Tucson Gem Show - Day 2 (posted a day late)

I was just too tired last night after catching up on all the business related emails to take bead pictures and share them all with you.  I totally forgot to take any venue pictures!  Even today I only took pictures at the new venue (for us) that we visited - but I did get some good ones there.

Yesterday I started out at the JGM - Simpson St. show on its first day to make sure I got first crack at the beads that Toyo Feng of Feng's Trading brought to the show.  He always has wonderful quality, he knows exactly what/how it's made, if the stone has been treated and he often has some cool cuts!  I found him 4 years ago and he is one of a few dealers that I have to visit on the first day of the show. Oh he had some beautiful stuff!  Kingman and Sleeping Beauty turquoise, some gorgeous carved ovals of mosaic creek jasper, beautiful carved citrine leaves .... ah I could go on and on - but I'll let the pictures show the story since I forgot to take a picture with Toyo!  Hotel room pictures are never the best - but hopefully you'll get a feel for how beautiful the stones are.  As you can imagine I spent a lot of time looking through beads!

Various turquoise shapes (and the bright blue pendant is Sleeping Beauty! and those green hue tubes are Kingman!)

more turquoise

Sleeping Beauty turquoise and white agate

Citrine and carnelian

Exquisite carved citrine leaves

Angelite and the cutest little, flat pyrite squares I've ever seen!

Aren't these just the coolest carved barrels in red creek jasper?

Petrified wood beads - wow!

Blue Lace Agate - always a favorite of mine

Natural pearls and nephrite jade from British Columbia

Golden obsidian and purple jasper

After lunch my mom and I had to get something cleared up with the rental car company (I was on empty after only 1 day of driving and they marked full on my contract - oops!) and then we hit Gem Mall.  We went to the 1000 building to start and I didn't see too much that got my creative juices flowing.  I did have to go to Nirvana beads because they were selling the "cultured sea glass" beads for Znet shows and I love to use that in designs.  Unfortunately that was not a pleasant experience.  Our salesman, Nir (who, it turned out after some googling late last night, is the company PRESIDENT!!!) spent almost my entire visit at his booth complaining about Chinese vendors, Chinese products, ...  Why he agreed to sell fake sea glass for a Chinese company in his booth is beyond my comprehension since he was quite negative about the glass, showed total disdain to those wanting to buy it and, even more amazing to me, made no attempt to show the buyers how they could pair the sea glass with his beautiful Czech beads.

I had to go digging through piles and boxes myself (since he didn't even know what products he brought to the show) to try to find some matching fire polished rounds for the sea glass I picked out.  I only found 2 colors that matched.  I have to wonder why he didn't make sure, before he packed for the show, that he had Czech beads that complemented the sea glass.  That seemed like a real easy way to improve sales to me. But it does require some planning ahead of time and you do need to actually talk to the customer about what they want so you can offer them some complementary beads in your own product line.

Anyway - I spent very little since he did not have many of the sea glass styles I like, had very few Czech beads to match and I really wanted to minimize my time around him.  I only caught his first name while I was there but my mom was sure that this Nir was the Nir in Nirvana beads.  It turns out she was right!  Once I found out who he was I sent a scathing email to the company contact email because I just couldn't believe any company president could act that way.  I've had vendors totally ignore me, in which case I leave, and some don't really warm up until they see that you're serious about buying - but I have never heard the amount of negativity that I heard from Negative Nir. Oh - and I had to bag everything up myself!  He just handed me his cell phone to sign for the credit card purchase and walked away!

Nir did respond this morning and apologized.  He said he would take my comments to heart.  I don't know that I'll actually go visit him again to find out because I have had so many pleasant dealings with Starman (Czechbeads.com).  They have a very professional display at the shows (bundles of beads are not just piled wily-nily on tables) and their sales staff is helpful, positive and friendly.

Anyway - I don't want to end this post with that negative interaction so here are the pretty beads that I was able to get at Nirvana.  Won't those Czech rounds look just gorgeous in a cascade above the glass drops?