What's Hot In Tucson: 2013 - Part 2

[Music] [Music] [Music] just walking in here and seeing these cases god you got an unbelievable setup here thank you we try and make it look like a gallery it's a lot of work on the front end yeah it's fantastic i love it colors unbelievable so should we start uh perhaps with this case here dive in yeah this is a hell of a piece wonderful so that it weighs about two pounds it's a fairly significant kongsberg silver and as you know the the silvers of this kind of mass really came out mostly hundreds of years ago people say that but it's rare that we can prove it so interestingly this came out at an auction in amsterdam in the 1960s okay and see this these are solders where it was attached to a presentation platter wow and this would have been a gift given to royalty at the time it was in the family and they said that it was in their family by the 1700s wow and copenhagen was actually a duchy or a relation to the crown of norway so this makes sense yes and the grandson then of the man who bought this which he called the dragon yeah in the 60s separated it from the presentation platter and sold the platter at christie's and kept this as a souvenir can't blame him because people wouldn't relate to the silver itself how important the specimen itself is important you hear he got it on the plate and here you got the silver that's fabulous they sold the plate yeah apparently for something like 50 or 60 000 and the silver which is worth much more exactly went on the mantelpiece exactly that's yeah i love it it's a it's a nice context wonderful this is fantastic yeah yeah here's what i'm going to do yes this was specifically arranged by federico pezzada it was the largest such crystal that they found in digging in about 2002 to 2003. to use as an illustration of the changes of the crystal yeah so watch that's one and here i'll go two slices up and look how different the pattern is going to be if you hold them up you see that so there are only two slices different shows the variance when this was forming and with the solutions and elements the changes look at that that is incredible yeah there's another one from the top of the crystal yeah yeah that's more diamond shape yeah so now the top of the crystal is mercury even more yeah they call mercedes uh style and then there's one slice up yeah it's fascinating yeah africa up there that's so funny look at the shape of that nugget isn't that neat actually it even has alexandria the lighthouse the gulf yes it's fantastic i assume this is australia it's australia so you know where i can tell the color yeah this is very rich gold it's a high percentage of gold it's like in the 90s yes 96 or something yeah that's fantastic it is remarkably africa like yeah it is that's fantastic i love it look at that thing this is the time to get tanzanite the mine won't be around forever oh my god this is a fabulous opportunity now at uh at urusha there was a recent conference and they said the mine is something like a kilometer and a half deep already i mean it's it's not going to be there forever unbelievable yeah oh that's a fabulous crystal is that good oh it's wonderful yeah and that's with no fancy lighting that's right it glows well actually before we close this up i was going to show you one thing i think might surprise you sure i know you used to work for rex harris back in the red barrel mine oh very much so for several years let me show you let me show you what turned up in an old stash oh my god there's about four carrots there's three and a half carrots yes holy cow that's that's the best car store i've ever seen what really oh yeah by far the cleanliness in this size i thought there were i thought there was a an eight carat stone and a four carrot stone out there um i've never got to see him he he bought a piece of broth it was 200 no he was asking 200 000 for the crystal but it wasn't really a great crystal and what happened they decided to have it cut and the cutter had a problem it would have produced a seven carat stone but it broke so that's where the three and two that's where the rumor of that large stone came that is correct that is correct this is a killer stone holy cow see i don't have the context i wasn't around then that's right but you would rank that among the very best bye for the the best one i've personally seen i never did see the finished cut of those other ones now what does this did they say what it actually went it's 3.1 carat i wonder if this is could it be one of those i i guarantee it has to be it was that rare oh horribly rare look at this color killer color that is a fabulous thing you were involved in this as well right i had 35 of these things at one time and they brought them to the northwest federation show northeast excuse me i said northwest northeast federation shows well noah's actually in boston and it blew them away they couldn't they couldn't believe this case i put up with these things yeah i i actually bought the the majority of these blue caps of the important ones from bill and ed that was probably a wise decision for 20 years this these smithsonites came out of schwa that's right in mexico yeah and everyone says well there's more yeah yeah that's kind of common and it's mexico exactly it's not that valuable and now they're gone um this is this is the collection of carrie cooper uh doctor in phoenix part of it and he put this together over about 20 years fantastic never have seen this before literally a collection like you say i like this one yeah that with that knot on it look at that thing and that neat there's a little little violet running in there and what happens is often you you'll see these turn up at mineral shows relabeled as kelly smith's knife from new mexico and two or three times the price yeah exactly you have to look at the matrix oh yeah you could tell right away from the matrix that's wonderful yeah so i have um really neat there are about 60 pieces and every one of the 60 pieces is different we have some of our other venues yeah exactly the color of that look at that so you know you talk again about the undervaluing of minerals from mexico and minerals where things are coming out yeah this turned up in a european collection and uh he found it on ebay for 500. from the dealer in europe you see that yeah you never know oh yeah it pays to look i catch it what is the what what is this here more smithsonite oh it's a secondary overgrowth okay look at that that is so neat look at the size of that not back in my early days you never saw anything like this i saw one from your collection yeah with a label from the 70s from idaho yeah oh that was the cat's meow back then you're just lucky to get one look at this talking about museum type specimen that is really neat the style in this pocket is very diverse in terms of aesthetics there's flat plates three-dimensional pieces but i think in general it'll be known for these robust this way we're called the epitome of a miniature killer specimen because of the size of the crystals so the luster color but what a miniature specimen they die for this to have in their collection yeah that's a killer there's another jewel and a piece like that would be a thousand dollars yeah there's the world that's what's so there are a lot of them found everybody can own a really nice one that's absolutely correct yeah just another beautiful miniature this is what you call a small miniature we're in a remarkable time because say 10 years ago even this would have been sold in the big geode as a decor piece that's right and today the specimen is worth more than that it was about a 400 kilo geode you say that and the economics of mineral collecting have changed enough that it's worth them destroying this big decorator to extract a good that's 100 correct i think you recognize uh from the old days one of the old pedophiles yeah early morning yeah look at that that's a nice thick crystal of that yeah so it's funny i i own this twice i just repatriated it from australia where it's been living for the last 10 years that's funny yeah it's a beauty ah this is special this is actually a himalaya mine tournament i'm gonna say that looks awful california looking now that i'm just saying this i don't know for sure this is the longest himalaya tourmaline i've seen from the himalaya mine i don't remember seeing a longer one i think it has to be 10 and a half yeah say about 10 inches to 10 and a half i've seen them fatter thicker crystals but the length it's the longest one i've been uh i've seen somebody's showing me you know i think it's about 12 inches is it 12 inches and doubly terminated i've got a measuring thing real quick here tell you that because that's important the size of this thing let's let's see who was right 11 inches we're both right we're over and i'm under oh that's funny yeah we're both right yeah that's a hell of a thing i'll show you one more piece now it's not cleaned it's it's straight from the mine okay these are mine two months ago okay two months for my taste this is the best from the pocket oh my god now understand it's dirty oh yeah yeah this can this is look at his face i'm worried you're gonna drop it you're so stunned yeah i can't believe this thing this is better than what i saw at munich about 15 years ago they had one at that point just one killer that i never forgot that this pizza look at the size of this crystal and when you get those almost two inches exactly when you've got this guy you've got to hang on to this thing that's a that's a very valuable thing holy cow can't believe that thing and and you know what's fascinating that's what it looks like in the mine when they pull it off the wall exactly there you go oh that is wonderful to me that's the epitome of grenade night holy cow i have that in a heartbeat i wouldn't care if i had a thousand of them what did you say yeah i was amazed also so as long as we're talking about new finds i do have one thing it's not ready to put out at the show i'm working on getting the remainder out of china and i have to display them but you want to see something i think truly surprising i'm curious to see your reaction stay right here okay is it okay in front of the case or should we do it on the couch get it over here in the light there we go get this right in the light this is beautiful yeah i got wind of these these calcasites that's a perfect miniature what do you mean you've heard about them i was trying to keep it secret not these but look at this but i heard there was a discovery of them this is unbelievable this is on calcite they're calcocites with apparently just a micro thin layer of calcopy right on top that gives them the iridescence fantastic that's the best miniature and i'm going to show you here a remarkable essence thing i i mean this is like nothing i've ever seen it's wonderful and when were these found do you think a couple months ago and honestly i don't know where i've heard three different versions of a mind name or a county in china oh i said i'm not saying that they are chinese they are chinese okay and eventually we'll get a my name it's a new location [Music] fantastic i'll show you one more now that's exciting i can't think of anything of a new mineral coming out totally different that hasn't been on the market until these think of it is there anything uh uh that you've seen that's new see the vanade knights this is another new pocket but it's been around never seen this this is wild yeah totally off the wall look at that now these are some of the better pieces but you know even the smaller ones are are the same this crazy style yeah fantastic that my friend pirate is a pyrite from the tanzanite mine oh my god i can't believe it i can't believe it from the tanzanite i thought you were going to say it's from peru or something like that or elba some exceptional thing never seen anything you know i've seen some pyrite coming out of there but nothing like that that's a hell of a thing it's ridiculous it's a major museum specimen see a lot of people don't know that sometimes the localities really does it all uh because not only it's a fine crystal