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St Marie-aux-Mines Show Report
By: Luke Chittock St Marie-aux-Mines Minerals Show Report, 3rd July 2008, by Luke
St Marie 2008 arrives with a welcome dose of
sunshine and plenty of minerals both old and new!
For several
days dealers and collectors from all over the world converge on this pretty
Walking into the theatre where most of the top end dealers have their booths revealed a stunning display case packed with the finest specimens from Chessy les Mines. Some of the largest perfect Cuprite crystals pseudomorphed by malachite I had ever seen.
This specimen is from the collection of Louis Vesignie, a eminent French military man who built a famous mineral collection numbering over 40,000 specimens, that was eventually donated to the Paris museum and the Sorbonne. Other Cuprites like this one were even collected from the dumps!
Our cabinets were filled with classic specimens from all over the world.
Among the
many specimens in our cabinets was a fantastic Rhodochrosite from an old find
in
Wayne and Ian in the booth discussing the finer points of something!
The first was from Alain and Caroline Martaud. A beautiful Alpine pink octahedral Fluorite nestled in Quartz crystals. A top end specimen which sold very quickly!
The second
was a Beryl crystal sprinkled with Magnesite and Uvite crystals from
An eye catching
blue cap; well illuminated from the Italian Dealers Pregi Gemme, located on the
stage in the theatre. No show would be
complete without these showy specimens!
Members of the team after set up; Ian Bruce with Liz Hacker and Dave Spiller.
For the
initiated St Marie is not just an old mining town – it resides in the Alsace Region,
two words that are synonymous with fine wine and food, above Wayne Leicht of Kristalle prepares to take on a fine meal…..evenings were
anticipated with relish!
Steak and Fois gras anyone?
Alain Martaud and Ian enjoy some fine Wine after a hard days work!
Desserts to die for!
Substantial
new finds at the show were a little scarce at a glance, but that’s not to say we
didn’t find any…….
Pierre Clavel
minerals who specialises in
Quartz with included Fluorite displayed by Frederic Gautier, found in May. Location was Madagascar - other details unfortunately unknown due to language barriers!
Friendly Jase
minerals of
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For bargain hunters at the show there are were plenty of Chinese minerals to choose from. One dealer had two dozen pyromorphites or so with good crystal coverage. The only draw back – no prices on the specimens. Two English dealers approached with caution asking prices, moving from specimen to specimen, the answer from the Chinese dealer remained consistent; 100 Euros, 100 Euros, 100 Euros. Not the worst price for a few but it made for interesting haggling in between the odd rain shower. My friends cursed occasionally, from the rain or the chants of “100 Euro!” I’m still not sure!
New Calcite from China, the locality is not known and the dealer was quite shy about his find!
New to the eye were beautiful cut Scheelites - the cut stone seen here weighs an impressive 95.45 carats.
Mokammel Shah had an enormous pile of Brookite from
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Many specimens had crystals that were well formed with good colour, on a nice white quartz matrix. I managed to get a good one but not before Dave Lloyd had beaten the crowds back to get a prize specimen!
The public soon entered the show making getting around a time consuming exercise!
Tomasz from Spirifer in
Not on display which I was unable to photograph was several new specimens of Helvite from the 9th of September Mine – a previously unknown species for the locality. More news on this find will doubtless be available at Lwowek Slaski mineral show in
Other interesting specimens unearthed at the show included impressive Senegalite from the type locality in
A few
Chinese dealers had a new find of Chinese Fluorite from the Menshang Mine in
M & A minerals of Bulgaria had on display a new find of Galena and Sphalerite from the Central Petrovitza mine in the Borieva complex. Worth checking out for sure!
A new Rubellite find from
Alexandre Dalerme poses with a nice Aqua - one of many fine specimens on his stall.
No show
would be complete without the dealers that bring the minerals to the show – over
a few days dealers and collectors catch up on months of news and talk with old
friends. Above a few familiar faces for many; Wolfgang and Karen Wendal of Wendal Minerals with Wayne Leicht, Ian Bruce, Audrey and Dave Lloyd and David Spiller and collector Paul Stahl.
The show
ended on the last day with the band playing in the foyer during pack down – a
busy time for us with minerals migrating into cases and wine bottles migrating out of
cases!
The Crystal Classics team
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