Tucson Mineral Shows 2006 - Westward Look

 

The Westward Look show is quite some way to the north, just outside of the official town limits in the foothills overlooking Tucson to the south.

With only 24 rooms for dealers, this is the smallest and most exclusive of the venues - but the best of the best is on offer at the Westward Look - and it's where collectors with deep pockets come to shop.

Crystal Classics and Kristalle are sharing another room here - here Ida is standing with Wayne Leicht from Kristalle, and next to one of the advertising banners that Ida produced for them (see http://www.magicbanners.co.uk for more information on these).

Crystal Classics had one of the finest of the recent Moroccan Acanthite pseudomorph after Argentite.

Another pseudomorph on offer were these wonderful opal pseudomorphs after Glauberite from Coober Pedy, South Australia.

This french Metatorbernite was another desirable classic.

Prompting various "was it stuck on?" discussions (and no, it wasn't) was this neat little combination of a doubly-terminated calcite crystal on fluorite from Elmwood, Tennessee, USA.

The obligatory large, beautiful, and incredibly costly Tourmaline crystal poking out of matrix - somewhat of a feature of the dealers in this show.

A fabulous Eagle's Nest gold from Kristalle.

A beautiful Smithsonite from the Kelly mine

Ian was showing off a gold that is NOT for sale - this one is already destined for a private collection.

An incredibly pretty Burmese tourmaline.

And showing that Ian Bruce hasn't forgotten his roots - a very classy cornish chalcocite with sharp crystals over 1cm.

Here are part of the Kristalle/Crystal Classics team - from left to right, Wayne, Lois, Ian and Robin.We ended up getting Robin seconded to the mindat.org team - spending quite some time travelling around with us exploring the other shows.

Stuart Wilensky had another killer selection of rocks, including this Bunker Hill pyromorphite that was simply unbelievable.

 

Wilensky had a nice burmese Tourmaline 'mushroom' too.

Christophe and Brice Gobin just get better and better with every show:

A quick snapshot through one of their cabinets.

They had some nice large Pezzotaite crystals and a faceted stone.

but their best new material was their exquisite new Pakistani aquamarines, with a wonderfully strong colour.

Of course, Rob Lavinsky from The Arkenstone had some nice things too...

This was just one shelf of one cabinet from The Arkenstone.

A wonderful New Mexico copper.

A beautiful San Francisco Mine Wulfenite/Mimetite

This Pyromorphite, ex Ralph Sutcliffe, was pictured in the Cooper and Stanley book on Minerals of the Caldbeck Fells.

And another British classic - this Wanlockhead Galena.

Moving on from The Arkenstone, evidence that fine minerals are still coming out of India:

Mineral Decor were offering this beautiful Apophyllite piece.

Wayne A Thompson had the obligatory Big Tourmaline in Matrix too.

But my favourite from the show was this little piece from Mineral Classics - a little Pentagonite Christmas Tree!

More show reports coming in next few days!