As you can all imagine, by now we are seeing rocks in our sleep, while we eat and even in the shower. The entire town of Tucson has been taken over by "rock people" and it is packed! So much has happened, I am not sure where to start. Make sure to email or text me if you want to reserve a piece 720 352 3224 or info@handsofspirit.com.
Day 8, the weather has been warming up more and more each day. By mid morning we have to change into short sleeves and flippy floppies. Once again we split up to cover more ground. Luke and I head out to work on more special orders while Karen and Bruce lined up yet again for another elbow to elbow rush for first picks. I swear, we need the Bronco's defensive line with us for back up! As soon as Luke and I finished, we rushed over to assist with first picks. We will be bringing home some lustrous Adamite, Ruby in Granite (packed full with Rubies), Lazulite crystals (rare), Zombian Citrine (huge score), and many others! We will get pictures of many of these when we start to inventory. Because it is difficult to get photos of the product we are purchasing while we are trying to quickly grab, this blog will show some of the items from these current days as well as the past days. These are just quick photos, and most don't do the pieces justice. You may be surprised how difficult it is to photograph crystals accurately. I will also share a few special purchases as they are stunning and too good not to show. Lastly, please excuse my terrible writing. I work on these blogs at 10 and 11 at night after we have been shopping since early in the morning. My brain is a bit fried by this point, but it is the only time I have to write.
First off, here are some pictures of bird carvings. These are pieces that belong in a museum!
This piece is only a down payment on a nice car, coming in around $7,000. Gel Rhodochrosite humming birds on Tourmaline in Quartz.
This pair of 8" tall fine feathered friends may require you to pull some equity out of your home, coming in at a bargain price of $25,000! Believe it or not, these are Suglite on Paraiba Tourmaline in Quartz. Note: We have the Sugilite, and the Paraiba in crystals and I promise they are not quite this expensive!
Luke and Karen hard at work selecting jewelry.
These next photos, I have been waiting to tell you about until I could pick up the order and grab some quick pictures. These special, never before seen in this size beauties were a surprise find from earlier this week. Can you guess what they are??? I will tell you what they are after these two photos so you can try and guess.
If you guessed Pink Petalite, then you are correct! Let us know if you want to reserve one of these. They are one of Karen's favorites and a big stone for love! We have about 10 or so larger pieces and about a pound of smaller tumbleds. Wait till you see them in person and for those who can feel stones, you are bound to love them.
Another picture from earlier this week, richly designed, hand carved Malachite boxes. We were inventorying them last night and I had to share.
As day 8 wore to an end, we still had to line up for ANOTHER battle for first picks. This was the Rogerley Mine Fluorite I referred to in my last blog. True to form, it was CRAZY! I got wedged into the door frame by a man carrying a dog who was 3 times my weight. Haha, but it was all worth it in the end. We will be coming home with some medium and large specimens of color change daylight fluorescent Fluorite as well as thumbnails. I am sure some of you have seen this material before as we have been carrying it for 2 years now. We have been told that this was the last of the mined material and next year there would only be a few remaining pieces from cleaning up the operation. This is why the fight to get the specimens was so insane this year. If you have not seen this material, make sure to ask to see it, so you can experience what happens when you take it outside.
Pictured: Karen and myself sorting through our daylight fluorescent Fluorite finds as well as our unexpected goody bag (faceting grade) and thumbnails. Photos were taken outside, so you can see the blue fluorescence.
Day 9 was another sunshiny day in Tucson. The morning started out calm, but quickly became busy when we found a few of our vendors had opened, and another large ballroom opened as well. We split up once again. While Karen and I found some amazing Larimar earrings, Bruce and Luke found many different types of animal carvings.
Here are a few of the Zuni Fetishes. Notice the humming bird in front!
From there Luke and I went to find some Pietersite polished pieces. We will be bringing home about 6 or so very chatoyant eggs as well as free forms. We wish we had a chicken to lay more! While I continued to sort through eggs, Luke wandered off and happened upon some of our absolute favorite materials. Gel Rhodochrosite and Blue Calcite from Argentina. Thank goodness he did this, because we once again found ourselves with first picks! See below!
