​Good evening everyone,

I hope y'all saved some snow for us. This is the last chapter in the Tucson files and we'll be flying out of here tomorrow morning. As expected, we didn't get around to all of the stops planned for today. We did make it from Congress St., South to the Ramada Inn and the Pueblo gem show. Parking in our usual spot, we headed North to Congress and were planning on starting there and working our way back to the Ramada Inn but we wound up taking a detour to see a couple of friends if they were there. Yvonne Jieuw was in the inside tent with her usual stunning collection of finished and estate jewelry but there was no sign of my friend and fellow faceter Jordan Wilkins. Bummer. Jordan's one of the younger cutters that I consider rising stars. So we were about to get back to heading North when we were accosted by a parcel of wild orphaned Garnets looking for a good home.

Leaving the Ramada,, we stopped to admire some stunning displays of carving, then continued North to Congress.

Finally, we arrived at Congress and we started back down the frontage road heading South. On the corner were some fossil dealers. These guys are regulars but always seem to have something new to look at. Right next to them is a little passageway that leads to an inner courtyard of some hotel. The courtyard's filled with different dealers of all kinds. There were companies specializing in Rainbow Obsidian, Peridot, Crystal specimens, tumbled, sawed, cabbed and faceted stones, Pink opal......I could go on and on.

There were dealers in Mexican Fire Agate and Opal and several specimen dealers that had some of the juiciest specimens and very fair prices. We would have had our wallets out except that this morning we shipped our last flat rate packages out and we'll be heading for Phoenix before the Post Office opens. Guess we'll have to leave these to got to seed for the next time we come down.
​
Well, that's it for our Tucson 2025. Didn't find everything we were looking for but did find a lot that we didn't know we needed Lol. We've shipped 26 flat rate packages back to the Northwest and will be busy for the next couple of weeks unpacking, categorizing and scratching our heads wondering why we even bough some of this stuff. Make sure you don't miss this month's membership meeting where we'll have some of our goodies on display.

Stay Warm and safe,

Pete and Leslie

​Hi Again from sunny Tucson,

It cooled down a bit today to somewhere in the mid seventies. Tomorrow is going to be our last day of hitting the shows and we'll be back to the hotel early to pack up and get our luggage ready. Tomorrow morning's also the last we'll be able to ship out packages via USPS Flat Rate as we'll be hitting the road before the Post Office opens so if it won't fit in the luggage or on us, it'll have to stay in Tucson. As usual, there wasn't enough time to see everything but that's going to be the same with every Tucson gem show. Today, as I mentioned last night we were hoping to get the 22nd St. show, the JGM show (which is smaller but still interesting) that's just North of the 22nd St. one, and finish the N. End of the frontage road show that would take us from the Ramada Inn up to Congress St. That wast the plan. The actual turned out to be more modest but at least we finished 22nd St. So if you come to Tucson, make your plans but be flexible enough to make changes on the run. Truth is, Leslie and I could stay another 2 weeks beyond this one and still not see all of the show. So here;s how today went 

The first stop was at a dealer from Brazil. This place usually has some exceptional Rhodonite specimens but not this year. Instead, there were a bunch of Amethyst and Citrine geodes along with some Kyanite, Angel wing carvings and something green we couldn't identify but it looked like it had calcite formations on it. Here's the pic. Take a guess  


Since we weren't planning to buy one (It was heavy and my back hate me right now) we moved on and found a place with Calcite Geodes from Morocco. We'd handled them a few years back and decided to bring them back if we could get a decent price for them. We did and picked a nice selection and left them to bick up when we were done with the show. Forgot to get a pic before they were packed up but we'll bring some to the members meeting later this month.

Want to learn to facet? Just look at all the good stuff that awaits you 

This guy had some Mali Garnet which has been very hard to come by of late so, borrowed his penlight and gleaned through a big tray of them for about 45 minutes to come away with maybe a dozen stones. I find it a pain to bring my optivisors along on these trips so when we make our supply run to Walmart, I buy the most powerful and cheap pair of reading glasses that they have. 