but coming from the tanzanite locality that size that quality congratulations thank you thanks a lot take care christopher thank you good to see you again nice seeing you welcome back thank you very much you know it's the seventh year now i'm telling everybody i can't believe it but boy it just gets better and better and better and we're seeing some fantastic things here i see all these pyrites so you were telling me this is the new find from elba yeah they have been uh they'll be mining last summer and they opened a very nice pocket all right take your favorite one out there there's a lot a lot of them that i love but that one is really a super piece let's see that you can see with the that's pretty hematite yeah perfect crystal yeah and it's very important to get these in the condition and when they're perfect they're really very desirable it's really great here also you have a fantastic single older one yeah the floral one yeah you can check out on the back yeah you can see the you can see the ima tight was going over there oh yeah right there yeah that is surely complete it's totally complete yeah so it was yes it was a real major find it's a huge window it's really a fantastic piece that's a major museum piece yeah look at that and there is a story about this this piece because the the climbers found the gwindell no it was yes the gwindell first in 2009 they found a gwindell and a year after they went again to check and they found the group wow would you and at that time they did not realize that the winner was fitting on the group all the time and it's only when they they bring back the peace that you realize that you're doing a long one so so the pocket collapsed million years ago yes and the the the two pieces have been unified again this year so i'm talking about a marriage there yeah i love this three something is yeah i happen to like uranium minerals so i'm going to point out you got a big tormentor for moosinoi there that's a hello specimen it's a very scattered it's a very old piece uh it has been found in the in the 70s yes and uh it had been offered to a diplomat he was working in the congo okay about it maybe around 40 years ago was this obanish by any chance no no no no no no okay it's another guy yeah and uh and the son the son sold me the pieces this is ketchum my eye it's just so pure white it's a calcite from italy it's right i need right now it's an ani dried but yeah i'm not choose to get some white minerals yes that one was really special beautiful it's a it's an old classic from italy mine and it was in the fioravanti collection okay that's a beautiful thing yeah i thought it just calcite no it's an andre yeah god fantastic you have two fine cupro skadowskites i said well that's rare to see two in a room like that yeah you're lucky to see one but the c2 like that that's fantastic actually it's a new it's a new find from from last year okay the guy were working on old blocks same it's blocks who have been mined in the 70s that's what they say and then they break them open they find out they've got these pockets that's the way i was told so there is truth to that okay and you'll find on all blocks wonderful yeah that is really nice it's uh an old classic from volodask topaz oh okay more used to find ilyodos yeah that's like there is stuff from there yeah okay also a new find from morocco vs blueberry came out about six eight months ago and they have been collecting them most of them were very damaged or colorless and what is that locality it's from erashidia in uh in morocco or morocco now you said you have some surprises i'm sure it's not in the bathroom but people think we're crazy we go to the bathroom so what the hell is going on some baby specials here i have uh okay that bisbee yeah it is business yes it's bisbee actually these are so hard to get a hole especially when you have the rosettes on the contrasting malachi and bisbee period it's just hard to get anything from the famous classic world classic locality you say it comes from a collection from a david collection oh very good okay yeah that's beautiful again something new it's uh oh yeah the dioptase yeah this is from the congo yeah and the french and they're really good because they're such an intense uh green with a touch of blue it seems like it's very close to map quality yeah just wonderful most of them had [Music] not a great luster that's right that one that has the one on the quads yeah where the the one who had the very best luster yeah and uh on the good gym yeah that's i love the contrast with the matrix too they're very pretty and here it's really a piece of jewel it's uh it's a smoky quartz from from switzerland this is fabulous yes the quality it's so perfect yeah it looks like you just made it in a lab and put it on a slab would you believe this thing yeah light that up yeah you can catch the color with the flawless the quality it's unbelievable now i've seen some loose peep but it was wonderful to get this and trim it up and get it in the matrix like that that is absolutely beautiful very good well once again every year you always have something to show thank you dave i appreciate it you'll do a great job with bro we try thank you hi david how you doing it's a pleasure so it was uh it's special times it i always look forward to your visits every year to our room and and uh you're looking great now i'm hanging in there and brian and i are just having a ball getting this all together and there's always something new and different and i hear of new things and i'm sure you've got some things in here you want to discuss with us but one thing i want to say right now you've got some tourmalines in here i want to make a statement and brian if you can film this one here now the reason i wanted brian to do that to have these somewhat together say pap rock has produced some unbelievable tourmaline a lot of people just don't quite realize these things are not going to last no they are not somebody told me that that pap rack location is kind of like petered out now and the last year and a half they've completely dried up in the supply line in there and while a few things are coming out from other pegmatites in afghanistan paprock is pretty well shut down as far as turning very interesting very good these are incredible calcite blades if you will nice uh flattened hexagonal outline and then they're covered completely with the little drews of quartz okay and so you get this you get this beautiful uh sparkly surface from the druza quartz that's covered these so and they're matrix specimens they're sitting on an earlier generation of courts and they're just lovely little specimens yes but this locality is churning out thousands and thousands of different specimens uh they're they're um the best ill vites in my opinion that have ever come on anything like that they're huge crystals i've got i've got a couple pieces in this case over here you get the the super luster crystals up to four or five inches tall and and on plates of of uh porcelain gray quartz crystals a little bit of calcite association they're just gorgeous mineral specimens and you know ill vite from so many localities they they they tend to get rusted if you will yes they get oxidized and they and they don't have this brilliant luster that's right so they've got the black color and just a really brilliant luster this is very rare to get them on matrix other than this locality to have them right that's right so it's the wong gong area just incredibly large lustrous well-formed crystals of illite on matrix and we've got some of the most beautiful pieces that i've seen going on in this area absolutely and then on either side of this big ilvite that you're filming right now there's an a habit of manganoid kind of a discoidal habit of manganoid calcite and the wong gong area is really cool because uh they they are blessed with a lot of mangano and calcite a lovely pink that fluoresces orangish red right and and there have to be 12 or 15 different distinct crystal habits this particular piece that's in the cabinet next to it uh shows more of a stacked rhombohedral uh habit and some large crystals around it and again from the wong gong mine area in the inner monster that's beautiful yeah just beautiful vibrant pink and nice quartz crystal association so we've been talking a little bit about what's new and hot but you know the collector's edge purchases a lot of collections from all over the world and i wanted to show you a few things that we have in the back rooms here over here that are from an old collection from europe and they're pretty special pieces very good we'll do that look [Music] and these are these are a special grouping uh brian brian was over in namibia we're doing quite a bit of uh activity in the namibia mining supporting mining in the orongo area and then uh we've had our mining crews go over and teach how to use our extraction equipment and uh so we're doing some great things in in namibia and south africa congratulations thank you that's fantastic but in the orango a few years ago there was a few pockets of some pretty spectacular blue yermi evite crystals and this is this is a nice so gosh you're looking probably two and a half inches tall yes and uh well terminated glass beautiful beautiful specimen this one i'd say about an inch and a and a quarter inch and a half and beautifully yeah beautifully terminated and nicely jimmy but i really wanted you to see this one of course has a few repairs on it david that's okay but uh that one's kind of a monster sorry it's unbelievable that's the largest one i've ever i won't run out of here with it yeah look at this i had one that was a little bigger than this like about like that uh-huh these are the best i've ever seen i've never seen anything like this it's unbelievable yeah it was it was i always wondered because they said they never really got to the pocket right a lot of it seemed like it was close to the surface when they got these things and this is wonderful and you explained that very well too what's going on in there look at that in that lovely see i've never seen one that's actually a cluster see this is kind of a cluster type never seen this and so jimmy yes oh yeah that's really jimmy and lustrous glassy luster oh that's what i love about these so many times the early year that you saw kind of frost that's right you know they're a little frosty but these are really spectacular oh they're great but we wanted to also show you a few uh classic german specimens i love this particular one i just absolutely adore because it's got color that's off the charts and uh you know when you talk about the fry bird wow you talk about the freiburg area and with these uh incredible rich red uh colors of the prustite silver bearing mineral yeah this is from nedershalema and just incredible uh cluster may be one of the biggest uh in the united states just an amazing mass of of peruse tight and you see that pigeon blood red yeah just beautiful need a little paragraph to go along with it so oh yeah so these are some fine crystals incredibly large uh crystals from the same sacks in the area in germany yeah and big crystals of the of the uh roger right that's wonderful oh look at this look at the crystal development on this one david see how the detail is fantastic yeah this is really special yeah native bismuth is so hard to get look at this thing yeah look at the razor sharp question the fans that's a major uh bismuth well thank you for taking all this is great well you always have wonderful things to show us and we look forward to seeing the needless to say thank you for coming out yeah thanks a lot stephen i really appreciate it hi dave hey dave i need to mention something to you well i got a little bit of a problem developing i'm meeting you in hotel rooms in tucson once a year my wife is starting to wonder uh-uh yeah holy cow she thinks isn't that embarrassing oh my god so you want to see some good rocks yeah let's see some good rocks for 2013. okay this is a italian sulfur oh yeah and you could tell everything about it talking about textbook crystal isolated and so well balanced