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Munich Show 2012 I spoke with dozens of dealers and collectors and everyone agrees that there was not much new to the mineral world here. The most significant new find presented here are well crystallized specimens of azurite from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. There are enormous copper deposits in this country and azurite has been found in many of them but well crystallized has remained absent until this recent find made in August and September of this year. I have to first extend my sincerest thank you to Belgian collector Valere Berlage who helped me to secure this small lot of the finest pieces from this find. His love of Congo minerals is unsurpassed by anyone I know. These azurite specimens have a striking resemblance to azurite from Chessy, France. They were found near the village of Kimbwe', Kinsevere district, Katanga Province. This is about 40-50 KM from the well known localities on Lubumbashi. The deposit is not a mine per se, but rather a very small group of hand dug tunnels no more than 10 - 15 meters deep with the collectors using shovels and other hand tools to extract these specimens. Most of the recovered specimens are thin seams with crystals exposed but this particular lot had three dimensional specimens found - many as floaters with bright luster. This is unheard of for the DRC. From what I saw and the people I spoke with this is the most significant new find for minerals here in Munich.
Early in the show I went to visit Bruce Cairncross who had mentioned that he would have some very nice TN specimens of olmiite. He had them very reasonably priced and picked up five of them for my Munich Show update. Bruce assists Paul Balayer at the show and there are always some very interesting specimens from Tsumeb and the Kalahari available with Paul.
Prior to arriving in Munich a good friend from Norway, Dr. Knut Eldjarn, mentioned that he had collected some fine specimens of the rare mineral steenstrupine from the Tasseq, Ilimaussaq, Narssaq, Kujalleq, Greenland (say that fast even one time). Steenstrupine is a very complex rare mineral containing 10 different elements including thorium and cerium and is weakly radioactive. Good crystals of this mineral are hard to come by since they have to be broken from the encasing sodalite and aegerine matrix. Knut had eight specimens which I gladly traded for from him.
In Hall A5 I stumbled across another rare mineral being offered by Jentsch Minerals - single crystals of durangite from the type locality. Jentsch told me that these had been stashed away in a garage in Mexico and were purchased by a friend of his in the US. He said that the owner indicated that they had been recovered in the 1940s from the Barranca mine, Mun. de Coneto de Comonfort, Durango, Mexico and no one had any idea of what they were and until one was analyzed and found to be durangite. Most specimens of this rare fluoro-arsenate of aluminum and sodium come from the Thomas Range in Juab County, Utah. To see these specimens from the type locality was impossible to resist so I cherry picked five specimens.
During the Dealer day I was roaming Hall A5 and saw John White assisting in the unwrapping of specimens at the table of one of the myriad Chinese dealers. Whenever I see someone helping to unwrap specimens that is code for: "get your carcass there now!". Sure enough John had stumbled on to one of the other interesting new finds being presented here at the show - chalcopyrite covered crystals of scalenohedral calcite from the Daye mine, Hubei, China. I saw three other dealers handling specimens from this new find and in all cases the specimens had moderate to heavy damage with cleaved tips. This particular dealer had the only ones I saw that were either free or nearly free of any damage. With John's help I was able to get a nice, aesthetic selection of these.
Spanish dealer Luis Miguel Burillo and Bolivian Minerals were offering fine specimens of a new group of lime green augelite crystals from Tamboras, Mundo Nuevo, Huamachuco, La Libertad, Peru. These first were seen about five years ago from this locality but have not been seen since and may never again so I took the plunge and selected a few at both dealerships. Two of the specimens I obtained from Burillo have a Japan Law twin of quartz on them for added interest.
One locality that is still cranking out lots of good specimens is the skarns from the Inner Mongolia region of China. I spent some time talking with Bert Ottens about this locality and was illuminated. There are numerous deposits in this far reaching zone of skarns. There is a road which leads to the Huanggang mines but there are myriad smaller deposits being worked without any coherent plan of operations by small time villagers. There are no roads to these deposits and the potential, according to Bert, is enormous for fabulous minerals to arrive to the market. While there are many minerals being found there I decided to pick up several specimens of lollingite and genthelvite/helvite for the Munich Show update. These lollingite specimens simply dwarf by several orders of magnitude any lollingite previously found anywhere else in the world. They are instant classics and wont be available forever. Same as the genthelvite and helvites. The chemistry of these two are interconnected along with the other helvite group member danalite. All there are found as phases within the structure of the crystals according to Jordi Fabre. This locality promises to be an important source of minerals for some time to come.
There has been a lot of activity lately in Madagascar. Both Laurent Thomas of Polychrome and Tomascz Praskier of Spirifer minerals have spent considerable time there in the recovery of pegmatite specimens. Both had a nice new selection of liddicoatite specimens as free crystals and on matrix. One crystal in particular I purchased from Laurent has unbelievable luster on the termination and when viewed in sunlight is captivating. My picture below of the crystal is rather poor given that I was using a weak indoor fluorescent lamp for lighting. It has the richest burgundy red color I have ever seen in a tourmaline and the termination is perfect. I will have a larger shipment of there arriving later in November from Tomascz.
German collector extrordinaire Paul Stahl offered me a fine group of native silver specimens from Bouismas, Bou Azzer, Morocco. These are specimens of crystals exposed from encasing calcite. These are not new to the mineral world but the quality of these specimens made it too easy to say yes to the offer.
Many Moroccan and European dealers had specimens of the new find of blue barite from Ouichane, Morocco. These were first seen at the 2012 Sainte Marie show. I did not see any of significance at Denver so I decided to obtain a few. Almost all are intimately associated with limonte gossan. The blue color is as good as any I have seen from any other locality. I did not see a single specimen with anyone that did not have some sort of damage. Again, the fact that the crystals tend to grow into the limonite matrix makes it nearly impossible for any of these specimens to not have a tip or two missing.
Spirifer Minerals had by far the widest selection of good minerals from Morocco. In fact I found several specimens of vanadinite from two localities too interesting to pass up. The first is a group of stalactites of manganese oxide with scattered crystals of reddish orange vanadinite from Vein 12, Taouz, Kem Kem, Morocco and the second was from Mibladen with exceptional crystal quality of coca cola red vanadinite crystals with a faint root beer colored toning near the fringes.
You never know what will show up in Munich and where it will come from. While in a short conversation with Bill Larson he made known to me that he had a small group of interesting specimens from Burma. Now that this region is once again open to US travelers Bill intends to resume his role as "Burma Bill". He handed me two lots of specimens - one of lilac colored crystals of diaspore from Pan Lin Inn Chauk near Mogok, Burma and the other was a three partial crystals of the rare mineral serendibite from Mogok, Burma. Serendibite is almost never found as complete euhedral crystals since it is encased matrix and have to be mechanically extracted. Most specimens find their way to a cutting facility where they are prized as rare gemstones. John White mentioned to me that Paul Moore described this species and based the name on serendipity.
The last item of note for me here was a recent find of uvarovite crystals from Andarab, Talulqan Province, Afghanistan. Alfred Schreilechner was offering these specimens. These have been known for a while now and the geologic setting is similar to that of Outokumpu, Finland. Alfred had some crystals to 2 cm across. He mentioned that the uvarovite crystals are all encased in quartz and have to be carefully exposed using an airscribe. This is a tedious process and he said that in many cases crystals were damaged. Hence the prices for these is not inexpensive.
I will have one last installment covering the displays and pictures of people here at the show.
PLEASE NOTE: The minerals that were offered on these pages are all sold
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