Here's a shot of another thing you can do with the right rocks

The stuff on display down here is near endless and great project ideas abound. While going through the show we came across a guy who designed and built the nifty-est possible reciprocating saw for rocks. I'll have a brochure for it at the meeting but in a nutshell, it uses diamond wire on a hacksaw-like frame with a continuous water flowing over the stone being cut. You can loop the wire around in the frame so you can do several cuts in a stone at once with thicknesses of as little as 1/8 of an inch. It's slow and very gentle so it treats your stone with love Lol.

Another thing that's neat about Arizona is their Petrified Wood and there was a display of BIG pieces in the food court between the two buildings of the 22nd St. Show. The second building is a continuation of the show in the first tent. There's no theme or logic to the placement of dealers so it helps to look in every nook and cranny. If you don't, you might miss something 

Now on to the second tent. Right off the bat we found a specimen dealer that had one of the nicest Canvasite pieces I've seen but when he gave us the price, Leslie said "Too much" and we walked away. He promptly lowered the price and Leslie took her time before giving the same answer. In the end we got it for a little more than we wanted to pay but he got a lot less money than he wanted. A perfect deal! He had it wrapped up quickly and I never got a shot of it.

But I did get a shot of some Imperial Topaz and I rarely use the term "Imperial" since most of the time it means nothing but more money. The third piece in the photo from the left is the one I'm talking about and if I'd have had a $2000 dollar bill in my pocket, I'd be bringing that stone to the meeting. As it is, I'll be bringing some of its little brothers and sisters. He also had some very nice rough Blue Topaz which I've been looking for since we got here.

One day left and then it's back to Hoodsport and shoveling snow it looks like. But the different roughs we picked up, the people we met and the stuff we've seen all make this trip worthwhile. Btw, the second day we were here (Saturday) we hooked up with a friend and fellow faceter from Ohio. This was his and his wife's first ever Tucson. He was so happy to have someone who's done the show before since they were deer in the headlights as he said. This years show makes the 17th time we've done Tucson and I still remember that feeling from the first time we were here. If you can get someone who knows the shows, so much the better but if not, don't try to do too much in your time there. Tucson will be there next year, Pandemics willing.

We'll wrap this up tomorrow and hope to see you all soon,

Pete and Leslie

​Good evening to all you good people out there. Fwiw, Tucson hit a new record for high temp today, 86 degrees and all of us cooler weather types were sucking down liquids like no tomorrow. So, if next year you plan on making the trek, do what Leslie and I do. After checking in we go on a shopping trip for sunblock, cheap sunglasses, snacks, and most of all water, soda or whatever floats your boat as long as it keeps you hydrated.

So today was Jogs # 2. Just a final swing through to see if we could find the Blue Topaz people. Well, we did find the place again where I picked up that Persian Turquoise last Saturday. Turquoise, Topaz? Well they both start with 'T'. So that's close enough in my book plus he had some that I hadn't seen last time. This bucket had small pieces with little sparklies of Pyrite in them. So while Leslie was doing a fruitless search for some kind of finding, I amused myself by picking out pieces of this material. I also picked up some tips on cabbing it from the guy I turned the bucket over to when I was done. Pic above

A little while later, she left me alone again (She'll never learn ) and when she came back, she was the proud owner of four pieces of hydrothermal created Emerald. Something I've wanted to cut but never had a chance to do.

A lot of the Jogs show exhibitors put out anything from finished jewelry  all the way back to rough and a lot of things in between. Tools, raw findings, semi mounts, you name it. Here's a finished Moonstone pendant and some Turquoise ones. And last of all, the booth where Leslie hit findings paydirt. Also before we bid farewell to Jogs 2025 we just had to stop one last time at the booth where I picked up that Lavender stuff last Saturday for some pieces I'd missed and some really neat cabochons for Leslie. Then we packed it in and headed for the Electric Park Show at the Kinos Sports Complex.