on the matrix and just flaring off like this the stem here yep oh yeah this is wonderful this is literally quite a bit better than i had a real killer but it was just a single crystal but to get two like this in the shooting all jimmy and what's important about these it's so hard to get them without a crack running these no and the color's nice top top color that's fabulous i love that this is a common mineral in an uncommon assemblage from young amino pyrites but the size of them doubly turn and you know nature throws a little floret on there just to add a little extra to it i know exactly what you got here holy cow you know i've seen some of these these things are unbelievable we are in the golden age right now i'm telling you some of the things we're seeing from the best arcena pyrite i've ever seen is this group and this one here it's just the perfect hand size one it's a little fluoride quartz oh yeah that thing is fantastic this is new material that's what i do and i think that's unbelievable if i might say so much it's one of the best there's a couple of these things are fabulous this is a hell of a it just gets better that's absolutely a jewel definitely one of the best this is another find from years ago and this is considered in from what i've heard the best one of this uh this is an epidural quartz from peru and it just it had it just the white and the dark and the juxtaposition just it appeals to the artist totally different than anything from austria and a couple of the other localities and the one thing i like about i think i've seen some peruvian epidotes but the uh the problem they're laying down like this laying down a lot yes it's got a nice fan yeah very good you want to talk about cotton candy or christmas lights that's what i think about with this piece again it's not a major major mineral specimen that you're going to see in the icons book but it's so pretty that's what what do you think about that oh my god this is gorgeous you got calcopyrite over calcite crystal iridescence of several colors here have you counted the colors in this i count six or seven holy cow but i'm jaded so i'll let you count yeah i'm not jaded i'm biased one two three four five six six this is beautiful isn't that just a pretty thing no here's you use the common mineral but because of this this iridescence and look at that i mean that is intense and they just flare out all over if it was just a calcite you know it'd be so-so but with that type of iridescence of that uh calco pyrite grown over it with it you'd love to know what the i guess it's micro chemistry that made the calcopyrite the different colors this is this is a classic american piece you're going to you're going to recognize this locality that is so weird against tri-state area it's uh missouri missouri yeah okay but isn't that for a sweet water isn't that just interesting and different beautiful calcite calcapyride quartz holy cow for the sci-fi geek this looks a little bit like a borg space and it's all perfect there's no breaks in this that's beautiful again it's a common mineral thing yeah it's oh yeah don't go by that when it's good it's good regardless it's got common mineral rariman or whatever you have that's a fine fine example of a specimen gorgeous like how could you ever put a thing down like that this was in the american treasures uh case you know it's a kelly and it's got form it's got bi colors i just it's different it's just something different yeah i love that piece yeah that's a beautiful piece even though white has banding yeah and then you've got this color off center it's just that's rare to see that it is red that's why that's one reason you like it another reason i like it is way this is all crystal not chris light the betrothal kind of wrapping the back and everything yeah and uh if a free form of it no that's a jewel of a thing i love that very different it's very very different isn't your typical this like that i've seen big pieces just like this section here but this has a wonderful composition here that's what we like yup that's a beauty what do you got there that is just a combination piece and a taste with the quartz of fed and quartz is what that it's i've never heard of such a thing you see these fattened quartzes is that from it isn't the same pakistan oh it is yeah pakistan very unusual to get that uh oh you know what's funny when you in this situation you've got a very fine fondant i mean it's a font and it's not something by itself that would mean a lot that's right and you have very fine added taste because they're all uh not any damage on it and the the luster is perfect on every face which is actually pretty rare and on the taste exactly but when you put the yeah when you put them together it's like what the heck never seen it absolutely i've never seen one yeah this is gorgeous aquamarine with smoky quartz topaz i said acme smoky quit yeah and then the topaz yeah you took the words out of my mouth there but anyway what you have here is this combination in the last few years never in the history of mineralogy have so many wonderful minerals come out of the ground they're in clusters of different gem crystals on one rock try to get a kunzite on matrix uh 35 40 years ago is on clay and here you got the aquamarine you got the champagne color topaz smoky quartz white all bite all in one rock beautiful special like a beautiful buffet yeah beautiful always a pleasure keep up the good work and you always have surprises to show us thank you for watching well thank you for what you're doing appreciate it hi rob dave how are you hi how are you doing i want to i want to show you something that i just got okay maybe 30 minutes ago you're kidding no it's from pakistan wow a fluorite yeah and not only just a fluoride from pakistan bi-colored two collards and sharp and gemmy right it's a killer and on matrix and non-matrix some matrix yeah you have muscovite it's green and pink yeah that's the epitome of uh floor i think the jewel of a thing it's the finest miniature i've seen of this type oh it's unbelievable and it was very dear but i had to have it yeah absolutely i don't blame you and you just got this uh 30 minutes ago oh for pete's sake yeah that's that's great congratulations keep up the good work i'm sure glad you brought that to our attention yeah beautiful i love it very happy yeah thank you thank you dave thank you brian dylan dave how are you you have a specimen right here on the floor from the jonas mine i've never seen anything like this where you have basically a very fine specimen it isn't like a broken up chunk and it's just a decorative chunk of rock it's actually a beautiful quartz crystal with some of the jonas tourmalines uh the lepidolite it's beautiful yeah the lip hitter like it wraps around the box there's a seven inch crystal right here right in there right on the side oh too bad you can't pull it out of there you could but you would hack the piece up oh yeah yeah yeah that lopita like gets right into the crystal most cases but the point i'm trying to make when you have big specimens like this it has its own uh quality to it that you have it as a bragging rocket and a beautiful home as they come in the foyer of the house and you have this gorgeous thing setting up so we must complement when we see things like that if it's a regular quartz crystal forget it beautiful oh they produce wonderful so you got the feldspar the calcite with the beautiful fluoride that's abused yeah look at that clump of sphaler of crystals yeah that's a beautiful thing very showy that's a wonderful combination piece group it's like a lizard [Music] this is the best champion of mine silver i have ever seen it's white it does look like a lizard it looks like an iguana an iguana yeah this would be good yeah um an incredible cluster of spinel twins oh yeah bring that right out yeah there you go oh yeah this thing's a beautiful thing to look at this look at all the spinel twins yeah have you seen the better champion one never seen this type i've seen other types but this really takes on an effect and it has all that wonderful crystallization to it oh that's a twin upon twin upon 20. you got it uh it's a superb thing in its own right it's one of the let me answer you this way it's certainly one of the better ones and then don't like to go further than that it's too risky look at that then that's what you call the epitome of a miniature specimen how does it get better than that look at that octahedron fine light emerald green the matrix perfect balance that's a jewel of a miniature yeah i really like that this is a beautiful thing with the smoky quartz and this color is richer it had more of a brown to it for the first few years and now they're finally coming into their own and producing some very attractive specimens i'm glad you mentioned that what i like about this one is the luster termination yeah that pyramidal termination of the lusters fabulous generator basil that's right that's right no it's a superb thing yeah zero in on that because it's it's hard to get those yes they're always in either too big a matrix and to get them out nestled right in the group of single points like that that's a lovely specimen yes it is it's hard to get that so that everything's beautiful uh you mentioned you had something else i have a couple beautiful specimens i'd like to share with you oh good okay beautiful now when these are perfect they really are jewels but if they're nicked kiss to death but this is perfect there's no damage on this and you can tell right away you can see it cleavage knocked off uh top uh or bottom of the crystal yeah perfect complete scalyhedron yeah it's a lovely thing oh yeah is that guerrero that is oh that's nice with the calcite yes i can't remember ever seeing that with calcite on it like that all right and double terminate in beautiful color and you don't have all the cloudiness that clouds them up so much right oh yeah that's a superb thing that's a major thing love that definitely one of the better ones i've ever seen you got an important specimen here holy cow see the thing about this you get the flashy ones you know with the cloudy and they're beautiful and in our own right and it catches their eye and all that but to a real serious mineral collector that that's a very important specimen where do you get that rich intense purple double terminated and for boot for character the scalahedron calcite jet wonderful thing killer oh very good beautiful boy they just toward the end they've hit the jackpot they really this was the last pocket that they found and yeah it's just absolutely incredible beautiful piece just step straight up just slide that down incredible huge roses yeah you have that intense blue and that makes such a difference because there's an azurite where is that from right that's milpitas as well yeah pull that out and just show the difference in color because they come real dark and crystallization too oh yeah look at that fabulous crystal but look at how dark the color isn't that amazing let me see i'm going to bring one more outside yeah you can show three different types three different habits here and this is another pocket okay yes i see in this type yeah they call this the electric blue pocket yes [Music] fantastic thank you so much thanks a lot great brian hi dave how are you it's good to see you i feel like i brought my best assortment of minerals to tucson this year i mean a good diversity of colorful things and rarities and gem crystals and unusual stuff and i brought new minerals from five different continents this year to tucson so let's go through a few of them let's do that you're the first one to spot it and honestly i was doubting myself when i got this piece like is anybody gonna care about this thing but sometimes it takes a little bit of an old school taste yeah to recognize something like this it's like a textbook crystal it's so typical of this material absolutely but there's so little of it and it's big and blocky and perfect all the way around now this is from the classic locality in mozambique alto lagonia yes a very famous pegmatite that