One of my highlights in Tucson is seeing the new minerals from new discoveries each year. Many dealers wait for Tucson to bring out their new finds, keeping it a secret and preparing the specimens in advance, and having them ready on display for sale at the Tucson shows.
I try to highlight these finds in my show report, taking pictures of the new finds, or impressive or classic material that I encounter while walking through the dealer booths and seeing their minerals on display. Many dealers are by now accustomed to excitedly show me their new material when I stop by and say hello.
It turns out that this year, some of the new finds were already seen at the end of 2019 at the Denver and Munich shows. However, I am still including those finds here in this report because they were a first for me to see and photograph.
Some of the more remarkable new minerals I encountered were large Quartz crystals with hoppered growth and smoky zones from the Uluguru Mountaisn, Morogoro Region, Tanzania. These were offered by Corrado Vietti Minerals, and reminded me of the Herkimer Diamond style Quartz. Fine Art Minerals once again had amazing surprises for me from the high mountains in Northern Pakistan. These included an amazing array of very large Rutile crystals, some twinned, from Tormiq, Shigar Valley, Pakistan, as well as Aegirine from the same find, some associated together with the Rutile.
The Arkenstone had lots of interesting material, most notably the large and aesthetic grayish-pink Fluorite octahedral crystals from Inner Mongolia, China. This was my first time seeing these minerals, and they were beautifully displayed in a case at the Arkestone. Several other dealers also had this material available. The Arkenstone also had beautiful clusters of rounded sparkling Chalcopyrite Balls from Daye, Huangshi, Hubei Province, China.
This is the first of our three posts of the dealer minerals. Stay part for part 2 and part 3 for additional reporting on some of the new and exciting minerals of late 2019 and 2020.
New Find of Skeletal Hoppered Smoky Quartz Crystals
from the Uluguru Mountains, Morogoro Region, Tanzania
Corrado Vietti Minerals
