January 24 Through February 4—TUCSON, ARIZONA: Annual show
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 Post subject: Re: Tucson 2018 - what did you get or see
PostPosted: Thu Feb 15, 2018 10:29 pm 
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I was hoping to see some of that blue petrified wood opal but I didn't spot any. I hope the pricing was a bit better than it tends to be on Facebook.
I didn't take nearly as many pictures this year I'm afraid, but I will get some of my finds photographed and posted once I have them all together again. We are still unpacking.

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 Post subject: Re: Tucson 2018 - what did you get or see
PostPosted: Thu Feb 15, 2018 10:51 pm 
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Actually the stuff at the show was more expensive than what I’ve seen on Facebook.

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 Post subject: Re: Tucson 2018 - what did you get or see
PostPosted: Fri Feb 16, 2018 2:13 pm 
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I'm guilty too of not taking any pictures and I brought 2 cameras everywhere I went.


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 Post subject: Re: Tucson 2018 - what did you get or see
PostPosted: Sat Feb 17, 2018 10:03 am 
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Some Montana Sapphire rough I picked up.

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Blue Zircon Rough

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 Post subject: Re: Tucson 2018 - what did you get or see
PostPosted: Sat Feb 17, 2018 10:04 am 
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Nigerian Spessartine Garnet rough from this years Tucson Trip

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 Post subject: Re: Tucson 2018 - what did you get or see
PostPosted: Sat Feb 17, 2018 10:07 am 
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Saw these over at the Pueblo show. Not sure what the idea is, but I guess for the gem collector that has everything it makes sense.

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 Post subject: Re: Tucson 2018 - what did you get or see
PostPosted: Sat Feb 17, 2018 1:05 pm 
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It reminds me of a fancy gem densimeter/hydrometer... :D
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 Post subject: Re: Tucson 2018 - what did you get or see
PostPosted: Sat Feb 17, 2018 7:09 pm 
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My Tucson visit was short and sweet. I enjoyed several talks at the faceters frolic and had a good time giving a talk about faceting history at the AGTA show. For me, GJX and AGTA were the most interesting shows, partially because I'd hadn't been to either of them before. It was great to meet some of the well known European cutters such as Tom Munsteiner and Constantine Wild, plus my friends at Arnoldi and Piat. I planted seeds for when I return to Idar-Oberstain so I can write the story of cutting in Germany.

As usual, the hotels around the Pueblo are fun for browsing and buying little random things. My focus this year was on rare stuff and good deals. Picked up Jet from the US and UK, 3 kinds of opal for faceting, aqua, sunstone, garnets, danburite, beryl, sphene, apatite, and then later after I took this pic I visited Tom Schneider and went through his rare minerals drawer and bought several things that looked facetable and affordable. It was my girlfriends first time in Tucson and she went crazy on Australian Opal because we can't really find that here in Bangkok and I'm scared to think about how much she spent :D


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 Post subject: Re: Tucson 2018 - what did you get or see
PostPosted: Sat Feb 17, 2018 10:59 pm 
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Justin, did your lovely girlfriend find the best Australian opal of all time? I hope so. I used to have a passion for the black Lightning Ridge when I was younger.
I still have some of them I cut when I was in high school. They still make me smile. AND, they still look the same.
No crazing, dehydration and all the other stuff we expect with the rhyolitic deposits.

Gene, (Precision Gems) you always find the most awesome rough. Can't wait to see the finished products!


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 Post subject: Re: Tucson 2018 - what did you get or see
PostPosted: Sun Feb 18, 2018 8:23 pm 
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Precision Gem wrote:
Some Montana Sapphire rough I picked up.

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Blue Zircon Rough

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I love this rough, do you remember who you got it from?

I hope to stop my the area on my way from Anchorage to Dallas, but not sure the weather will be warm enough.


