It seems to me that the Tucson shows are the one time each year that the entire gem mineral fossil rock jewelry market gets together in one place and that there are important insights to be drawn about the current status and future trends of that market from observing what is offered for sale and talking with dealers and buyers who attend. To that end I would like to hear from those who attended as to what was remarkable about the show this year; what bargains they saw and what they sold and bought at the show

I attended the first week of the show. My impression was that there was a lot of high end cut stones available but that smaller stones in quality material were scarce. Quality rough was also very hard to find. Neither the afghani dealers or the brazilians had any rough to speak of. I did see large parcels of African tourmalines but the quality was mediocre and the price was high.
The exception seemed to be aquamarine which was available in
Nice dark color and size


The crowds were way down from years past primarily because
The east coast was socked in with ice and snow. Still according to
Dealers I spoke with buyers were there and much more willing to spend money than in past years. The problem was not having sufficient quality goods to sell.

Tom Kidwell

Wasn't at the show in Tucson, but what I've been hearing from dealers based in Bangkok is that anything of decent quality in red or green, including tourmaline, is being snapped up by the Chinese dealers, and at high prices.

Here in Vietnam, there is a new find of green and yellow sapphire. I've been trying to get my hands on some decent sized rough, no dice. A week after it was discovered, there were a multitude of Chinese dealers at the mine buying everything they could get their hands on.

I went to the Tucson show for the first time this year, and it did not disappoint. I was only there for 2.5 days, as I had to get to a wedding, so we only saw a small fraction of the shows. The show at 22nd street was the first one I went to, and we spent an entire day going through it. I *think* we saw everything there, but I might be mistaken.
One of the biggest things I saw was a *lot* of Uruguayan amethyst. It was a nice dark purple, with no zoning, but the prices were very high. Indeed, just like any gem show, there was a lot of variation in prices from booth to booth. Some were retail prices, some were below wholesale. I worked very hard not to spend all my money the first day (I was trying not to spend any of it, but that didn't work so well ). I got some beautiful Vietnamese aquamarine at one place, some nice tanzanite, and a very nice half pound morganite, which was labeled as found in Madagascar in 1969. My prize of the show.
There were lots of things that were just (for me) to look at - a cathedral I could have easily walked into and had room for another person sitting on my head - several very large fossil palm fronds - maybe 10 feet tall, a salamander that had just missed eating a fish, some beautiful opalized critters of various sorts from Australia (also some very nice stromalites, that looked like Van Gogh's Starry starry night... I started humming Don McLean's tune as I went on.
The next day was the opening day for the convention center, so we went there - for the first half day. It was a real disappointment. The entry was all high retail prices, the back room was low-medium retail. Very little wholesale prices there. (Some nice stuff, of course, but ....)
So we went to the hotel nearby that had some booths in it and found some Ethiopian opal.
Next day we went to a wholesale only show that was worthless - only wasted about 10 minutes there - and then back to the hotel across from the convention center. Found some very nice sphalerite. Kept looking for some Imperial topaz for a reasonable price but couldn't find any. As we were driving away, we saw a huge (really huge) flea market of stones. Wish we had known it was there. SO we stopped for a half hour, and ... among other things, found my Imperial Topaz. Nice stuff, from Ouro Preto, Brazil, and reasonably priced. We bought a lot, and then headed for the airport to my niece's wedding.
Actually left the show with some money still, which was a surprise, but was very happy with what I found and had a SUPER time. I have to go back!! And spend more time next time (and probably more money).
I understand that at some shows there is some new thing - someone with 55 gallon tubs of rhodochrosite, or someone dumping Ethiopian opal or some new find of some sort, but if that happened this year, I missed it.