out or that there might be too many people there, but again I think the rain may have kept things small. Perhaps only 10 to 15 people. Much thanks to Philip Persson who offered us the use of his mansion and it grounds nestled delightfully between a tortilla factory and a restaurant in an industrial strength neighborhood with in walking distance of down town Denver. I suspect as time passes we will work his fingers and patience to the bone here on mindat. Ray Hill, our gourmet cook made a couple of great big salads which I pigged out on and some other dishes. We all frankly discussed the problems we felt needed to be fixed on mindat and I am sure that they will all eventually be passed on to Jolyon, though I know he already know about them. I was designated driver for a certain Polish person and his companion and upon our arrival back at the Ramada it was very obvious that one was needed. They did manage however to exit my car under their own power and I think they made it back to their room OK.

21st Sep 2013 17:02 UTCJean Sendero

Hello Rock,

a general question, you wrote "One Mexican dealer over at the show in the Coliseum parking lot apparently has some fine new scorodites on pyrite from Mexico at high prices. " These are from the Ojuela, apparently.

Any more you can tell about these?

Thanks

Jean

5th Oct 2013 21:24 UTCRay Hill Expert

I for one was glad that I was wearing my trekking shoes to the main show, and not my good leathers. This was because on the evening that Mike was talking about Tourmalines after the main show, the parking lot outside was turned into a local river with about 8 inches of water flowing around my parked car. I took a vid of a cab driving in front of the convention centre and the bow wave was going over the front bumper. So, for me, water was the biggest thing at the main show. At the hotels, Tony , was selling some very unique and very ancient volcanic bombs with mineralized centers, . The Smithsonian gang apparently had commented that these geological oddities were the most interesting things at the show that they had seen up til then.......I will post some pics later in the general box FYI. They are all quite cool looking. I was also glad to find some nice Rod Tyson collected Gormanites in Rock's tent. Took a lot of pics at the show, and at the hotels, and at the Colorado school of mines, some of which I will try and post on the main general board, and probably some on FB too. If not for the weather, I would have had an interesting peg field trip with Phil Persson, so I am hopeful that we can arrange a successful field trip during Tucson...Phil you have been given notice...ha ha and LOL x 2. Anything has to be better than the two consecutively failed attempts to collect this year at Tucson.<.those who went know what I am talking about>.

5th Oct 2013 23:39 UTCSteve Hardinger 🌟 Expert

Jean, I suspect Rock was referring to Gemex (I think that's the spelling), who (for as long as I can remember) have a tent outside the Coliseum, and stock hundreds of flats of Mexican material, much of it from Ojuela Mine. Based on Rock's tip I visited this vendor's tent on Thursday afternoon (in the pouring rain). I found some low quality, overpriced pyrites, but no scorodites. Maybe I didn't look hard enough, but the pyrite quality alone was enough to dissuade me from hunting through the six or so flats of this material in inventory.

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