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 Post subject: Re: Tucson 2018 - what did you get or see
PostPosted: Mon Feb 19, 2018 3:58 am 
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Thanks to everyone who's posted their finds! I love seeing the things people picked out (and I hope that maybe we'll see some of them later in the off the dop thread or--hope beyond hope--the before and after thread).
I got an awful lot of different crystals, stones and cabochon rough for jewelry making so I'll post a more focused sampling here. As usual we went well over budget but I'm really happy with everything we got so it's all good.
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First up, the three stones on the left are Baxter Blue chalcedony from a newish find in California. It has a very nice rich blue, similar to the fine Namibian material (a tumble pictured at right for comparison), just with an overall ridiculously intense blue for chalcedony. I did see a few Bulgarian pieces with comparable color, and one parcel of blue that was being poured out for a buyer a booth away at GJX (no doubt at some insane price point) but it's a hard color to match.
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As usual there were many Moroccan dealers, most with flats of the same sorts of things. Last year we got a ton of wonderful agate rough, but I am still a long way from working my way through it so no more this year. We did get our usual fossils, and this year there were an awful lot of flats of nice cerrusite crystals. I got a couple flats for a good price and picked out a couple with facet potential, as well as a few with cats eye potential (which I may be brave enough to cab, though even with my usual PPE I'm not 100% convinced). They're also made fluorescent by some inclusions that glow orange under lwuv.
Additionally, one dealer had a few large, chunky crystals of transparent colorless barite, a few of which had facetable areas--the one pictured above (second pic) is half included and half perfectly clean. No idea if anyone wants to facet barite but either way I had to have the crystals. I also got one with some really neat pyrite inclusions that I will have to look at under the scope once I polish a face.
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A new one this year at Tucson, this is Argentinian "pink amethyst", usually found in geodes but with occasional loose crystals like these. This is a light purple amethyst with fine hematite inclusions adding a red tone, combining nicely into a lovely soft pink. The purple tones definitely distinguish it visually from other hematoid quartzes I have seen, and overall I really like these even though they've already been jumped on by metaphysical peeps.
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Speaking of pink quartz, I just can't stay away from these intense pink Madagascan rose quartzes. I already have some facet grade I haven't done anything with but I convinced my brother that, since these were cab grade, it was a totally distinct and not redundant purchase.
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The coolest pair of septarian nodules I have seen, almost like a pair of liddacoattite slices. The dealer had quite a few of these but they were priced high enough I couldn't get a whole flat like I wanted.
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Tried not to be too indulgent but I did get this irradiated Brazilian topaz from Tom Snyder. There's a chance it won't be too fadey, I may or may not actually test it.
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A nice big cab grade spessartine, this one should be fun.
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I got these from a Madagascan dealer--nice big orthoclase on the left and a yellow spodumene from the same parcel on the right (which the dealer insisted was also orthoclase, but whatever). There was a fair amount of yellow orthoclase this year, both facet grade and fine cab grade with a bright golden sheen, and I bought a fair amount of both.
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A suite of 5 nice zircons in portuguese rounds. A friend gave us a good price so we snapped them up, 1 really nice yellow (not quite canary but in that direction), three golden yellow and one rich pink.
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Yeah, yeah, it's treated as heck, but lavender quartz with a rich purple color is a bit irresistable. The paler stones I got last year cut up beautifully and I suspect these will be even better. These aren't big, a few grams each, but they ought to cut some awesome stones. One dealer had big stones with similar color but I didn't have the money for them when I got there so maybe next year.
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These were a fun oddball I found at 22nd street from an African dealer--really, really light-toned hessonite, ranging from gold to pale pale yellow--there's an outside possibility one or two might be colorless with some surface iron staining. Really strange, but they do test as grossular on my raman. I don't know if these need to be cabbed or faceted but either way should be interesting. And they were cheap too!
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Another unusual thing about them is they still have some crystal faces on the surface that clearly show they're a ton of tiny intergrown crystals (hence the sugary texture, similar to quartzite).
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Neat beryl with a gold sheen! I got a parcel of these and can't wait to cut them!
