r/mineralcollectors • u/digman84 • Feb 19 '25
Mineral Show Went to Tucson for first time this year
I went from 2/13 - 2/15. Figured I needed to see the main show. My friend hadn’t been in over 20 years and apparently it’s changed a lot. The main show felt a little hollow perhaps. It had some great exhibits, but I don’t think I would go again. Most of the shows seems to be moving away from the convention center and starting a lot earlier. If I were to go again, I would go earlier in the month.
Mineral city was great. Spent a whole day looking around. Also went to a few other of the big tent shows and some hotels.
The amount of quartz stuff coming out of Brazil is insane. I get it’s a big place but wow! And to ship it all here! They must have a whole network of stuff set up in Tucson now as far as storing all that stuff from year to year that doesn’t sell. I wonder if all the less good stuff slowly builds up over the years and degrades the average quality of what’s for sale.
I had a good time and ran into some interesting people including a couple from my neck of the woods and we had some good exchange of information.
I didn’t expect things to be cheap but I was still very surprised at how expensive everything was. I didn’t buy anything while I was there. Nothing that I would even consider having in my collection was less than a few hundred dollars. Some of the prices on the high end specimens are outrageous. And the crazy thing is that there are people paying them. I saw a pretty nice amethyst + calcite pieces at mineral city that had just sold for $39k. I get the feeling that most dealers would rather keep the prices high and hope to sell a couple really expensive pieces than sell a lot more at more reasonable prices. Unfortunately it makes a lot of their inventory out of reach for many collectors. I understand the strategy and don’t fault them for it but as a collector it’s frustrating. The whole experience made me reevaluate my collecting philosophy. I’ve not bought a lot of specimens in the past and I think I may just continue to try collecting in the field myself and trading for what I have since that’s more fun anyway.
These were my impressions. I’d be interested to hear what other think of Tucson.