Natural Bridges Nat. Mon., Utah - October 2009 - photo by John Veevaert
John Veevaert    6152 Mia Vista Dr., Reno Nevada  USA  (888) 689-8402



 

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Show Reports
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Tucson 2018
 
We arrived here in Tucson on January 22nd.  It is a 2 day haul from Reno and the route we take sends us along the western edge of Nevada, through Las Vegas and on to Kingman. From there it is a suprisingly almost straight shot to Tucson.  In fact if you look at the map the length of the trip from Reno to Tucson has only slight variations off a straight line the entire route. See the map below. 
 
 

Thank you Google Maps.
 
Below are a few scenes along the way. 
 
 

Rolling into downtown Schurz, Nevada on the Walker River Indian Reservation.
 
 

Those mounds in the center of the photo are ammunition dumps.  There are at least 2,000 of them around Hawthorne, Nevada.
 
 
 

Bustling downtown Luning, Nevada.
 
.

The hotest place in Mineral County for the night life is the Mina Club located in Mina, Nevada.
 
 

South of Mina the road is more or less empty on Hwy 95.  I love the expanses of open land in Nevada!
 
 
 

Getting close to Tonopah, Nevada - county seat of Nye County.  As the billboard says you can roll the dice for a free room at the Tonopah Station Hotel & Casino.
 
 
 

Downtown Tonopah, Nevada and the famous Mizpah Hotel renowned for early 20th century boxer Jack Dempsey, Howard Hughes & Wyatt Earp.

 

An hour south of Tonopah you enter Goldfield - the County Seat of Esmerelda County, Nevada.

 


More open roadway south of Goldfield and there's the first Joshua tree we've seen.  Beatty, Nevada is off in the distance.
 

 


Spring Mountains of Clarke County, Nevada.  Not bad weather for January 21st.

 


The next day and there's Lake Meade about 45 minutes out of Las Vegas.

 


Blasting through Kingman, Arizona on I-40 east.

 


Just in time for traffic on I-10 in Phoenix, Arizona .

 


The Picacho Peak area near sunset.  Tucson is just a little over an hour away...

 

Okay - the road trip is over and we're in Tucson.  My first task was to prepare labels for the "Just Minerals Event".  I had been etching benitoite right up to the day we left and just ran out of time before leaving Reno to get the more mundane aspects of mineral dealing done.  The "Just Minerals Event", held at the Elk's Lodge on Oracle street has become a VERY popular and important show.  It is predominantly a wholesale show and there are scores of people lined up on opening day.  It felt a lot like a tsunami the first 4 hours with people getting all the rocks they could get their hands on.  My lovely wife Ronna was tasked with writing up invoices and when it was over and done the first day there were close to 40 of them.  Isaias Casanova organized this event and it is our 3rd year doing it.  The following dealers set  up at this show:  Leaonard Himes, Dan Weinrich, Evan Jones, Isaias Casanova, Geoff Kraznov, Kevin Downey, Don Olson, and me.  We are looking to move the start date up to Saturday instead of Sunday netx year but still keep it at three days.


It was a mob scene during the first two hours at the Just Minerals Event

 

Coinciding with the last day (Jan 30) of the Just Minerals Event was the opening day of The New Tucson Mineral Show.  It ran until February 5th. This is the second year it has been open.  It was in the old Theater on Grant last year but the building was condemed so a new venue was rapidly set up at the old Slaughter House across the street from the Theater.  Two large tents were eretced as well and that is where Ronna set up with her large array of fine agates.


Ronna with Brian Thurston talking agates.

 


Three "face" agates from the Joel Hauser Collection with art work from the 1950s. 

 


Ducolte agates from Summerst, England.  This is the only agate locality in England.

 


An assortment of agates Ronna had at the show.

 

On February 5 the Tsumeb Forum was held at the Elk's Lodge.  Again, I was set up to sell Tsumeb specimens as was Crystal Classics, Isaias Casanova, Geoff Krasnov, Kevin Downey and Rob Sielecki.  This was third year Ian Bruce had organized this event since obtaining the Tsumeb.Com domain name from me back in 2013.  We had talks, refreshments and interesting conversations all related to Tsumeb - the mine, its history and of course its minerals.

 


The announcement for the Forum.

 


A "pano" from the Tsumeb Forum.

 

So for the first two weeks here in Tucson I have been stuck either manning a booth, making labels or pricing rocks - only rarely getting away to see what is/was new here in Tucson. By all accounts this is shaping up to be one of the slower Tucson shows in terms of new finds.  Here are a few that I have seen before but are fairly new and that I have reported on before.  The first group are from Spirifer Minerals. Tomek always seems to have good specimens available at very reasonable prices compared to most dealers here in Tucson.  He had these very attractive blue fluorapatite specimens from the Golconda Pegmatite in Minas Gerais, Brazil available.

 


4 cm specimen of inky blue apatite with muscovite

 

Tom also had a very nice hoard of lime green torbernite specimens from the famous French locality - Margabal mine, Aveyron, France.  They are all small miniatures to miniatures in size.

 


3.5 cm specimen of French torbernite.

 

The last thing to mention from Spirifer are the new zircons mined last year from Stire Kufjord, Finnmark, Norway.  There is quite a story to these and they almost never left Norway.

 


5 cm specimen of with a 2.5 cm crystal of zircon.

 

Okay, More to come from Tucson!

 

Past Shows & Reports
PLEASE NOTE: The minerals that were offered on these pages are all sold
1999
Munich Show
2000
Sainte Marie Show
Munich Show
2001
Sainte Marie Show
Munich Show
2002
Tucson Show
Sainte Marie Show
Denver Show
Munich Show
2003
Tucson Show
Sainte Marie Show
East Coast Show
Denver Show
Munich Show
2004
Tucson Show
West Coast Show
East Coast Show
Denver Show
Munich Show
2005
Tucson Show
West Coast Show
East Coast Show
Denver Show
Munich Show
2006
Tucson Show
Bologna Show
Sainte Marie Show
East Coast Show
Munich Show
2007
Tucson Show
Dallas Show
East Coast Show
Denver Show
Munich Show
2008
Tucson Show
West Coast Show
East Coast Show
Denver Show
Munich Show
2009
Tucson Show
West Coast Show
East Coast Show
Denver Show
Munich Show

2010
Tucson Show
San Francisco Show
East Coast Show
Denver Show

Munich Show

2011
Tucson Show
San Francisco Show
East Coast Show
Denver Show
Munich Show

2012
Tucson Show
West Coast Show
East Coast Show
Denver Show  
Munich Show

2013
Tucson Show
Sainte Marie Show
Crystal Days (Poland)
East Coast Show
Munich Show

2014
Tucson Show
Denver Show 

Munich Show

2015
Tucson Show
East Coast Show
Denver Show 
Munich Show

2016
Tucson Show
East Coast Show
Denver Show 
Munich Show

2017
Tucson Show
Munich Show

2018
Tucson Show

 
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All text, specimen images, graphics & site desgin copyright 1998-2018 - John Veevaert  - trinityminerals.com