produced very little material and it's nothing coming out today obviously this is actually from kazakhstan from oh yeah from years ago okay and this is actually out of my dad's collection and yeah i mean you know you don't think about this kind of stuff in terms of display specimens but to me especially for metallic minerals sulfides and oxides anything like this the crystallization is so defined and it's so well formed you don't see that in a lot of gem minerals typically and smooth striated faces bright luster my attraction to this kind of stuff is strictly in the crystallization because you don't see this in a lot of other things look at the size of that crystal and flip it over it's actually bigger in the back there's more crystal to be seen there yeah i always move it around now this is from burma and you know burma is the quintessential premier premier locality for spineless worldwide spinel is one of those minerals that forms in gem crystals that a lot of collectors don't have a good representation in their collection you know it's it's not a terribly common gem mineral but a lot of people don't have good spinels especially matrix spinels you see so many loose floater crystals and to have something of this size with that beautiful saturated cranberry color and it just sits perfectly you know i mean you couldn't ask for better display that's an inch and a half across and even wider in the back and complete all the way around no damage whatsoever we call this the trident the trident isn't that yeah and i mean absolutely maybe not the sharpest copper crystals in the world they're sharp they are from the standpoint of displayability you couldn't ask for a better design specimen if you were going to sculpt copper into a display piece you couldn't do much better than this and either side flip it around it's really nice from both sides it's a piece of art that's what it is yeah it really is natural natural crystal this is called safflorite yeah and this is from the build district in morocco safflorite is a copper iron nickel arsenate and uh just picked this piece up recently um very well-defined striated prisms on both sides of the specimen it displays really well from either side yeah and for my taste it's one of the best pieces in the size range that i've experienced i mean you don't see a ton of these on the market i did have it tested to make sure it was indeed safflower right very good um sometimes these get labeled as discrezites by the locals okay they don't necessarily know but uh i i really like this one a lot right so this is from broken hill not the australian broken hill the broken hill in zambia oh and it's a dual generation i believe the uh underlying velvet lavender smithsonite is coated by an additional layer of sort of a peachy orange mississippi okay and if you flip it over you can see there's slight of a somewhat of a bluish bluish-green color see these concentric bands here how about grades from the lavender and the orange into the blue green sure does so look at that this is an old piece out of my dad's stuff okay now there's a couple pieces in the back yeah you want to head back there and take a look yeah sure all right about eight or nine years ago there was a find of these crystals these little floater penetration twins originally i thought they were stanites yeah and i sold one to a collector who ended up selling it to another collector down here in tucson and they were tested and they actually weren't standing at all it was the incredibly rare species ferrocasterite which is a copper iron zinc tin sulfide this piece in your hand is one of my favorites and turn it towards the camera and we can show off this four way penetration twin that exists right here one two three four all the way around i haven't seen another one like this now this is about a toenail sized piece it's too big for a thumbnail yeah look at this miniature here dave well balanced on the pyrite with a beautiful spray of zinconite coming off the side wow if you if you wanted better aesthetics what could you possibly do for this you know it's just as good as it gets all the way around and these kind of things even though there's not a lot of color here the rarity factor is at an 11 because i only know of these in this flat and maybe a couple others that i mistakenly sold as stanites and there may never be any more for years down the gorsk has produced these excellent colorless fluorites they look like ice cubes almost right and this one this large cabinet display piece is just loaded with cubes with dodecahedral modifications on every side and this is a complete 360 degree specimen as you turn it around you can see how the crystals meander over the top and then come back underneath like like a snake pattern like the letter s just curving all the way around there this one was recently mined a few months ago in russia new material coming out of the ground that's so good good seeing you dave thanks so much brian appreciate it all right how are you doing today great elise how are you nice seeing you again every time every year i come here this collection grows you get more stones and you got such a variety of stones when i was looking at this i decided just to make a few comments so a little while ago you and i were going through it and everything and i want to uh have a little discussion on here now this stone came out what about 20 years or something uh not this particular thing but ametry and ametrine is in the quartz family of amethyst and citrine in the one stone so they gave it the name amitrade right and they come out of bolivia and as far as i know unless i'm wrong but i still think it's the only locality they found commercial amateur is that right or have they found anything yes there's very very little amateuring around the world that is exists at all from other localities but this is the actual yes crucial grade clean beautiful material that can be set into jewelry yeah this is a wire that's like a butterfly yes i never saw such a cut what do they call a cut do you have this this is a double heart cut you can see the two clefs right oh i see yeah right and this particular type of uh cutting is called concave cutting and as a matter of fact it's not flat faceted except for just the table the facets are concave they're curved yes they are getting that radiant light coming out of it it's fabulous we have a beautiful jeremy a vite this is an eight-carat jeremy avi you know super rare material yeah and great bi-color this was a very hard gem to get a hold of very much you know you only see one of these in a lifetime oh yeah they're very rare because of the rarity this isn't a stone as brett had mentioned extremely rare to get a facet of stone of it but what i want to point out is that a lot of collectors are collecting these rare stones and the general public just simply don't know anything about the rare stones and they can't understand well why isn't this in the store or that in the store well we have hardness desirability all these factors come into it all right well thank you thank you so much i appreciate it hi dave i want to show you a couple of pieces yeah great so i think you know this locality very well but this kind of etching is quite unusual isn't that beautiful yeah look on both sides look at this and the color is nice green beautiful green and the etching is fabulous on this thing that was from 80 meter deep shaft and they missed the pocket when they did the tunnel so they came in too high okay so there were a few of these really nice and this is aesthetic it has the hexagonal etching at the termination absolutely look at that look at this yeah look at this in here and i love this face oh right here this is this face this various action thing so you just got this here yeah i got that and i have another piece very different yeah and this is another one same line but look at this it says yellow in it that's deep deep golden color and that's from a completely other pocket in the mr i described pocket 576 at 55 meter depth and this is the best from there this time you know you see it's very nice hexagonal and you still have the pinnacoid and just slight etching that's what's nice very light at you you can see right through it look at that yeah you can see your fingers right through it and i have another crazy specimen for you okay it's an ugly beast but you will like it oh look at that a barilla knight did you ever see anything like this i can't believe a bruin a gorilla knife i thought it was a calcite from berlinite oh my god i can't believe it unbelievable it's a very rare mineral to get anywhere and this delicate plateaus usually they're rather chunky that's a hell of a thing and where's this from that is from shengus in pakistan okay so they have some big polio sites and some berlin but i've never seen such a delicate large plate before i've seen delicate ones but huge like this this is really something it's truly a museum piece thanks a lot dave thank you thank you very much thank you too bye hey hey dave how are you doing how are you good you told me the other day you got something very special to show us and when i hear the word ashrite i get excited because well as you know milpi has produced for four or five years that's right uh some people consider it to be the finest locality in the world but certainly it's in the top three or four bisbee uh morocco chelsea and milpias that's right sumab of course uh anyway these are representative of several different pockets that have come out of milpious and they're generally speaking they're the best of each pocket you know there are maybe 10 or 15 major pockets that came out of melbourne yeah over the five years yeah over the five years yeah these represent some of those pockets and milpious now is finished they're down in the sulfides chance of any more oxides coming out pretty slim yeah so these are uh these are incredibly good azurites that's a three and a half inch doubly terminated crystals absolutely look at this you know i heard about these a year ago but never got to see anything i mean i saw a couple cute things nobody was showing us any of the great ones or they were gone or just they didn't want to show we of course wanted to keep it as secret as possible to not encourage too much competition that's right yeah that is just fabulous very reminiscent assuming i've been you know what you're very much like so bad this is uh similar not quite like aho some of these are like aho this isn't quite like aho but it's more like aho it's got a flat you know work peel off a matrix on the back and uh look at that that one's superb oh wonderful i like that freeness of it yeah look at that just shooting up and there they're half you know half malachite half azure very much so so if the sunlight was shining you would see some electric blue exactly you know but the edge but without the sunlight you don't see that yeah but that is another uh the best of this type oh this is the best one all of these came out of the the the man jesus who gets all these okay lives in mexico controls the locality all of these came out of his collection wow so they're and so at different points he'll uh he'll let go of one piece and then another piece yeah so that again is the best of that time this is from a pocket we call the chiefs look at that and that one we consider to be that's probably the best of that pocket oh and you can see some of the crystals here you see the electric blue i mean just like they're like zack attack you know jim jim jim blue exactly these are too big to show that color but the little ones you can see it that's another look at this absolutely killer god it's like a smoky quartz but it's azure look at that thing that's wonderful absolutely phenomenal and again that's true map quality i mean oh absolutely i don't think bisbee ever put out anything qualities what it is ah unbelievable now this one is kind of reminiscent of bisbee yes it is yeah kind of bladed rose out you got it and look at that color holy cow yeah it's very much like a bisbee time look at the size of those crystals the luster is wonderful the color the lobster