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There is a block with tents filled with minerals from Morocco on one side of the street on the Southeast corner of Helen St. and Alder Ave. This is not far from the new Mineral City show. There are quite a few buildings and businesses that have slowly accumulated in this area (although now things seem to be moving MUCH faster). After looking at the Moroccan stuff on the Helen/Alder corner, cross the street to the side that has the block building as well as tents. This building used to house Top Gem years ago but now carries minerals strictly from Madagascar. The tents in this lot have Moroccan minerals also. This year there was some above average material in the Morocco tents. I really don't know where to start as I saw and bought quite a lot of good things! There was some spectacular Botryoidal Hematite from the Irhoud Mine. There was one tent that had some that was far and away better than the rest. I ended up getting a dozen nice specimens, some of which are bigger than the one shown here. |
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2019 Tucson Gem Show Report Updated April 08, 2019 4:00 PM Eastern Morocco Tents on Helen Street You are on Page Five. |
Above Left: Vanadinite crystal cluster from Morocco Above Right: Wulfenite crystals - Morocco Immediate Left: larger Cerussite with barite - Morocco lower center- unusual chalcopyrite from Morocco that I probably should have gotten. Lower Right- Lower quality hematite flats |
There was some galena crystals coated with a sparkling druse of cerussite and accompanied by bladed Barite. Some of the galena crystals had nice octahedral shapes but since there is a druse coating the galena shape isn't too obvious. The cerussite druse varies in size. Some of the druse coating is a very tiny crystal size and some had larger cerussite crystals on the druse. To add further variety, the barite blades varied in color from white. tan, peach, pink and orange colors! Some of the blades made rosettes, some tried to form them and some made no effort at all. I ended up buying several flats of this material which hailed from Mibladen, Morocco. |
Some of the vendors (the ones with poorer material) tried uplifting messages to encourage a sale. I wasn't buying what they were selling in that regard. |
As the travel guides sometimes say in relation to traveling to a foreign land: "Prepare for a hefty dose of hassle". In other words, the Moroccan's subscribe to the theory that high pressure sales tactics work. |
Sometimes, when I would ask what a flat of minerals cost they would give me an answer and if I didn't immediately pull out my wallet in response to their answer they would ask "How much do you want to pay?" This is a clever tactic on their part. If you're not carefull you'll be "wanting to pay" for something that you really don't want to pay for at all. |
There was some specimens with much larger cerussite crystals on the galena and on barite. I bought a few of these but didn't take pictures. There was also some single cerussite crystals, presumably some larger ones that detached from the plates. I did buy a flat of those but the quality is poor. They are good crystals but are not pretty. |
There was some native silver about. Some had herringbone-type crystals and some were ram's horn wires. Several of the dealers had some in good to great quality. There was one guy there that was crazier than a shithouse rat but Boy did he have some good silver! |
If you're interested in a nice wire silver specimen be sure to let me know as I currently have some very good ones for sale. |
With the fear of inducing silver toxicity, I'll now move along to the next item. Vanadinite is synonymous with Morocco. Over the years the supply and quality have been cyclical but this year was a return to the lush times of vanadinite. I saw specimens similar to the big hits of '06. The prices are much higher now than they were back then, but still a relative bargain compared to the last decade of sparse supply. |
The larger pieces like the one shown below were priced at around a thousand bucks. These will be marked 2 or 3 times that price by most sellers - if not even higher! The one shown at right was much larger than usual but had small cherry-red vanadinite crystals on the barite blades. Most of the pieces of this type are usually much smaller in overall size. |
Penny for scale. The color is slightly off on these photos. Lower right: I saw several really nice clusters of quartz crystals that were red in color and were a type of "cactus quartz". Lower Left: Huge smoky barite crystals. |
The next part of my Tucson Report deals with digging. Each year I do some digging when I am Out West. CLICK HERE to join me in the quest for wulfenite crystals at the FINCH MINE. |
Cerussite is a lead mineral and it is shockingly dense and heavy for its size. People expect the more widely known lead mineral, galena, to be heavy but the cerussite, being a transparent crystal, is usually found to be surprisingly heavy when picked up by someone that is unfamiliar with it. |
Right: My odometer shows that my Trip to the Tucson Show and back was almost FIVE THOUSAND MILES |