2007 Denver Mineral Show - Trinity Mineral Company

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Philadelphia Academy of Natural Science Specimens

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I have been in Denver since Sunday. It was a typical 2+ day drive to get here. I thought a few scenes along the various roads I took might be interesting to see... (sorry about the images with bug remains on the windshield...)

There was a large 30,000 acre fire near Susanville, California where the smoke was fairly thick. Smoke
from this and other fires in California put a haze in the air for just about all of the trip across Nevada.

The Taylor Silver mine located just east of Ely, Nevada on US 50 which is not such a lonely road this
time of year as they like to infer. There are signs all along the highway once you leave Fallon
touting US 50 as the "Lonliest Highway in America"

US 50 takes you right past Great Basin National Park. That is
Mt. Wheeler in the center. One of the tallest mountains in Nevada.

The way too scenic Utah-Nevada stateline.

This is near Green River, Utah. Southern Utah has some of the most spectacular scenery in the United States IMHO.

A side road from Green River to Cisco takes you past Canyon Lands and
Arches National Parks with iconic scenery of the western United States.

Sections of Interstate 70 pass through steep canyons cut by the Colorado River.
This is east of Glenwood Springs, Colorado.

The Rocky Mountains offer up some unparalelled interstate scenery.

Much of the forest west of Denver looks like this. The lodgepoles and firs are taking an apparent
beetle beating. The only question is when, not if the forest is going to catch fire and fry.

Inside Johnson Tunnel which is about 2 miles long and starts at the summit.
All downhill from here to Denver.

Ok, enough of the road trip. I have had two full days to rummage around the hotel show and the news is the same as recent shows - not much new to the mineral world but many old collections are finding their way to the market. Most people seem to be waiting for the big release of specimens from the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences Collection that was jointly purchased by Kristalle, Crystal Classics and Collector's Edge. I have to confess to having seen portions of this collection already and the diversity, off the wall localities, and quality are something no one has seen on the market in a long long time. That is for Friday at the main show so here's what I have seen so far at the hotel show.

The Collector's Edge has a new find of Creedite from the Henderson Mine in Cripple Creek County, Colorado. The creedite is violet in color and is typically found as drusy coatings over matrix. The crystals are uniform in size - about 1-2 mm or so. I did not obtain any of these...

This is a shot of a few of the two dozen specimens on display the Collector's Edge room.
The available specimens varied in size from 4-5 cm across up to 20 cm across.

John & Maryanne Fender of Richardson, Texas had a new find of schorl from Shengus, Skardu Pakistan. The crystals are probably better described as elbaite as color can be seen on the edges of the crystals. Most are associated with albit and quartz.

This is 5 cm specimen with a quartz crystal set on the termination of the tourmaline crystal.

Dr. Hemant Merchant of Mineral Decor, India had some unusual floater specimens of celadonite included stilbite from Sakur, Maharashtra, India. They have an almost gelatinous appearance. When backlit they appear to be sea green in color.

This is one of the average specimens from Mineral Decor - a 6 cm specimen.

Dennis Beals always can be counted on for something new from Mexico. He is best known for the specimens of amethyst from Las Vigas and other localities. This year he managed to come up with some exceptional amethyst scepters from Las Vigas, Veracruz. Many of the specimen have a fenster habit and almost all have liquid and gas phase inclusions.

Here is a7 cm group on one of the shelves in Beals' room.

Here's Dennis after getting the place set up. Ok where's the damn cork screw?

My benitoite buddy Steve Perry came up with a some new specimens of caledonite from the Reward Mine in Inyo County, California. The specimens typically have a deep greenish blue color and are frequently associated with native gold or chlorargyrite. Some of the specimens I saw had all three species on the rock. They are also associated with a bright canary yellow mineral called perite which is a lead bismuth chloride.

This is a 3 cm specimen with numerous crystals of caledonite to 3.5 mm.
A few specks of gold are also present.

Brazilian dealer Luis Menezes can always be counted on to have some new things at shows. He had some apatite specimens from the Sapo mine in Minas Gerais, Brazil. There are two types - one with a faden-like habit though they are clearly not like faden quartz with all the crystals aligned but rather these have a slight cork screw habit. Some of the larger specimen also have a hollow center somewhat like you would expect in a stalactite. The other habit is razor sharp and mirror lustrous crystals of dark green color zoned apatite on albite. He had actually showed me these new apatite specimens at Springfield last August but held the best material for the Denver Show.

This is one of the elongated apatite group specimens from the Sapo.
This one is about 5.5 cm in length.

Here's one of the dark green apatite specimens on albite. The crystal is 2.2 cm across.

Here's Doug Wallace and Florida dealer Rick Green in Doug's booth. Doug, and his wife Teri,
are two of the more friendly and hard working people in this business. Doug had more of the
Mexican minerals he had at Springfield and also a huge number of gold specimens from California.

Set up day for the main show is tomorrow so there will be plenty of new things to see more than likely.

More to come from Denver!

Past Shows & Reports
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