everything yeah it's got everything going for it but what a strike fantastic and then you got one with more malachi yeah this is a four inch doubly terminated crystal complete malachite and then it's got a secondary growth of azurite exactly so again in the sunlight you would get electrical washes of color through exactly yeah the sun if it was i would take one of these out but the sun isn't even out no sun cloudy but that that's fantastic but again these represent the best of what mill piece did yes for the pockets there are other pockets that are that are very different bladed yeah i've seen some flat plates and everything but there's other pockets that are different but this of these pockets these are the best and like i said i nobody knows for sure but i think there were probably 15 pockets and you've seen the great brochure types from there no i don't i'll get one version and uh this is an incredible brochure i saw anything like that i'm so glad you mentioned that that's from the same mind yeah best pressure types in the world it's unbelievable never seen anything like that and i don't know translucent they're translucent they're like a deep emerald green oh yeah and but they're completely gem that's unbelievable i'm so glad you brought that up yeah there are five or six of this type oh this is probably number four or five of that group there are a couple that are way better i've had a couple that were not better they're bigger just better just bigger yeah okay perfect miniature but that is definitely they're the finest version type stuff by a factor of never seen anything like it you see a needle like that yeah maybe clusters like that little thin thing nothing like that and translucent and deep green yeah fabulous yeah when you mention that name i knew the mineral i was expecting a clean a little little tiny green needle which would have been nice to show representation of mine but that that blows me away yeah these are the best they are the best in the world well thanks a lot my pleasure good work good thank you [Music] i'd like to have this film because it's one of our great museums in the united states the american museum natural history and it should be recorded because there are fine specimens needless to say but this is from the museum that russian one in the center in the back row is my favorite so transparent it's totally water water clear it's from del nagor's bob hi dave how are you i'm very good it's been years since it's been quite a while since we've got detroit that's right that must be 40 years ago oh god you're making me feel old david while i'm old young oh yeah well thank you i appreciate it yeah bob i remember us talking about the courts from uh washington state and everything i do remember that yeah but now you have come down to arizona to tombstone and you're doing some field work down there and you have some choice things to show well thank you very much i have some um fluorite that formed over quartz casts after calcite so all of these pieces are hollow and inside there's fluorite if you look at this one here yes so you have a rhombohedron of calcite quartz formed over the top and as you can see looking through the piece you can see you can slide crystals on the inside and the outside this one the large one is the same um all of those things that look like calcite scale and a hedgerow hollow you can see the quartz sparkling through yes and underneath there's more fluoride crystals but of this form so on the bottom of this piece which of course you can't see because it's sitting on it there's octahedrons on the top there's negative scaling adhesions fantastic they've formed overnight that's all the purple ones there are zones are from arizona yeah okay the green ones are from canada okay boy this is wonderful and then you were mentioning these two were just recently yeah this group right over here came out in january and uh we hit the scale in a hedral pocket and this was about eight feet long wow so there were a lot of little pieces and this one big one this was upside down in the pocket when i opened the pocket and it was just a limestone cap i could tell that it was hollow i'd done some blasting on the top it was obviously hollow and i reached underneath thinking it was just a limestone cap exactly i turned it over in my hand and it was you probably heard the noise well i always appreciate talking with those that personally collect and mine for minerals and uh it's a wonderful thing that you guys do uh finding those things and digging them out yourself well congratulations thank you so much i really appreciate you bringing this story all right i hope you come and see us hey brian hi how are you doing good good to see you this is a pocket of kunzite that was discovered last year in afghanistan during the summer time and it came down off the mountain and we had the opportunity to purchase the major pieces from this pocket and when it came to us it needed a little bit of cleaning but it was almost exactly like you see it i've never seen such a large perfect coonside on matrix and all the time i've been in business so for more than 30 years i haven't seen such a thing exactly i've seen bigger kunsites you know i've seen many many different colors of kunzites but as a package together i'd never seen something like that you're 100 right because when i was when you were just finishing up setting up when i walked by that stopped in my tracks immediately because it is a huge kunzite with the quartz and a jimmy smoky quartz usually you just see the opaque quartz but you have the jimmy one with the all bite absolutely a killer i have to comment on the color of this stone that thing is just screaming it almost looks like a uh a spinel but it looks like a giant it's a tourmaline it looks like a giant spin exactly that's one of the highlights in our booth this year yeah it's just wonderful people walk by in a such bright vibrant color it just grabs them yeah brings them to the case wonderful absolutely the killer color the aha light in a cluster like this with all these points having the ajo you see a singles you might see a double but these clusters that's an amazing specimen that's absolutely amazing this specimen is is it probably about 10 to 15 years old it came from this famous location and when we purchased the bombing collection this was one of the highlights in the collection and the entire collection 25 000 pieces this is one of his best pieces you see that yeah this specimen actually came out quite a while ago okay and then it was purchased by a swiss collector and uh put in his collection for a long time i knew of it for for many many years and when he decided to sell his collection we had the opportunity to buy that specimen fantastic here's a specimen i want to use the director we call that the sword and the stone oh uh this specimen came out of the ground about 40 years ago wow from the santa rosa mine santa rosa mine boy i remember that 40 years ago that name yeah very well known it was preserved um and and uh all this time and stashed away in a in a private collection we had the opportunity to purchase it very very lucky opportunity to get this unbelievable you don't see things like this coming out of brazil apparently it's just it's unbelievable wonderful wonderful specimen i think the tourmaline measures about 14 inches oh it's unbelievable all complete with a whole complete smoky quartz keep up the good work it's always fun talking with you i appreciate it we have here a couple of unusual copper specimens a very large size way above the normal not only are they large but they're very fine mineral specimens there are very large sheets of native copper that come out of michigan but when you get a crystallized and beautiful crystals or forming with another mineral to i'll go over this other one in a minute but this one here this thing has to weight 700 pounds it's all copper with a little bit of a looks like calcite but it's very unusual it is crystallized all that inside of there coming down like that okay then you have another very unusual copper here look at the massive this is all copper at the base it isn't just right see the copper goes right through with some of the rock and then this was broken away and then you have all this and this this probably had to be clean i'm sure it was very dark i can't believe it was this color uh when they found it but that's okay but it's beautiful imprints of other crystallized minerals of some sort it might have been crystallized calcite but this is an extraordinary thing this specimen has to weigh at least seven 800 maybe a ton half a ton it's a very heavy specimen it's huge it's at least three and a half feet tall very aesthetic type of copper you just don't see this in copper where they have any type of crystallization or anything like that okay we have a magnificent case of one locality fluorite collection here and it's the best assemblage of fluorite from clay center ohio that i have seen period there's all different types in here from this locality and it's absolutely a marvelous example these brown fluorites are actually a rare color you don't see brown fluorite very often but from clay center it seems to be the classic locality for the majority of any fluoride that's uh colored brown then you have it with the celestine blades with the fluorites in between them here you have the smaller crystals scattered about in the matrix then you have the larger crystals like the one in the center then you have a huge brown one over there but there's just a lot of fine fine uh brown crystals then some of these unusual ones such as these with a slight iridescence to them i've never seen that color from that locality so you're seeing a representation of one mining area and it's a remarkable case this caught my eye immediately even the celestia colorless celestine being that large is quite quite something so i call this a major one locality type collection mostly known for the flora please note this is not your faded nation here we have a wonderful case of one type of quartz most unusual but they are septum quartz crystals smoky in nature from hallelujah junction california and nevada border they're very close to each other but what you have here is an assemblage of specimens that have been taken out over a period of time and what's so remarkable about you'll never see this i've never seen but maybe one or two in a case or one in a case or a couple in the show and what have you so it's very unusual to see this many that not only the quantity but the quality of these specimens and nothing less than spectacular fabulous forms in here some of them are actually amethyst like in the top shelf in the back row you've got an amethyst over smoky quartz so these are all wonderful scepter type quartz then you have scepters and the regular crystals well it's actually a scepter too but this is a very very unusual exhibit and you'll probably never see an exhibit like this here at tucson i've never seen anything quite like it the owner of that area has claims what have you and this was found in a period of about seven to two five years most collectors love to have one of these in the collection there's many great specimens in here okay we have two cases i'm going to cover with you we'll start with case number one this is a large case here of magnificent fluorites of all various types from the houston mineral gem society and their nickname is called the ham group and they got an unbelievable case of all different types of fluorites and just to name a few there's so many good ones in here it take forever to name them all but you've got a lot of very unusual pieces in your florence being that this is this year's theme for the tucson gem and mineral show there's a beautiful pink fluorite and muscovite and that's from pakistan those are very popular now and they've been getting some wonderful pieces of that then you have the real deep red reddish pink from france and that's an extraordinary specimen truly a museum piece there look at the shade of blue here shade of green here look at that back there phosphophilite color look at the