Tucson - fossils and rough - day 6

I finally remembered to take some pictures today - but only at one venue :)  We were at the Howard Johnson hotel show this morning and went wandering around to see the fossils and gemstone rough.  I always like to see what the beautiful stones and gems that I use look like before the get cut and polished.  Here are a few of the gemstones in the rough.

Citrine

Peridot

Purple opal

Rhodonite

Tiger Eye

Turritela agate

And here are some cool fossils. I don't remember what the names of the critters are and I'm too lazy to look them up :)

And here's Manny from El Paso Rock Shop who answered our questions about the various stones and cracked open a few geodes so we could see the crystals inside.

And here I am in front of a mongo crystal

Tucson Gem Show 2014 - Day 1

I'm back in Tucson (along with my mom) for the fun and interesting gem shows!  We arrived this morning, had some lunch at Las Margaritas, mom got a Starbuck's mocha and then we hit the shows!  Our first stop was the GIGM show at the Howard Johnson motel.

I found some beautiful lapis at Afghan Gem Jewelry.  I don't know if I got the best price around but I liked Aman and found some nice polished and faceted lapis beads.  Here's Aman with some of his beads in the background.

Aman from Afghan Gem Jewelry

My favorite turquoise dealer/miner Shellbone and his dad are at this show every year.  I have a camera that works indoors this year so my pictures are better.  Here are Shellbone, my mom and his dad (and I did not remember his dad's name and didn't think to ask! silly me!)

Shellbone, owner of Nevada Turquoise Co. (on the right), his dad (on the left) and my mom

Shellbone has some BIG gold nuggets he and his dad got while panning in Alaska.  This year they went panning in northern California and found a few more nuggets which he showed us, but they don't compare in size to Alaska nuggets.

Next we wandered around the show some more and met this very nice man, Ibrahim, from Morocco.  I got some Orthoceras pendants (also from Morocco) from him.

 

And I just thought the size and color of this gemstone ball was stunning ... I didn't ask what the stone is and I'm not quite sure.  It resembles rhodocrosite but may be pink quartz - I really should ask when I take pictures of things like this.

Our next stop was the 22nd Street show.  I didn't remember if we ever went to this show but once we got inside we did see some familiar companies like Wyoming Fossils.  This is a great show for fossils - all shapes and sizes.  We also saw this neat art by John T. Benedict of Some Distant World.  He uses parts from cars, nuts, bolts, steel and all kinds of other metal things.  Where possible he designs his pieces so the moving parts can still move!  He even has a button you push on that lantern fish to the right of his head so the lantern lights up!  Very cool!

John T. Benedict of Some Distant World in Tucson, AZ

I stopped by Pangaea Industries to see what they had for interesting fossils and stones.  I got some cool herkimer quartz rough (for a sterling or copper sandwich - details below) and an Orthoceras coaster to replace one that got broken last year at home.

We made one final stop at the Pueblo Gem show to see my favorite larimar sellers, Jens and Cynthia of Larimar Conlight.   I did get some round larimar beads ... I have a soft spot for the beautiful, Caribbean blue color of larimar!  I did a quick check at Yaushing Gems but none of the brios/drops pulled me in.  Then I checked in at Thomas Schneider Gems and found some cool roughs in amethyst and citrine and some tumbled peridot that I'll mount in a sterling washer sandwich similar to this:

And here are the stones (not the best pictures, but they're taken in a hotel room) ...

 

Brazilian amethyst and citrine, Arizona peridot

Herkimer quartz

And below is a sampling of some of the pretties I got today ...

Afghan lapis

Orthoceras

Rhodocrosite

Turquoise and spiny oyster

Larimar

Day 4 - and we go some more!

I may actually catch up on my posts today. Here are our adventures from yesterday.

We started out at GL&W at the Grant Inn. This venue has an interesting mix of sellers. Outside you could buy inexpensive beads, shells, purses and wood carvings among other things. Inside the wholesale pavilions you could buy the normal variety of precious and semi-precious stones and beads in addition to jewelry, gems and minerals from Aghanistan, Africa, Pakistan, India and many other locals. We wandered among all the booths and were drawn to one selling fossils from many locales including Morocco. We live in Morocco for 2 years so we struck up a conversation with Joe Aaronson at Pangaea Industries, Inc. It turns out we lived in Morocco before he was even born! Now does that make me old?? LOL! We did buy some fossil coasters and pendants that were both found in Morocco since they really do look cool and who doesn't want to have a 350 million year old ammonite hanging around ones neck? Here's a picture of Joe and of some of the cool fossils we got from him.



We made a short stop in the 2nd pavilion and bought some cabs - malachite/azurite for me and bloodstone for my mom since it was one of my Grandpa's favorite stones. Then we headed out to meet some of my mom's old work friends at the Old Pueblo Grill. We had a wonderful lunch. Good food, wonderful company and great service. It was a nice change from our dinner the night before! Here is a picture of our wonderful and patient server.



After lunch we went back to GL&W at the Grant Inn. I found Kalpataru at this location (they often have something different at each venue), got some really neat sterling and gemmie beads and then we headed down to Globex at the Days Inn and the Pueblo Gem and Mineral show at the Riverpark Inn so I could look for some cabs for some friends. We first wandered through Globex and it reminded me of a middle eastern bazaar. There were folks selling barrels, buckets and boxes of rough stone along with polished cabs and strands of gemstones. We saw scarves, leather shoes, interesting hats, carved statues from wood and stone, giant slabs of stone with gorgeous pictures from the stone patterns - all for sale. And there were gyros, arizona fry bread, lamb kabobs, kettle corn and much more available for eating. It was pretty amazing!

Our next stop was our final visit to the Pueblo Gem and Mineral show at the Riverpark Inn where I dug through cabs at Magic Mountain Gems (again) and fortunately was able to find some nice ones in the right price range for my friends. By the time I was done with that we were done in and ready to eat and go back to the hotel. We ate at Chop Stix which is near our hotel and headed back to the room. We were amazed to see the Oscar Meyer Wienermobile in our hotel parking lot. That is not a sight you see everyday. Here it is the next morning ...





And that ends our adventures from yesterday.