Every February since 1955 Tucson hosts the largest, oldest, and most prestigious gem and mineral show in the world. This is where the world goes to trade not only its gems and minerals, but also fossils, beds, jewelry, and art. It's not just one show but actually 43 separate shows that take over the city for a 2 week period. Enormous circus tents fitting about a hundred dealers are erected on vacant lots, hotels are booked solid and are shows within themselves (you walk from one dealer room to another like a potentially expensive game of trick-or-treat, vendors sell on street corners and abandoned gas stations, and the convention center is occupied with the flagship Tucson Gem & Mineral Show. This is where private collectors and museums display their prized specimens following the year's theme, and where those same private collectors go to shop for their new signature piece. It's not uncommon to see mineral specimens with price tags in the tens of thousands at this show.
It had been about half my life since I had last been to Tucson so I figured it was time for a visit. It's always fun to go and see what the new mineral discoveries are and I always find amazing wonders I never thought possible to exist. It's hard not to find something to take home, and this time around I actually had a shopping list of things to find for my mineralogy class.
We started at the 22nd Street show tent which had some impressive fossils for sale. The main prizes we found were a bit smaller and closer to our price range- classic pyrite from Nanjun, Spain, polished petrified wood slices suitable as coasters, a showy slab of green-purple Chinese fluorite. This was a good show to start with, though had Sara and I searching for an ATM before long.
Next we hit the rows of hotels west of the freeway: Quality Inn, Howard Johnson, and the Travelodge. These were good for large specimens and I found good examples of kyanite, magnetite, and rutilated quartz. These shows also had a fair bit I what I would consider junk, trying to appeal (probably quite successfully) to new age crystal healers, hippies, and hipsters. When I was looking at a dealer's nice Afghani pegmatite specimens and he realized they were out of my price range he pulled out a smaller piece at a price more difficult to turn down. One quick look and I knew it was a broken crystal that had been polished to look like the terminations were intact! Many dealers were pulling the same scam, though perhaps not quite so deliberately misleading, including one of the larger quartz crystal dealers. The main thing that caught my eye was some large and showy feldspar crystals, unfortunately the woman watching the booth didn't speak English and had no interest in selling the minerals.
Lastly, we spent about 2 hours at the convention center show (frontispiece). We probably would have needed more time to see everything thoroughly but both felt overstimulated enough as it was when closing time was announced! Great displays (including some carefully guarded collections of great value) and incredible minerals for sale. Even saw a few faces I recognized.
We ended the day with some tasty Tucson-style Mexican food on an open air patio, then a few hour drive to the Superstition Mountains. It was a great weekend away, I'll hope to do something similar next year.
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