color that fluoride in the back row there colorless fluorite right here remember i talked about the brown crystals from ohio there's this nice hand-sized specimen there colorless cubes there like ice cubes right there then they do a wonderful job of cutting these you get these custom faceters that do custom work much better than commercial cutting and you can see the range of different cuts different color and the huge stone that weighs 620 carats that round and you come over here one that caught my eye very different look it looked like it melded it's this pink with a little bit of green on it all crystallized all complete but it looks just like it was made out of wax and it just kind of melted very unusual type look at the size of that shape octahedron with the quartz crystal right next to it that's a major museum specimen unbelievable quality and once again you get this green [Music] beautiful shade of green there now here's the next group which is the mad group of dallas another wonderful case of fluorites look at that green one back there it's just a magnificent thing with a little bit i believe it's calcite with it no it's quartz it's a druzy quartz bottom to that very very outstanding specimen here's one of these purple uh rounded type spiritual type uh that's what you if you see this you see more of the the purple type than you do those other shades in that case there then here again you got again in a larger cluster of the fluorite with the gray muscovite but look at the color you got peach and pink in that cluster very very outstanding specimen then you got some in here all these all these small ones are just very very fabulous things see pakistan here's a french one miniature perfect octahedron cluster of them inner grown octahedrons here from france here's an unusual shape here this almost looks like a morganite but it's actually a fluoride a lot of people years ago used to mistake that before they had a test and found out is actually fluoride not a morganite burl very unusual hot habit in comparison to the other shapes and then here's a killer french one on the old bike crystal feldspart that is a truly fantastic thing because the contrast not only is it good color but the contrast is absolutely marvelous that's a very very major specimen everything's major they're just beautiful i love them all and look at this beautiful green look at the shade of that like an intense once again phosphofill like green blue color so that just gives you an example what two of these cases in the show this year is and and it's put together by a lot of the private collectors getting together working hard put these on and we're sharing it with the general public and all collectors from around the world at the tucson gem and mineral show we're very pleased to get it on what's hot in tucson for 2013. thank you very much being that fluorite as this year's theme mineral specimen this is harvard university's private collection uh and there's some very unusual pieces in here one in particular i caught is this fluorite of this intense peachy orangey red octahedron and needless to say you keep it as a mineral specimen but that definitely has a very valuable large area near the termination going down into the cut a very nice large stone not that you would cut it but that's a very rare type to get that color that's an intense color for uh for a switzerland fluorite like that but this is just a fine arrangement of all different ones from different localities and some of our most famous fluorites come from rosy claire illinois and a couple mining areas in that general area that's other areas in missouri we have new hampshire back up there the emerald green ones beautiful look at the color of the faceted stone there truly a golden orange like that from cumberland england cambria yes yeah it is counting but anyway this is just a lovely assortment of fine florets from harvard yeah i'm standing by an exhibit here at the tucson show that i really think is unique this is the 2013 show and of all the exhibits which are gorgeous this show is the most unusual because it is a private collection that has been given to heritage auctions for sale it's going to be auctioned off in june of this year june 2nd as a matter of fact and what it is is an opportunity for all collectors dealers and collectors alike to have a chance to acquire some very very fine minerals this thing ranges from the very finest the beautiful rose quartz to some very very inexpensive specimens like a cavenzite and a couple of other things and it'll give people a chance to really see what the mineral market is like today the confusion over pricing and value of minerals can be clarified some by an auction like this it's being run by the nature and science division of heritage and that's managed by two of my very good friends jim and mary walker you everybody knows them they're you know they're a tradition in our hobby almost and they really know their stuff about minerals the thing to keep in mind is that these starting auction prices are going to be based on an appraisal and then cut way down to a beginning value and then we let the market determine the true value of what these specimens have once that information is published now you have a steady dependable reference to determine prices of minerals it's going to be a big help for collectors let me point out just a few of the specimens in this section of the collection the collection has over 2000 pieces and what you're going to see here is a relatively small fraction about 5 of the collection and again it ranges from very modestly valued specimens up to very exceptional specimens this piece for instance this stib knight from france it's remarkable there are a few larger ones in this owned by the school of mines in paris but you'll never see them on on display this is for that locality in france most exceptional it's a very very fine piece one of the more beautiful pieces right here we've seen plenty of these apophyllites and nice balls and some of them on little still bite pedestals and things but nothing like this angel it's absolutely gorgeous one of the finest that ever came out of the deposit if we move on down an exceptional specimen is in the center of this shelf two people owned parts of this galena one person on that another person on this someone suddenly realized my gosh it's one specimen so whoever gets this in auction can put them together and have them as one piece or can keep them separate as a novelty that happens in our business quite often when a specimen is is obtained and someone suddenly realizes my gosh that came out of the same pocket and is the same specimen as some other piece and they can be put together right over here is a caledonia from tiger now tiger is world famous for its rare species this is not an exceptional tiger caledonia and it's a very nice one it's the kind of specimen that a beginning collector would have a chance to obtain and add to a collection that can grow so that's what i like about this entire function a collector broke into a pocket at the blanchard mine some years ago and out of that pocket came a number of uh linearites this is one of the exceptional pieces out of that pocket rumor has it there were one or two that had larger crystals but no one knows for sure that piece was the poor collector once he opened the pocket was um no i guess a local sheriff took a liking to the mineral specimen so he took them away from the collector but they eventually reached the market legrandite beautiful color that's a very very fine piece for those of you who are familiar with the fluorite mines in the midwest in the back of the shelf here is a white bensonite on fluorite now bensonite is a relatively uncommon mineral and that is the most exceptional specimen the crystals are large it's a large cluster you'll never see something like that available again i'm sure i'm very familiar with the glove pocket that was discovered back in the 50s it was actually a small cave lined with specimens like this this butterscotch glove will finite is very very popular very commonly seen now huge amount of it came out and it's quite quite popular and that's an exceptionally nice piece for its size down here on the lower shelf is a specimen of leotite that's named after a dealer from uh africa again crystal is larger than average by a long shot this is one of the largest finest pieces of this mineral i've ever seen yet over here just next to it is a small appetite from pakistan and a cabinzeit from india these are very average for the mineral they're not exceptional they the other kind of specimen that any average collector could afford in an auction i'm sure very very fine down on the lower shelf the bottom shelf the buick mine in missouri in the viburnum trend area of missouri produced a lot of these pyrite bars they're really stacks of crystals that have formed in this bar shape and almost all of them are singles a few came out with two bars this is an exceptional three bar group again i've never seen anything like that it's just remarkable an exceptional specimen for that mineral one of the most popular and relatively uncommon quartz specimens that comes out of brazil is rose quartz they're still arguing over what causes the color whether it's titanium or or some clay but it's a beautiful beautiful rose color this is an exceptional piece it's much much larger than anything i've ever seen before with a halo of rose quartz around a standard quartz crystal makes that a very very exceptional piece that is going to be a remarkable addition to anyone's collection and you'll see it on auction in june next october there'll be a second auction and look forward to that so this will be a series of auctions until that 2000 specimen collection has been made available to every collector a great opportunity to really get into the market jesse hi dave how are you today doing fine and uh how are you doing uh it's been a long show i'm tired but it's been a good show i bet you're retired after lifting this magnificent specimen in this case were you part of that set um yeah um it took four of us to get the thing in there but i was one of the four yes yes and give us a spiel on this because that has quite a story behind it with uh cal's mining operation well yeah last july we were at the mine in the middle of another season uh mining for fluorite specimens as we've done for each summer now for close to 15 years it's 15 years it seems like it was like five or six or something that's amazing but after after uh a blast and mucked out the waist rock we discovered another seam of fluoride showing which is always what we're looking for and we start excavating around the seam of fluorite and usually starts coming out in in hand-sized chunks maybe a little bit bigger but this seam just kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger and after about close to two weeks of scraping mud away from around this thing moving rock out from underneath it we'd exposed a rock in the ceiling of the cavity this thing was upside down okay um and realized that we were going to have a job on our hands getting it out exactly yeah every step of the way i was wondering how we were going to do this because somehow it all happened we got it down we got it boxed up we got it shipped to california we got it cleaned we had to buy an animal watering trough to put this thing in to use chemicals to take out the iron stain and such what you see here under incandescent light it's largely green yes you take it out into the daylight it turns a bright blue just from the ultraviolet from the sun and the sunlight itself wow uh phenomena we call daylight fluorescence exactly well it's a wonderful piece and we're very happy you brought it here to the tucson show and what a piece to bring for the feature mineral of the whole show as far as right quite coincidental that we got this on the year exactly the theme is flora coming up yeah exactly yeah when uh peter mcgaw heard that we had found this thing the first email i got from him was this is coming to tucson isn't it yeah if we can get it down and out of there in one piece he