This was the third year that Joan and I have attended the Ste. Marie Aux Mines mineral show, and I am firmly convinced that this show is about as much fun as a mineral show can be! Situated in the Vosges Mountains in the French province of Alsace, one finds terrific scenery, good hiking, fabulous food and wine, friendly people, and a world-class mineral show, all in one place. What more can you want? I know, a winning lottery ticket too, but let's be realistic, shall we? Along with all the above-mentioned attributes, one of the things that makes this show truly enjoyable is that, unlike Tucson or Munich, the overall tenor of the event is not "all business, all the time". It just feels more relaxed than other major shows. Given that all of our spare time the past six years has been spent either at the mine digging or at mineral shows trying to sell our produce to support the mine, feeling like a business trip can be a vacation as well is a good thing, indeed.
This year we arrived on the Sunday prior to the show, in order to have some time to recover from the 9-hour time change, and do a little goofing off before the show. As before, we stayed at the Hotel du Faude in the village of Lapoutroie, about 20 minutes drive from the show. Thanks largely to John Veevaert (Trinity Minerals) who originally turned us on to it, the hotel has become a meeting place for mineralogical friends from around the planet. This year, along with Joan and me, guests included English dealer Mark Wrigley (Thames Valley Minerals), Japanese dealers Kiyoshi and Eriko Kiikuni (Key's Minerals) , and American collectors Marshall and Charlotte Sussman. John did not make it to the show this year, perhaps prudently coming to the conclusion that the currently awful dollar-euro exchange rate would make it difficult to do business and make some money at the same time.
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Some scenery in the Vosges Mts. (left) - Hotel du Faude, our home away from home (right).
Along with being a convenient meeting place for a small group of mineral collectors and dealers, Hotel du Faude is just a great place to stay. It is family operated by Thierry and Chantal Baldinger, and along with large comfortable rooms, and pool and jacuzzi, the hotel has two excellent restaurants and a wine list that goes on for miles. Chantal even speaks good English for the benefit of those of us who have forgotten most of our high school French. If you're thinking of attending the show and need a great place to stay, check out their website www.faude.com.
Joan and I spent the first couple days being tourists, exploring the Vosges Mountains along the "Route des Cretes" which runs along the crest, and visiting a few wineries along the "Route des Vins" on the French side of the Rhine valley. Last year the weather was deadly hot but this time was pleasantly cool, almost like what I left behind in Weardale a week before. The weather reports called for rain most of the week, but in actuality, I don't think I brought out my umbrella once. The first "unofficial" day of the show is setup on Wednesday. I quickly dispensed with the largest part of my official show duties by delivering a lot of fresh fluorite to our German dealer Jurgen Margraf, and set off on the shopping trail. Like other European shows I have been to, I think most serious business at Ste. Marie gets done on setup day. I've always disliked pestering dealers while they are trying to get set up for a show, but this seems to be an accepted practice here and if one doesn't dive right in one usually misses out on the good stuff. Dispensing with one's reluctance to be a pest doesn't necessarily assure immediate shopping success, however. I had to leverage one of my best finds of the show - a nice blue French fluorite from la Mine du Burg from Kiyoshi, who got there first. The poor guy didn't even get a chance to put it up on his website.
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Dealers set up in the town theater (left) - Vendor tents in the street (right).
The "official" show is four days, Thursday through Sunday, with the first two for anyone qualifying as a professional and the second two for the general public. I think that, as most of the real dealing seems to get done during setup, they could easily dispense with the "professional" days. From what I have heard from a number of dealers, these tend to be the slowest days of the show. On the other hand, being less crowded than on the general public days helps give the show the relaxed feeling I was recently going on about, so perhaps best not to bring it up with the show organizers. At any rate, gotten over the shopping frenzy on Wednesday, the next couple days were good ones to look closely at what was available with the various dealers, and to socialize with friends from all over, whom we usually see only at shows.
With all the fear and trepidation caused by the currently unfavorable (at least to us Americans) exchange rate, I was expecting to see fewer of us there, but this was not the case! Along with most of the usual suspects such as Bill Larson, Wayne Leicht, Ross Lillie and Dudley Blawet I ran into a number of "first-timers" from the States, including Marie and Terry Huizing (Rocks & Minerals Magazine). They looked particularly happy to be wandering about rather than stuck tending a subscriptions table the whole time. Dudley was on his way back to the U.S. after another successful buying trip to Pakistan and I had a chance to hear about some of his latest adventures in that part of the world. Dudley regularly publishes accounts of his travels in Mineral News, and if anyone wants to gain an appreciation of what some folks have to go through to get all those seemingly high priced specimens to us at the mineral shows, I would highly recommend reading them. Helps give one a perspective on how and why these things come to be priced as they often are. He also showed me some nice things he was hand-carrying back, including a killer cluster of purple apatite crystals with quartz on white microcline from Afghanistan. Speaking of publications, Gloria Staebler and Gunther Neumeier who put out the English version of Extra Lapis had their new issue on Pakistan hot off the presses. I think this is perhaps the best issue they have done yet and anyone interested in the amazing pegmatite and alpine mineral deposits in this part of the world should get a copy.
