Tucson lapidary finds

The mineral specimen part of Tucson will be well covered by Jolyon and others far better than I ever could, so I thot instead I’d report what I found in the way of lapidary materials:

Expensive. That’s the best word for Tucson this year, and Tucson is rarely cheap. I found some average lap rough that was two or three times what it was last year. Most dealers attributed increases to the weak U.S. dollar rather than changes in the market. I didn’t buy nearly as much as I did last year. I did find some good affordable stuff, though, especially the last day or two.

I live near Phoenix so it’s easy to get down there for the shows; I drove there all weekend days except one. (Driving is cheaper than staying the night.) I also hit Quartzite in January, so I was full up on agate. In Tucson I like to look for the different and unusual stuff you can't find in Quartzite, so I often drive around the shows themselves and stop at roadside stands. I found a good one this year almost right across the street from the Norcross Gallery (Madagascar Minerals Show, #2 in the Colored Stone guide). They were selling out of a home (really) all kinds of Madagascar materials, at better prices than I had seen elsewhere. I got some fist-sized chunks of rose & smoky quartz, crocodile jasper, bright yellow opalized jasper, speckled black jasper, eporite (the epidote-based stone), and a large thunder egg all for less than $100. They had quite a bit of other types of jasper and other Madagascar minerals. It was their last day so the price was discounted, but even without the discount it was a good price. They promised they would be back again next year and I plan to check them out.

Another mission this year was to find some interesting but cheap stuff for tumbling for my 6-yo nephew Owen. He was so looking forward to going this year, but a small logistical issue (his family moved to Vermont) made that impossible. So I got him a tumbler for Christmas and told him I’d find him some cool stuff. One of my favorite places, MJ3 Minerals at the Rapa River show (#14) (? it’s near Congress Street and I-10, I’m never quite sure of the show boundaries) also has a lot of Madagascar materials, especially the ocean jasper my nephew likes. But it was much more expensive this year, and it didn’t look like they had picked up any new material for the last few years, so it wasn’t as interesting as in the past. I picked up some small ocean jasper pieces and marble sized garnets for Owen at $10 and $7 / pound, respectively. For myself I found some speckled white common opal, cool but expensive.

Walking just past (into?) the Rapa show I found a table in one of the tents selling Zimbabwe materials, including some clean deep purple amethyst pebbles that they let me have for $80 / kilo (no pick). My wife loves it and it was the best price I’d seen so I bought a bag. Wait till Owen sees it. No he’s not getting the whole kilo! :-)

There were tons and tons of labradorite, somebody must have opened a new mine. But I had already picked up a few pounds (yup, pounds) for $5 at a local show. The Tucson stuff would have been closer to $50. Lots and lots and lots of lapis, too, but not a single piece I would have called Grade A. Lots of peridot, too, from Colombia. It was interesting that we were only about 100 miles from the Four Peaks amethyst and the San Carlos peridot mines, but I didn’t see any of their materials there. Come to think of it, except for some old stock Sleeping Beauty turquoise I saw, there was hardly any material from Arizona at all. I did not get a chance to check out the Electric Park RV show, however, and that’s the kind of show where a lot of Arizona stuff tends to show up.

I’ve gone on for a while here and haven’t even gotten to the opal, jade, tools, gianormious bugs, and what table NOT to visit with your teenage daughter along. If anybody’s interested, I’ll continue in another post. I am very interested, though, to hear what everyone else found. Thanks!

TC



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/26/2008 01:43PM by TC Reg.

The AGTA was really another place to find amazing gem and lapidary finds and I managed to see every booth in the main show and the arena..but didn't make it across the road to the big tent which would have taken another day and I had already exhausted myself doing the AGTA in two days.
If I can figure out how to transfer photos successfully to this site, which I haven't to date, [luddite genes] then I will share some of the amazing material that I saw there, including the largest yet emerald to be cut from Hiddenite, NC
and the finest Ethiopian opal that I have ever seen [a vid]

Ray,

You can attach a single pic to a post by clicking the "Attach a file..." link that appears just above the text entry box and browsing to where the pic is stored on your computer. If you have more than one pic, just post multiple times, once for each pic.

Please do, they sound very interesting!

hello, some great vintage agates....please e mail me for details....( just show and tell )....regards, Joe

world's largest clean Tsavorite garnet from a displayer in AGTA Tucson.
{my first attempt at attaching any kind of photo to Mindat, so I hope it works}

This was a 12 plus carat hiddenite emerald [taken through the glass of its case] that was stated to be the largest recently cut stone from that location
I was just looking at a case when this came out of the pocket of the mine owner.

Wow, those are beautiful stones. What's the cut on the garnet?

TC

not sure, as the lighting just wasn't very helpful for a through the glass photo. I have many other shots, but don't want to flood the string, now that I know how to attach photos..

As long as they are on topic, I think that's OK.

Greetings,

these are turn of the century ( 1900-1910 ) chalecedony nodules from a locality described as " Amazon River Basin....cheers, joe

[www.mindat.org]

[www.mindat.org]

[www.mindat.org]

[www.mindat.org]



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/29/2008 01:54AM by Joseph Freilich.

Wow Joe, they have the richest hue and colour density of any naturally coloured chalcedonies that I have seen...nice finds.