Minerals.net

This listing contains photos of the public exhibits. The public exhibits showcased the finest in minerals in New York and New Jersey, and was probably the largest public display of New York/New Jersey minerals ever assembled. Many people contributed towards this effort, and their involvement is much appreciated. Justin and Brandy Zzyzx get a special kudos for organizing such a challenging operation and ensuring everything went smoothly and professionally. The fossil displays were curated by fossil specialist Yinan Wang, who also did a nice job of putting these together.

The individual exhibitors included:

• Hershel Friedman: Minerals of the NYC Suburbs
• Dave Kords: Minerals of NY State
• The Staten Island Museum: Minerals of NY State and NYC
• Rutgers Geology Museum: Minerals of NJ
• Juan Gonzalez: Minerals of NJ
• Tom Kapelewski & Sons: Herkimer Diamonds from Middleville, NY
• Bodhivastu Foundation Collection: Herkimer Diamonds
• Alan Benson: Minerals from the NJ Trap Rocks
• Steve Kuitems, Jim Chenard, & Fred Parker: Minerals from the Tilly Foster Mine, NY
• Howard Heitner: Minerals from the Northeast USA
• Joseph Polityka: Minerals of NJ
• Jason Baskin: Minerals of the NJ Traprocks
• Terry Szenics: Minerals of the Northeast USA
• Bradley D. Plotkin: Bergen Hill, NJ Prehnites, Millington, & NJ Copper Minerals
• Michael Essig: Ellenville Quartz
• Jeff Fast: Field collected minerals from the Northeast USA
• Glenn Rhein & Family: Minerals from the Rhein Property, Amity, NY
• Franklin Mineral Musum: Minerals from Franklin and Sterling Hilll, NJ
• Fossil Cases organized by Yinan Wang

I had a very challenging experience photographing the exhibits. These display cases were very large, with multiple shelves in each display. This increased the depth scope, and under low lighting was difficult to get the entire spectrum clearly, even with the aid of a tripod. The displays also had transparent shelves and backgrounds, which further challenged my photography skills. I am not so happy about the quality of these photos, but they are still better than showing nothing, and they indeed still give a feeling towards the displays at the show and the show in general.

Note: All these photos can be clicked for an enlarged pop-up.

Crowds observing the display cases.
(No, I don't have an explanation as to why the woman has her foot on the man.)
 

The Display Case Format. There was a long row of cases in this format, with an aisle in between for people to walk through.
 

Shelf in the Staten Island Museum Display.
These are minerals from Southern New York State.
 

Another Shelf in the Staten Island Museum Display.
These are minerals from New York City.
 

Display Case from Dave Kords, American Hobby Shop.
Dave has an odd assortment of different NY mineral from all over the state.
 

Another shelf from the display case of Dave Kords
 

And another from Dave Kords
 

And One Last Shelf from Dave Kords, with a really strange stalactite growth on the left
 

I was at the NY-NJ Gem & Mineral show on both Friday and Sunday. On Saturday my fellow club members Juan Gonzalez and Rolf Schudel covered for me. Although Friday showed a nice amount of people, both Saturday and Sunday were surprisingly busy, and I was happy to have sold lots of my surplus NY/NJ material.

There was a special dinosaur exhibit with many dinosaur statues of different sizes on the show floor in their own designated area. I guess this is becoming a new theme at the shows; these types of dinosaurs were also roaming around the property of the InnSuites show in Tucson the last two years as well.

Here are some general scenes from around the show:

Large, people-size flyers promoting the show and their sister show in Denver

Mean looking dinosaur on the show floor.

People walking through the dinosaur section

Some taller dinosaurs and spectators enjoying them.

The Fine Minerals Section of the show, where the high-end dealers set-up and displayed their beautiful displays.

Busy Area at the show.
This area was wall-to-wall with people

Typical Floor Show Scene

Booth of Malachite & Gems of Africa

An enormous Quartz crystal mass with deep red Tourmaline
from the legendary Jonas Mine in Brazil.
This hunk was on the floor by Green Mountain Minerals,
and they allowed you to touch it.

Beautiful, sherry colored Topaz from a new find near Pikes Peak, Colorado.
At the display booth of Amanda Atkins, who has become a star
on the Weather Channel's new Prospector TV Series.

Very colorful display case at Stonetrust's booth in the Fine Mineral Gallery.
The large Fluorites are from Austria and show amazing color when backlit.

The NY-NJ Gem & Mineral Show is a brand new show, and has very quickly become an important and exciting show. The show's debut was last year in the Meadowlands Exposition Center in Secaucus, but this new venue in the NJ Convention and Exposition Center was much larger and busier than last year's show. The show had a top-notch public exhibit of Minerals from New York and New Jersey, combined with a fluorescent "room" put together by the Franklin Mineral Museum, and a fine mineral section with high-end dealers. The show was this past weekend, starting on Friday April 12, through Sunday April 14.

I had organized a public exhibit for this show of local minerals, and also had a booth where I promoted Minerals.net as and sold some local mineral specimens. I had placed a TV screen at my booth which was looping several of the videos we produced. Many people stopped by to view the video, and the view of Glenn Rhein and his finds in Amity was especially popular. This show was lots of fun and I look forward to attending next year as well. I also put two articles in the show guide, one titled "Herkimer Diamonds from... Pakistan?" and the other on Glenn Rhein's recent finds in Amity, New York. To view the show guide online as a flipbook, follow this link.

I took many pictures, and because there are so many to post, I will divide them among several posts.

Here is part 1:

Hershel Friedman posing in front of his booth.
Glenn Rhein is being interviewed in the video that is playing.

Hershel Friedman and Glenn Rhein in the Minerals.net booth.
Glenn was a real celebrity at the show. He even had requests for his autograph!

Glenn and his wife Karen, posing together in the minerals.net booth.
Note the video playing is the video on Glenn, and is showing the Spinel finds!

Hershel Friedman with Eric Stanchich, in the Minerals.net booth.
Eric is one of the top collectors of NJ traprock minerals, a true expert and gentleman.
Over the years I have acquired many exceptional minerals from Eric.

My friends at the North Jersey club, of which I am a member.
The North Jersey club had a nice informational booth at the show.

Jolyon Ralph (R), founder of Mindat, and Justin Zzyzx (L), curator of the special exhibits,
posing inside the Minerals.net booth.
Jolyon came all the way from England to attend this event,
and Justin did a phenomenal job organizing and setting up the special exhibits.

Justin, Jolyon, and Brandy (Justin's wife) enjoying a Dum Dum lolly.
I was giving these out for free to all kids who stopped by my booth.

Alfredo Petrov manning the GemSnail.com booth.

We have designed a new and updated flyer for Minerals.net. This flyer will be ready just in time for the NY-NJ Gem & Mineral Show, where we will be in attendance and hope to promote our site. We will provide an update on the show.

We have blasted our latest edition of the Minerals.net online newsletter where we announced the winners of our contest.