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Rocks and Minerals editor Marie Huizing and husband Terry enjoying their first visit to Ste. Marie (left) - Jurgen Margraf tending to business (right).
France wouldn't be France without a lot of good food, and one of my favorite places at the show is Taverne du Mineur, located across the street opposite the main entrance to the show. This place is the Alsacien equivalent of an old East Coast pizzaria, and features a local specialty, tarte flambee (also known in German as flammenkuchen) from a wood-burning oven. Tarte Flambee is deceptively simple - basically thin sliced bacon and onions mixed with some fresh white cheese on a thin crepe-like crust. but when fresh from the oven and chased with some local riesling, it's about as good as life gets. The ovens get fired up at 1730 each afternoon and if you want to get a table during the show, you had best not be much later than that. Just tell the waitress "tarte flambee pour la table, s'il vous plait", and they will keep bringing it until you tell them to stop.
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Taverne du Mineur reflects the region's mining history and serves incredible tarte flambee (left) - Joan, Eriko, Mark, and Kiyoshi all wondering who gets the last piece (right).
Okay, enough with the travelogue, what about the minerals? Well, as usual with most shows these days, most of the material on offer was from either China, Pakistan, or India, and this being France, the Moroccans were also out in force. Also, as has become depressingly usual there days, there didn't seem to be many major new finds of specimens in evidence. Perhaps the most interesting new thing to catch my eye was a find of brookite on quartz, which according to French dealer Francois Lietard are from the Kharan district of Pakistan. Sadly, most of the pieces I saw were damaged, but both Francois and Czech dealers KARP had some nice (but not inexpensive) specimens. Also from Pakistan, and not nearly as expensive were some very nice adularia specimens, which looked virtually identical to those from the Alps. I got a very nice cluster with quartz and calcite from Francois. Though I think they made their premier at Marty Zinn's West Coast show here in California last May, Frank Melanson had a nice lot of the new rutile and hematite clusters from Brazil in Luis Menzies' booth. Though there was a find of these about 10 years ago or so, these ones look quite a bit better to my recollection. Though not new by any means, Moroccan vanadinite was quite plentiful, the overall quality quite high, and prices low. The same can be said for Wagolhi cavansite. For what was formerly an incredibly rare mineral, the supply of quality specimens seems endless! And the same could be said for Pakistani aquamarines! I guess if you want one, now's the time to buy.
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Fluorite with quartz from la Mine du Burg, Tarn, France (left) - Fluorite on quartz from Yan Gang Xian, Hunan Province, China (right).
As to the house specialty, fluorite, there was a good supply from an assortment of locations. What immediately caught my eye was the bright blue fluorite, usually with white quartz from la Mine du Burg, in Tarn near the French Pyrennes. A number of French dealers had this material and sadly, almost all of it that I saw was damaged fairly heavily. Kiyoshi gets the champion shopper award of the show for finding the good ones. If you're interested, check out his website. A number of dealers including Jordie Fabre also had good selections of Spanish fluorite, mostly from Berbes and what's likely left of the big find last year at La Collada. KARP had a good selection of colorless Dal'negorsk fluorite, many displaying the unusual (for fluorite) dodecahedral habit first seen last year. Chinese fluorite, as has become the norm lately, was ubiquitous. And as is also the norm, most of it should have rightly been turned into hydrofluoric acid rather than taking up space at a mineral show. Fortunately there does seem to have been an increase in the number of decently collected specimens recently, particularly from the Yao Gang Xian mine. Mark Wrigley came up with a flat of thumbnail-sized specimens from the Freiberg area of German Saxony, which should be on his site soon, if not already. He also pointed out to me a new find from Morocco. The fluorite was a medium lavendar color and occured in interesting clusters of tabular crystals. I must have looked through the inventory of at least six Moroccan dealers for a good one, but every single one I saw had damage. I guess that's what I get for not finding out about this stuff on Wednesday.
Speaking of stuff, one of the things about the Ste. Marie show that gives it the feeling of a bazzar is the amount of other "stuff" intermixed with the minerals and fossils. Some American collectors I know have complained that this gives the show a tatty and unprofessional feel, but I thoroughly enjoy it. If nothing else, it provides a bit of comic relief from the obsessive quest for the perfect specimen that seems to have overtaken many collectors these days. Below are a couple examples. If you're interested, you'll have to attend the show yourself next year as I forgot to write down which dealers were offering these choice items.
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Some of the more entertaining "stuff" to be had along with all the minerals (left) - A dealer in Romanian sulphides attempting to brighten up the display with some mineral-like objects (right).
Well, enough rambling. I haven't yet convinced you that you should attend this show next year, then you're probably beyond helping. If I have, be sure to catch the excellent Ste. Marie Aux Mines show website at www.euromineral.net. Until Munich...
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