Munich Mineral Show 2011 Show Report 1

28 October 2011

Hello and welcome

This year’s Munich 2011 will be Europe’s show of shows, attended by many mineral dealers from around the world. The Munich show has every year a special exhibition. This year's theme is "European Classics" with some of the best minerals from all over Europe represented from many well known old mining and collecting areas. The specimens have been loaned by renowned institutions, and private collectors - a full in-depth report will follow soon.

On the Sunday before we had a slight problem on the way to the show. One of our vans broke down in Belgium. The Belgian police were very helpful, and organised a truck to take the van away for repair, so we had an unscheduled stop over for a day. The next day the van was fixed and we continued our journey at 4pm driving continuously to our Hotel near Munich and arriving late Monday evening.

The van has had it!

The break down.

On Tuesday it was setup time. Even after the lost day we achieved this in record time with everybody pulling together.

At our booth there is a fine array of many exquisite specimens from around the world for your delight, with our knowleagable and helpful staff.

Setting Up 1

Setting up 2

Elizabeth Hacker checking labels

The flowers arrive

Lois and Wayne arranging flowers

The flowers in their place

Our Cabinets

We had a display case mostly dedicated to fine examples of Chessylite (Azurite), and two pseudomorphs of Malachite after Azurite and Cuprite, from the world famous Chessy mines, France:

Chessy Case

Calcite from Egremont, England

Cobaltoan Smithsonite from Tsumeb

Dioptase from DR of Congo

Gold - Eagle's Nest Mine California

Pyromorphite - Roughton Gill, England

Some of our world wide specimens

More world wide specimens

A first look at the specimens available at the show our attention was drawn to Jordi Fabre's booth where he had a new find of light pink-purple Fluorite crystals to 2.5cm, from Cantera Llamas, Spain. The occurrence is quite unusual as the Fluorite was found in the footing of new house build belonging to the owner of a backfilled quarry. The “new” vein is believed to be the extension of the one worked in the quarry.

Fluorite - Spain

Jordi also had a new find of minerals from the Huangganliang Iron Mines, Inner Mongolia, China. These were large Hedenbergite crystals to several cms long, as well as sharp stellate groups of Helvite, and light pink small plates of Rhodonite. The mines have also produced some glass clear complex Fluorite crystal specimens reminiscent of those from Dalnegorsk, Russia.

Hedenbergite - China

Helvite - China

From China the Zheng Xing Mineral Museum had for sale a find of scalenohedral Calcite crystals on green-blue frosted Fluorite in very aesthetic groupings

Calcite from China

Here is a taster for the "European Classics" special exhibition with a more in-depth report coming soon.

Unlike other bridal gown, the mermaid wedding dresses are very unique. It has quite different dress cut to emphasize your perfect body shape than other dresses like A-line and celebrity dresses.

The various museums and private collectors started to arrive and set up the display specimens on the Wednesday and by the Friday were rocking and rolling. All under the control of Christoph Keilmann and Ian Bruce.

Christoph Keilmann and Ian Bruce