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The big parcel of gold sheen beryl were old stock likely from Brazil, but I picked this one out of a parcel of Ethiopian aquamarines. Ethiopia is producing aquamarine, morganite, deep green grossular, tourmaline, gold sheen star sapphires and cab-grade rubies in addition to the more 'standard' sapphire, emerald, green amber and opal now. It's an amazing place!
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Stones picked out of a parcel of chrysoberyl. The left four are chrysoberyl but the brown one on the right is a zircon an the rightmost stone is a light-toned sapphire, similar to Montana in appearance. Can't complain about that! I bought some 'chrysoberyl' earlier in the week, picking out smaller cleaner stones from between larger opaque crystals with telltale form--the crystals were definitely chrysoberyl but every one I picked out was a mali garnet. It is nice to have a raman along.
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Some dumortierine in quartz crystals for funsies.
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A sampling of the cat's eye aquamarine rough we got this year. Most cat's eye aqua also has a diffuse sheen down the length, though you can get either without the other. This pictured parcel is Madagascan and all show both to some extent. We got quite a bit from a variety of dealers this year, and I'm really looking forward to getting them dopped and cut.
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Brazilian cat's eye heliodor. This was a less common find for me, and I was really glad when the dealer said I could select from the parcel and buy less than a kilo. These should be fun!
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A nice handful of Peruvian gem silica, picked out of a somewhat picked over parcel for a song.
And now for a selection of tourmalines. Proper facet grade parcels were mostly out of our budget but we managed to scavenge some good ones from mixed parcels this year, a few pictured below.
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A pair of odd Russian tourmalines, apparently yellow-green across the a (maybe a thin green rind?) and pink down the C (both are open C but the photo doesn't like to show it well!). They're a bit dark but pink usually responds well to heating.
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Some very yellow Brazilian tourmalines with faceting potential.
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Another dark pink with a green rind (cat's eye for extra opacity!), this one from Madagascar. Hard to tell if this will facet or cab, but I'll have a better idea after I skin it.
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I can't tell why this one was trimmed and then put in a lower-grade parcel. It has a cat's eye effect from the side but it's likely restricted to the skin as they often are. If not it will cut some great cabs but I think it may facet.
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These came out of a nicer tray of the new Congolese material. Nice yellow to peach color, just really wanted it.
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And last but not least our biggest purchase: some Ethiopian emeralds. I didn't expect to get any more this year since prices were up. Several dealers who had them for ~100-200/g last year had them at 6-700, with much higher prices for finer material (much of which was already sold out so I guess they weren't off base). However we did find a few we liked and managed to get a good price on them, mostly because the big one is a real pig in a poke. It has a nice coating of biotite on the outside and maybe half of it has good clarity (though how good is hard to say). The other two are a lot less risky though.
The emeralds also have a few neat inclusions:
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Sorry for the wall of photos.

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 Post subject: Re: Tucson 2018 - what did you get or see
PostPosted: Mon Feb 19, 2018 11:20 am 
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A few pieces of Morganite faceting rough.

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Some sapphire rough from Umba Tanzania.

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Barbra, it's not so much the finding of the rough, it's the paying for it that is the hard part. I don't think I have had a Tucson in the past 10 years that I didn't spend at least $30,000 on facet rough, and every year the bag gets smaller and smaller.

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 Post subject: Re: Tucson 2018 - what did you get or see
PostPosted: Mon Feb 19, 2018 1:45 pm 
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Gene, many could easily drop $30,000 and not end up with a hoard as spectacular as yours.


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 Post subject: Re: Tucson 2018 - what did you get or see
PostPosted: Thu Feb 22, 2018 5:09 pm 
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Here is a piece of Sphene and Tourmaline both just over 20 carats. The tourmaline is from Nigeria.

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 Post subject: Re: Tucson 2018 - what did you get or see
PostPosted: Thu Feb 22, 2018 5:11 pm 
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A good example of how color can dramatically influence the cost. Both spinels were from the same dealer, close in size too, but the one on the right cost exactly double of the left stone.
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Below are two tourmaline pieces from Afghanistan and two Tanzanite roughs.

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