St Marie show report05 Jul 2007 By Robin We are all back in England, waist lines slowly recovering from our overdose
of croissants, foie gras, and good French wine, and after a short delay (shifting our website to a new server) I am finally able to get this show writeup live! Apologies if you have tried to email us through the website in the last few days - we were not able to receive them, so please email us again!!
We were all hoping for a week of sunshine as respite from the wettest June ever in England , but the weather was not in anyone's favour. Whilst the week started sunny and hot on set up days, it rained almost every day the show was open, finally drying up with some sunshine on the Sunday, but one thing we learned - nothing can keep an avid collector away from a mineral show!!
 The rain coming down
It must not have been fun for the booths outside, particularly for those renting tables with no cover, which were empty for parts of the show.
Empty tables on the left in the rain.  The show when the sun finally came out.
We were once again exhibiting in the Grand Theatre - the Prestige Mineral area of the show. This year the setup was quite different and in many ways improved. There were less dealers in the theatre meaning that each dealer had a much larger booth, and with two wide aisles instead of 3 very narrow ones, it was much easier to get around the theatre. With the no. of display lights greatly reduced (and with the cooler weather) the temperature inside the theatre was alot more pleasant than the 40 degrees C plus it reached last year. The main complaint this year would be the 'singing bowls' whose booth was at the top of the theatre - the reasonating ringing sound could get very frustrating. Many a confused customer would be looking around wondering if anyone else could hear the strange ringing or if it was just them......
 View of the Theatre.
There were some familiar faces to the stand:
 Ian with Prof Seelos and his lovely wife who was celebrating her birthday that day
 Peter Burr and his wife Sonja
 Mineralogist Prof Terry Seward and Ian play 'guess the mineral'
 Ian and Wayne with Rainer Bode of Mineralien Welt Mineral Magazine  Me with first dessert of the day mmmmmm
Around the theatre there was plenty of great minerals on display:
 A gemmy Sphene with Schorl from Pakistan seen in Marcus Grossmann's booth. Francois Lietard had some vibrant Cobaltoan Calcite from the Congo, as well as a great range of Malachite.
 This huge Beryl from Tongafeno, Antsibrabe, Madagascar was seen in Polychrom Minerals, when backlit with a torch there were blue semi-translucent areas.
.jpg) One of the beautiful blue Fluorites in Claudette and Michel Cabrol's stand, from Le Burg Mine, Alban, Tarn, France.
 The Cabrol's also had the glowing pink Rhodo from Sweet Home Mine.
At one end of the Theatre, there was a fascinating collection of minerals that form 'balls'. Thanks to Liz Hacker and her French speaking ability we were able to gleen a bit more info. The collection belonged to Mr R. Pralus, he has been collecting for 40 years, and believes the collection is an excellent representation of every mineral that may take the form of a ball. To present a complete collection at the show, he borrowed a few pieces from friends, such as Alain Martaud, to make it complete.
 
This fascinating Calcite 'ball in a ball' from Herja, Romania, is the rarest of the collection and totally unique.
Around the rest of the show there was also plenty to see and some new finds!
This new find of Quartz on Siderite was discovered in April this year (2007) in Massif de Belledonne, Vizille, Isère, France. The pocket was 8 x 3 metres in size, and the two discoverers dug in 10m to find the cavity. It took them 18 days to excavate and remove the specimens. Sylvain Desfarges, one of the discovers, holds the best specimen below.
 
There was a new find of Baesnasite on matrix from Peshawar, Mulaguri, Warsak area of Pakistan. The find was made about one month ago, and was on the booth of Khalid Minerals. The crystals showed good crystal shape and measured to about 3cm across.
There were some attractive Calcite crystal with inclusions of Pyrite from Xianghualing, Hunan, China on the booth of Fine Chinese Minerals Gmbh. The Calcite crystals were very large, and the inclusions were seen as phantoms preferentially along the edges of the crystals, outlining the crystal shape.
Patagonia Minerals had a new find of Hematite after Magnetite from Patagonia, Argentina, with some big specimens as seen below:
 Also seen around were new Rutiles from the Congo, and the latest finds of Chinese Wulfenites:  There was large quantities of Lapis Lazuli from Pakistan for sale at this show, more than has been seen at previous shows:  There were also a no. of stands selling the Spinel (red and blue) - Ruby - Chondradite - Pargasite in white marble from Vietnam, as specimens carved to become art forms.  One of the richest specimens.    View of the 'Espace Fossiles Mineralogies Int' large hall. In the 'Espace Mineralogies Passion' hall, a few more familiar faces were found, although some a little camera shy....  Paul Lowe of Lowestone Minerals booth... minus Paul  Nick Carruth's booth with Nick hiding : )  Mike Brooke of Broadstone Minerals, he had some nice English Fluorites.  Alan Arnold from Canberra, Australia, on his stand caught discussing a mineral with Wayne. In one hall, shared with the Micromount club was this interesting dinosaur exhibit from (I think) a French Museum.  On the Sunday I managed to have a look around the Euro Gem, a satellite show separate from Euro Mineral. It was very well laid out this year with a good mix of gem and jewellry dealers and a few minerals in between.   
 Ian and Wayne spent several days either side of the St Marie show travelling through Europe and looking at various collections. They purchased several high end collections, filled with world class classics, and lots of rarieties. One collection was a systematic collection with lots of type locality pieces, including a Daniel Mine, Schneeberg, Germany Erythrite, Australian Bustamite, Spanish Pyromorphite, Stottites from Tsumeb; many with beautiful old labels. Other collections had aesthetic pieces including Sweet Home Rhodo, Panasqueria Apatite, Canadian Vesuvianite, Benitoite and Neptunite from San Benito Mine, USA.
At the Denver show we are sharing a large booth with Kristalle in the Merchandise Mart, as well as a hotel room in the Holiday Inn. We will be showing many of the new European purchases at Denver. This show will also be our first public viewing of the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Science Mineral Collection. Several suites have already gone to Museums, but we will have a good representation of suites from around the world, bar USA minerals which will be on show at Collector's Edge's booth, next door to us at the Merchandise Mart.
We will be holding back the German suite and parts of the English suite from the Philadelphia Collection for the Munich show, this will be its first public showing. We will have our normal huge booth in the International Mineral Pavillion, and plan also to have two new stands just outside - one for the German and English Philly material, and one of keystone minerals. Our inventory is just so big we will be selling alot of top quality minerals at half price to make some room!
It was lovely to catch up with everyone who went to St Marie, and we look forward to seeing you at all the Denver and Munich shows!
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