After posting some of these beauties on FB, I had some customers who wanted specific pieces, so I spent quite a bit of that day and the next working on hand selecting a few items for them as well, one of which is this 12 lb. heart!
Here are a few other pieces from this day for you to drool over. We did not get the carvings, but they were quite a sight to see.
We cannot wait for you to see the wonderful quality that has thankfully been found again in both of these crystals. It really is a rare treat!
As usual, the day was over in a flash. Dinner was ahead of us, and tonight on the menu, was the famous Daisy Mays Steak House. Daisy May's walls are covered in 1 dollar bills. People write on them with markers and then pin them up. We all wrote our name along with Tucson Gem Show 2016 and pinned it atop a board. We will see if it is still there next year.
Pictured: Bruce and Karen while we were waiting to be seated when they were getting along and not getting along ;)
Top on the list for day 10, was Auralite 23 for all of you Auralite lovers out there! This is another great point as to why Karen is so incredible at what she does. There are certain people in this industry who write up "new" minerals and come up with special names for them. They then sell these minerals at an extremely exaggerated price. Sadly, many people fall pray to this hype and pay a fortune for something that should actually be very moderately priced. Then there are retailers that mark these crystals up at high prices because they see that they are "all the rave". While all of this mark up is happening, many of these people are not getting their product from the source, which also drives the price up. Enters Karen. She works directly with the miners in many cases. This allows us to offer minerals like Auralite 23 at prices that many retailers buy their crystals for! Just like my diamond business, Engaging Diamonds, Hands of Spirit, does not like to see people taken advantage of by fads or hype, so be careful what you are buying and make sure you trust your vendor!
A table of Auralite 23. We will be bringing home some large and small pieces as well as smaller polished slices and polished wands great for massage/healing/Reiki work!
After we finished selecting Auralite, we walked a few of the rooms. We like to do this, because we tend to come across one of a kind items that many of our regular vendors do not carry/mine. Earlier in the day, Luke and I had been rushing through this hotel to get something and happened to see some really interesting pieces, but were too rushed to stop. Thank goodness we took the time later. The crystals that we saw ended up being Serpentine from Nova Scotia and they were gemmy! The man there had mined them himself and was such a gentle soul. They are almost chatoyant in nature and some have a natural polish from water dripping over them for years. These are a must see! Pictured are the three larger pieces we are bringing home. We will also have smaller pieces.
The next incredible thing we came across was a gentleman selling his private collection. He had been collection Corundum (Ruby and Sapphire) for over 30 years!!! He collected from all over the world and many of his pieces were featured in books. We are bringing home some opaque Montana Sphires, a few with record keepers. Here are a few pictures of his incredible collection.
This Ruby is named Road Kill Pigeon Blood. It is a very famous specimen actually. The gentleman informed us that it was on hold for a famous collector and today, one of our vendors informed us that it did indeed sell to this collector. This piece was the price of a small house. The pictures on the right believe it or not, are Sapphire crystals, the longest one being about 8" in length!
Karen with some super large Sapphire crystals and Rubies above on the table. The Sapphire behind the one she is touching weighs over 50 lbs!
OK, I will wrap this up with a few last pictures as this blog is getting long. We visited many other places for some special orders and odds and ends. We found a few more fluorescent Tugtupite tumbleds pictured below under a black light.
To end the blog, here are two beauties that we did not get, but were worth a look.
Stibnite cluster in a box about 1ft x 1ft large.
Orange Calcite carving about 1.5 ft. wide! The detail was amazing!
I hope you have enjoyed. Please stay tuned for days 11, 12 and 13 to follow!
After that, I will make sure to post blogs when we start the inventory process. Ooohhh lordy that is going to be a lot of work!
Until then, happy rock hunting to you.
Mirabai and Family
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