shouldn't be here fantastic hi jim hey good to see you nice seeing you again yep so how's everything going with you i've been busy been mining here and there i just finished the book on the fundamentals of mining for germany yeah it's a hands-on experience that i've over 40 years of mining and i've worked all over the world in the last seven or eight years i've been teaching in nigeria and pakistan wow to help bring up their mining standards from their occasional miners very good and i see the same problems over and over again the biggest one is their blasting techniques exactly and they they blast wrong they leave deep boot holes which is a portion of the hole that's left over after a blast and then all the energy that they focus in that blast goes right into the rock and shatters anything within a meter or meter and a half of their hole i talk about timbering techniques i have underground railroad implementation techniques uh i have a chapter first chapter is on geology so they can actually physically follow the right signs especially in genetic pigmentation you believe that and i talk about mapping and thinking in three dimensions and how to think inside of a box and then i go into practical mining applications i've never heard anybody in the entire field of mineralogy doing a project that you did in this book well you know i gotta sound simple i got a degree in geology but i started mining in palette and i fell in love with the mining exactly probably not a good idea because there's no money in it but i love what i do good for you and i took it to the next level and now i want to teach people on how to do it good for you that's great thanks a lot thank you yeah i really appreciate that all right oh your hand i'm so hopeful i didn't heard it no it's all good how you doing welcome back for 2013 what's hot in tucson and i see a crowd of students here i understand from from about stanford university yeah give us a little spiel what's uh all these visitors with nice smiles on their face so essentially a group of undergrads from the geology and environmental sciences at stanford decided to road trip for 12 to 14 hours depending on the speed of driving down from stanford to tucson to see the biggest mineral show in the world and um the idea is to let them see what collecting can be and hopefully i have a hundred percent transition from non-collectors into full-blown collectors because we have some that were already collectors so i would always go to the madison gem and mineral show in wisconsin oh this is much much much larger of course um i've been to some of the other hotel shows a few years very good but this show is really it's really something isn't it i came here and i didn't know what to expect and it's so much larger and it's amazing and every couple seconds i'm like wow i've never seen anything semi or something like that it's overwhelming isn't it beautiful and i definitely want to come away with the future well good for you one one very important question do any of you have any tattoos on your arm [Laughter] show your tattoo every one of you where's yours okay well thank you for visiting us and lauren thanks a lot for oh you had your poor army she'll go home saying this very something kept shaking anyway thank you very much for bringing them here and enjoy mufasa how are you hello hi dave how are you good to see you last time i saw you was over at the pueblo and you showed us some wonderful minerals there thank you you have something special with the shows here this is large crystals of microlight combined with topaz lapidulite and albeit very good that's beautiful first of all these are very rare to get anyway with the association with topaz absolutely especially the size is really large for microlight usually you get a really small size yeah but you have this large microlight crystals association with topaz it makes it really special large for this locality but it comes larger in other parts of the world exactly at this locality they're huge we can usually see them like that exactly and the association with topaz makes it more interesting because normally it doesn't come with this association and this large size that's what's so exciting about minerals from this part of the world they have so many other minerals with them to add to the beauty and rarity of the specimens well congratulations thank you so much it's absolutely a pleasure thank you so much thank you nice rock deal thank you so much good luck now you owe me how are you you always have a nice smile on your face and you're sweet and i understand you're doing wonderful with your jewelry it's a wire wrap type of jewelry that you're doing wire woven yeah i wonder where these came from look at the world through rose-colored tourmaline really something totally unique but anyway why don't you explain i see some beautiful pieces right here uh yeah i spend this piece is over 200 hours of work i i weave each piece slowly one link at a time and i guess it's a newer art form i've recently discovered that it's only about 17 years old and we're actually writing a book about the evolution of this modern style of wire work oh okay and i've made the glasses as kind of a novelty item and they've kind of taken off with the mineral community oh that's awesome and everybody should be looking at the world two rose colored glasses really you know it's so funny and so better to be honest completely lunatic it is something i thought i'd make one pair as a novelty item and done with it and i've had so many requests i'm actually looking for other other stones i have a another pair of lights lined up and i have a ukrainian bi-color topaz they naturally cleave and so i have naturally cleaved slices of ukrainian bi-color peach and blue that'll be another pair of shades well good for you it's really funny who would have thought that gym shades would be such an exactly well that's great and you know i mean thanks thank you very much and keep up the good work and you have a wonderful smile there that's part of your success very much okay okay what we have here is the natural history museum department of earth sciences and it's from cornwall devlin england and um there's a couple absolutely smokers in here as far as killer fluorites first i'll cover two specimens the coloration of that flora in the back i've never seen anything like that coloration it's intense it's beautiful shades into the beautiful shades of green going into kind of a a honey brown color but that's an extraordinary color then just for white all these blocky ones here uh kind of whitish going into kind of a slight honey color very unusual but what's most unusual in this case that i would like to point out is a pseudomorph citarite after fluoride these are extremely rare there's very few of them in the world and this happens to be an extraordinary example of it very hard to get these all hollowed out that was fluoride at one time then it changed over to cetera it's a citarite after fluoride very difficult to get highly demanded by top collectors love to have that specimen okay here we have the natural history museum los angeles county l.a and we not only have beautiful crystals in here but we have beautiful cut stones of fluoride look at this one an example this this one right there what a golden color and it looks like a flawless stone extraordinary stuff [Music] and of course pink fluorite octahedrons always highly demanded usually the most difficult to get in collecting fluoride if it's pink and octahedron compared to other colors look at the color of this one it's actually phosphofill like green color it looks just like a phosphophyllite [Music] beautiful color to that cut stone it's nice to show the rough and cut always believed in that [Music] okay okay we have this small pony case what they call a pony case size but what caught my eye in this particular case beautiful pieces in here but the lighting in here that purple if that can be captured that's just a very aesthetic purple fluorite and the lighting that's really hit it well and the green one on the right side it's just a lovely case of miscellaneous specimens drill eye catching okay what we have here is a large beautiful case of thumbnail specimens by a number of collectors that participate in and grouped up and said let's put a hell of a fine collection of thumbnails together and what we have here is an assemblage from various dealers some of these collectors got from willard perkins was best known for selling these little one-inch cube thumbnail plastic boxes he sold them by the thousands it was one of his business it wasn't the main business but it was one of his businesses but anyway he's a participant here so you have all different kinds give me an example that thumbnail rhodonite is a killer because it's terminate it's a gem clear it's a fine rhodonite crystal from australia now that's a killer even the bolita matrix razor sharp perfect that can go on and on it's just a lot of fine things in these thumbnails look at the linearite the phosphofill life those two right there i've always phosphorous like it's always important [Music] so there's a number of other things that one in the back road that she gave right there she gave there that that's a very unusual thing even a thumbnail rhodochrosite from colorado look at that thumbnail sitting back there beautiful thing and we just go on we have study minerals further up here right in here these are all catalog crystal faces numbered and so forth this is all scientific type work they did and so this is a study collection a crystallography then we have more thumbnails just to name a few here thumbnail uh benita white i can't remember ever seeing a better one absolutely texpa crystal beautiful crystal lustrous fine blue it's the best thumbnail i've ever seen then you have those rhodochrosites back there gem clear that red color that's the epitome of color from the schwann in my if you get that color that's the best color that ever came out of that mine most of them have a little deeper more garnet type red those are truly a ruby red [Music] pyrox magnetic down here that's the finest pony rocks man guide thumbnail let alone the finest pyrox man guide i think i've seen because it's at one large perfect thumbnail crystal it's a killer look at even the dioptase availables dioptase coming out coming out like a cross like that most unusual very aesthetic corundum crystals sapphire blue like that good shade of blue usually they cut these things up if they have any color at all in them and here that was preserved and it's a fine fine cluster of these corundum crystals then you have native copper in the calcite native copper on the outside now you notice the copper's oxidized as very commonly happens when it's exposed to the air and you notice inside the scalahedron calcite it's vivid pinkish that's because no oxygen has reached that inside so it has the pinkish like it just cleaned it with acid but no that's natural and to get a thumbnail of native copper in calcite very difficult to get that's a superb example they're all good it's just an ambulance see that little namby light back there in the back row that red specimen any ambulance that's a lovely small thumbnail namely it's a very rare mineral that's two crystals growing together and they're jamming it looks like they might have a little piece of matrix with it that's a hell of a fine thing i only wish i had time to go through all the specimens i'm sure we're missing some of them but here paramallikanite look at this that's very rare to get a parameliconite that thumbnail there see i like rarity as well as the common minerals and the beautiful minerals i've always had an appreciation for fine rare minerals that perimelicanize a super thing very hard to get that mineral thumbnail never seen one that good that quality to that is phenomenal and here's the participants here if you can get this picture these these are all from these various collectors and most of them are live today so that's a little bit from a whole number of collectors you can see why this is so important this collection to be filmed you're looking