FMF - Friends of Minerals Forum, discussion and message board

[Jordi Fabre]

Next week will be the main mineral Show in Europe and the world's second: the Mineralientage or Munich Show. As every year we will be there and also from there we will try to publish daily chronicles about the show.

However, this year our possibilities to publish chronicles maybe will be restricted, considering the task generated by our purchase of the Silvane collection, the surgery on my knee and the recent decision of Joan Rosell to move to a different job ( https://www.mineral-forum.com/message-board/viewtopic.php?t=355 ) So, according to our physical capacity we will publish more or less chronicles.

To complete the over demanding of these days, Marie and Terry Huizing from Rocks & Minerals magazine visited Barcelona. I tried to do my best and past Thursday I met them, I showed them my collection, we ate together and I organized for them, with the great help of Joan Rosell, a visit to the Folch collection and to another private collection. BTW, Joan could you please publish here a column about the Huizing's visit and their visits to both collections?

Well, we survived everything, the car is already charged and tomorrow we will start our trip. Beautiful life! ;-)

More to come...

[Jordi Fabre]

Sunday 10/26/2008

Already on the road to Munich, today just a short note to comment that this year we haven´t yet heard anything about something super that could be considered the novelty of the Show. Some rumors about something interesting coming out here and there: cubic Wulfenites from Ojuela Mine, Mexico, Pearceites from Uchuccacua, Peru, some exceptional specimens from China, but for the moment they are just that, rumors. We will see.

On the other side, another thing is confirmed, the former Poldervaartites from N'chwaning Mine are in fact Olmiites. Olmiite is a new species, recently discovered as a Mn dominant Poldervaartite. Analysis made on several "Poldervaartites" from N'chwaning proved that in fact they are Olmiites, and only the old ones from Wessels mine were effectively Poldervaartite. So, labels should be changed.

All the information related with this topic comes in an article published on the Mineralogical Record, volume 39, number 5, September-October 2008, and the authors are Renato Pagano, Alessandro Guastoni and Federico Pezzotta.

More to come...

[Jordi Fabre]

Monday 10/27/2008

Thanks to Joan Rosell for his very interesting message with his comments about the recent visit of Marie and Terry Huizing to Barcelona: https://www.mineral-forum.com/message-board/viewtopic.php?p=2333#2333

We already are in Munich and tomorrow we will start the set up, I apologize for not publishing much more today, tomorrow I will.

More to come...

[Jordi Fabre]

Tuesday 10/28/2008

Today the Mineralientage set up started. As the first photo shows, the enormous halls are still empty, although some personalities are already here. In the second photo we can see some well-known people: Bryan Lees (Collector's Edge), Bill Larson (Pala International) and Mike Bergmann from Illinois.

[Jordi Fabre]

Wednesday 10/29/2008

The general comment today on the show was the absence of interesting novelties. One of them were our Martites (Magnetite pseudomorphosed by Hematite). Martites were on shows past years but the location was doubtful. The ones that we have comes from Volcán Payún Matru, Malargüe, Mendoza, Argentina, and them have a second generation of thin crystals of Hematite very brilliant that makes the appearance of the specimens very esthetics. Their luster and their "architectonic" forms create a very special specimens, some of them on their tuff matrix. I add the photo of one of them.

More to come...

[Jordi Fabre]

Thursday 10/30/2008

Today the photos and their texts will be my voice, replacing what I can't write due to the lack of time to do it.

More to come...

[Jordi Fabre]

Friday 10/31/2008

Definitively this Munich show won't be famous for novelties. As far as I know there are just very few, and not so important or not real novelties, but revised localities with their minerals already known before, like the Martite from Volcán Payún Matru, Malargüe, Mendoza, Argentina, or the Wulfenite from Ahmad Abad Mine, Yazd, Iran.

Also good Ferrierite from Capurru Quarry, Sicilia, Italy, new Gold from Brusson, Ayas valley - Aosta valley, Italy, fine Calcite on Quartz Amethyst from La Bolsa Quarry, Artigas, Uruguay, new Elbaite from Pederneira, Brazil, Azurite and Malachite in well crystallized Quartz from an unknown deposit close Er Rachidia, Morocco, and few others, but not too much more.

More to come...

[Jordi Fabre]

Saturday 11/1/2008

The show is finishing. As we said past days, nothing really new appeared. Searching carefully it is still possible to find some minor thing here and there, like the new Chinese Veszelyite in Smithsonite or the Uvites in pink Dolomite from Brumado, Brazil, but after to check it with the rest of exhibitors and the people doing articles for magazines, all of them agree that fact.

On the other hand, an excellent Show, the crisis has been outside, or at least it don't affected it. A lot of things to see here, that justify totally the visit to this mega-show.

More to come....

[Jordi Fabre]

Monday 11/3/2008

Thanks to Ploum by publish their photos: https://www.mineral-forum.com/message-board/viewtopic.php?p=2369#2369 which complete so well our show reports. As I said before, this year we had not too much time for nothing, and specially to do photos, so these ones from Ploum are really helpful.
I should talk about the exhibits of this year about Australia and the alpine Gold from Italy. I will do it later, together with my notes about my general opinion of this Munich 2008.

More to come...

[Jordi Fabre]

Thursday 11/6/2008

I'm afraid that this year the exhibits in Munich were disappointing. We have been accustomed in the past to high standards, but in my opinion this year the "Australia" topic was just OK and the "Gold of the Italian Alps" not really the best. I'm sure that in next editions we will see again great exhibits.

My thoughts about this show are not very different from other fairs I've attended the past two years: very few real new material, a lot of good specimens coming from recently purchased collections, prices for "fashion" specimens extremely high, and the serious collectors with, as always, the same desire to purchase specimens if the prices are more or less fair.

The coincidence of my thoughts with those of previous fairs is really strange, considering the situation of deep economic crisis and the changing times which this show faced. As a veteran I have passed through other periods of the world's economic crises, and I must say that this do not seem to affect the real collectors of minerals, as they, with more or less money available, continue passionately to obtain more specimens. Anyway, it seems that there could be some difficulties on both ends of the mineralogical market. The cheaper specimens, which are not sold so much simply because their potential buyers have not money at all, and the "fashion" pieces, which because their nature as objects of luxury or prestige, often suffer the first in times of crisis, like the present.

I do not think that the crisis will affect so much the true collectors, as it didn't during past crises. On the other hand, I do not know what will happen with the other collectors, more volatile, more trendy, since I do not know very well what their reality is.

That's all. I encourage anyone who wants to publish reviews of this past Munich Show or any other mineral show, to do so, as Ploum did: https://www.mineral-forum.com/message-board/viewtopic.php?t=368 The number of visits of these topics prove that they are well desired by everybody.

Jordi