at a case that was placed by wayne and donna white this is a case of native elements and it's just it's got platinum it's got gold and silver and sulfur all the native elements there was a diamond intended for the case unfortunately it didn't get here in time but what you see here is marvelous the golds are especially important where wayne light is concerned because he has evolved into what i call california's expert on california history and gold the gold mines his personal collection blowing both him and his wife donna is certainly equal to almost anything that's in private hands anywhere you might say the same thing about the native elements they're just marvelous they represent excuse me almost every known important source of native elements and silver especially kongsberg chenorcia chile all the mines the german mines all the mines that produced fine silvers over the past several centuries one of the pieces that's worth taking a closer look at is up on the top shelf of the goals it's a marvelous leaf goal those flattened leaves are probably distorted octahedrons but if you look carefully or look at the photograph behind it you'll see that there is a tree root sticking out of the gold it actually grew through the gold specimen among the roots of the tree uh when it be when it was found and it's really quite a remarkable example of a near-surface specimen that was actually tangled in the roots of a tree you hear a lot of stories about crystals being in tree roots but that really is a fine example of that wayne is going to tell us a little bit about some of the history of some of these specimens because his collection really represents a cross-section of some of the greatest collectors we've had in the past 50 or 80 years thank you bob try to live up to that mr gold thank you well let's start with gold a good portion of these especially those on the left hand side are all from california and the one in the centers from california the large one in the back as well as the tree root specimen those are all california different localities that's eagles eagles nest down here and red ledge up there most of these are eagle's nests down here except for that flattened leaf which is from sonora the little one in the middle is actually from australia and very very rare because it's actually a cube cubes of gold are extremely rare and they rarely occur but that's a nice almost two centimeter cube of crystallized gold we also have gold from other localities the one on the far right over there is from colorado it's called wire gold and from the wire patch mine near breckenridge colorado right behind that are two gold specimens to the right and the left which are from romania and that's one of the oldest sources of crystallized gold in the world is from romania and then the one up above is one of our more recent ones that came from round mountain nevada and then there's another smaller one down below here that shows really tiny tiny wires that's from columbia so that's in this that suite of gold is represented about four or five different countries and localities but the very very best of crystallized gold comes from california some nice ones come from colorado and there's from iranian sources but basically california produces the finest crystallized gold in the world the second case is just a marvelous array of specimens from all over the world and the beauty of this is that many of these specimens were formerly owned by collectors and dealers we we hold dear to our heart i mean i there are there are people represented here that were good friends for wayne and myself and many other collectors and dealers it's just a marvelous assemblage of historical as well as superb mineral specimens i don't know where to start there's a lot of specimens in there let's start with these one over the left side here that wolfani which appears on the cover of the mineralogical record the arizona issues was doug found by found by ed over probably about 1930 it passed from him into arthur montgomery very famous man in the middle meteorological circles and then later to dick bedeau who wrote the handbook of mineralogy five volume set and then i he passed it on to me so that has gone through four generations of collectors the other one in the back there the yellow one not the extreme left but yeah more orangey yellow that was dick bedo's favorite specimen from a mine that he owned uh the old yuma mine which is practical in the city limits of tucson here that was his all-time favorite specimen and i think as i recall he dug that specimen so a lot of memories associated with this group of specimens here i must say wayne you've not only got a marvelous array of specimens from all over the world but this historical representation of all of our friends and all of the people who have been in our business and done important things in our business really makes this a very very special collection i envy you it flushes it out for me i'm a lot of pleasant memories i don't know when i pass away and it goes to somebody else they often don't care they could care less but i it's well you'll know you'll you have the prominence of all this and i'm sure it'll be good absolutely marvelous thank you wayne appreciate it good stuff good thank you wendell dave how are you doing good congratulations thanks in order you won two trophies this year can you tell us what happened and your beautiful collection speaks for itself you got fabulous so give us a little resume what took place uh well it was the uh decitels award which replaced the old mcdole award that is correct and uh then there's the single specimen competition every competitor gets to pick one piece that uh he wants to compete with against the other competitors single pieces that they pick out and that's the lidstrom award very good and this year i got both that's that has anybody ever done that it's happened a few times a few times okay well you have a beautiful assemblage of minerals and miniatures and and mostly thumbnails and it's a wonderful collection wonderful collection and the phosphofill light as a thumbnail is the talk of the show everybody would love to get that phospholipid light out of it it's perfect i don't think i don't see how it could be any better because it's exactly an inch yeah it's well balanced the two twin sides are the same not damaged it's got a good color and it has a little piece of matrix on the bottom i see that so it qualifies as a crystal line that's right absolutely no it's a beautiful piece needless to say every one of them were very well selected got a lot of gorgeous things in there one thing that caught my eye and i to this day i cannot pronounce the name is that pinkish salmon pinkish uh crystal there of the oh um you're pronouncing it i say it verena knight yeah i don't know if that's right it's very hard yeah that's a mouthful that is a jimmy crystal and it's the prettiest colored one i've seen this uh legrandite here a perfect uh thumbnail i think it was collected by george griffiths back in the 60s okay and he sold it to suzy davis the uh arizona dealer yeah brooks and susie dave is that the collection went to the smithsonian that's right and the smithsonian traded it out to somebody i don't know who he sold it to lynn bedale okay and died and it went to the minutes collection oh i got it from the minutes very good the londonite there the yellow crystal yes i think is the co-type specimen because it's actually pictured in the original description of the species wow and the the rock that that i trimmed it off of part of the crystal was left in the rock and i donated that to skip simmons to use to study when they describe the species very good you have a children out there with a little bit of matrix i believe or is that just the sticking is that that's true what's so fine about that uh somebody was saying the other day look at the huge children night well they i've seen them bigger but i've never seen that rich vivid color perfect thumbnail on a whitish matrix what is the matte one my glasses on what is that i think it's just a felt spot spiral okay the uh rhodochrosite on the left there that was in john barlow's collection oh okay the magnesite next to it was in carlos barbosa's collection oh very good okay the most people don't notice it just looking at it but the mimetite it kind of looks like a sumer piece but it's actually from hattie eye thailand oh for that adds so much more uh when it's from an area you don't expect to find the mineral at so that's from thailand okay the halite of course is from that new discovery in carlsbad new mexico you can't get it more sharper than that that that is knife sharp absolutely perfect what a color too so that's a fine thumbnail brazilian knight you got there you see two crystals together on the matrix very difficult to get those complete like that especially in miniature size the helvene which is behind the legrand right there yes is uh unusual in that it has such good luster you know almost all of those had a frosty or colored that's beautiful the black one back here yeah what is this that's uh pharaoh kester right ooh i don't know that uh well people thought it was uh stanite for a long time from that occurrence and we took it over the university and put it on the raman spectrometer and it turned out to be ferrocaster very good boy that's fun when you you get something like that yeah well wendell congratulations you did thank you hell of a job keep it up proud of you that's great william how are you i'm good i understand you and i have met but you're younger and i just don't remember you because you know kids grow up so fast and everything and i was told that you're very active with the mineral specimens and you help out at the shows and you build up a collection and what have you so give us a few tips of what you've done for the last few years i've been selling minerals out of my dad's collection okay and i've purchased them recently okay out of its collection and um when did you start collecting i started collecting when i was about three years old very good very young how many minerals approximately do you have in your own collection about 30 to 40 minerals very good okay and now you're selling minerals are these yours by any chance laying out on the table yeah so this is what you're selling right now and you're having some success i here yeah very good some of these rhodochrosites okay remind by my great grandfather in a sunny site very good mine in colorado very good that's great that's a thumbnail size they call that size yeah and that's from euray colorado silverton i think so around that area that area yeah it looks like silver day yeah okay and what other things do you have there um i have some halloween crystals okay from it's a rare miner very rare mineral very good beautiful blue color you can spot these immediately yeah that that's very pretty those are from eiffel germany okay eiffel germany all right what's your favorite mineral on the table here would you say if you had to choose one specimen what's your favorite one probably this halloween crystal because it's very rare yeah that's very good and also the coloration that's right it's very important i have a collection of business cards i wanted to show you oh i'd love to see them okay i have um rob levinskies oh okay that's mike bergman okay elise costner okay um that's roddy bergman yes matt bergman well that is really cool that is from the sunny wood collection okay uh all right that is right there and then kevin brown's you can't really see it but it's indented oh yeah i see yeah he does have its sign i don't know anybody in the entire hobby that collects business cards and that's a real plus for you i can't think of anybody that collects business cards they may have it because they deal with the people and everything but you're making actually a collection of them i think that's great keep up the good work [Music] you

Channel: bluecapproductions

Views: 8,491

Keywords: Mineral, collecting, quartz, fluorite, calcite

Id: 3CM-2M4hhYs

Length: 113min 5sec (6785 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 28 2020