Yay! Not only is the parking free at Kino, a kindly soul waved us over to a primo parking that he was leaving. Thank you kind soul, whoever you are, you give me faith in humanity  Now for the show, We'd spent longer at Jogs than we'd planned so had to cut short our stay today. Maybe we'll be able to fit it in on Thursday, our last day here. Nevertheless, we were able to hit a few dealers we especially wanted to see, namely Tom Orme from MT Lapidary and see what trouble he was up to. That trouble soon found us in the form of a 7+ pound brick of Charoite. Tom's Just over in Ravensdale yet I wind up always going to Tucson to see him. Go figger!

Leaving Tom, we wandered around the outside and found ourselves in a rock sculpture dealer, looking at one of his creations which I took the liberty of naming "Bathtime with Bhudda". And right across from 'ol Bhudda was a guy selling Thulite rough. Had to have some of that of course  So lastly, we had to stop and pay homage to "Big Bux" the Diamond Pacific 36" slab saw. Sadly, our offering was $26,000 plus shipping too small to take him home with us.

A couple of notes. We're up at 6am every day and try to arrive at whichever show by 10am. That gives us 3 ½ hours to get our morning stuff done. Shower, breakfast, buy water or any other supplies and run errands. This morning that included taking 15 flat rate medium packages to the post office and getting them on their way to us. We've been generally getting back to the hotel around 6-7pm. And giving us time to pack, inventory and plan for the next day. It's a lot of fun down here but there's so much to crowd into each day so plan you trip accordingly.

Tomorrow: finish off as much of the 22nd St show and possibly the Northern half of the frontage street shows. 

See Y'all tomorrow

Pete & Leslie

Hello again from the desert  Seriously! It hit 86 degrees here today which is a bit of a midwinter shock to us Northwestern folk. Not too many pics today as some of the dealers in GJX can be a bit shy about cameras around their stones. 

Toady's goal was to score some Congo Tourmaline facet rough. As color and brightness go, it's incomparable. As a facet rough buyer, I always am hearing "Our Tourmaline's the best because it's from (Fill in the nation of your choice)". Bunk. The best (and most expensive) is from the Congo these days. Anyway, to spoil everything, I couldn't find any at GJX or anywhere I've been at the Tuscon Show. I do know some of the dealers that probably have some in the quality I'm looking for but since I don't have the defense dept. Budget at my disposal, I'm putting the Congo tourms on the back burner now. 

So, where we are now is that we've got about 15 pounds of smokey, crystal and citrine points packed away and ready to ship. Leslie threatened me with bodily harm if I unpacked them or the Blue Zircon Rough, we picked up so being smart (and a coward too) they'll stay packed. 

We did see some nice displays of Malachite rough in one part of the tent along a lot of first rate colored gemstones. The sign behind the Emeralds in the second pic says "Oil Treated". It's common to see oil used to fill in inclusions in rough and cut Emerald since most of them come out of the ground kinda gunky. It's NOT common to find a sell who will admit it so here's an example of what a legit dealer will do. Later today I looked at some Emerald rough that had so much oil on and in it that it was literally dripping and coating my hands in gunk. To bad my car didn't need an oil change. 

Pic three is the same dealer with Padparascha Sapphire. Some of you may remember my showing some lab create Sapphire of this same color stone that sells (If you can find some) fo about $300-400usd/ gram. This is the real thing and the smallest at 4.5carats was going for $38,000usd. Now you know why lab created stones like this, diamonds and hydrothermal Emeralds are getting so popular 

So if you want to see the Blue Zircs, the Crystal Points, the Blue Moonstone and oh yes the pariba blue, Tourmaline spray that Leslie picked up, plan on hitting the Feb. Meeting of the SRAMS 

After GJX we picked up our Crystal points and called it an early day since we were both hot and tired and wound up with packing 15 flat rate boxes to be shipped out tomorrow morning. After that, we're doing another round of the JOGS show and then hitting the Electric Park show at the KINO Sports Complex. Lot's of pics tomorrow 

Pete

Hi again to the fellow members of the SRAMS. Here's another letter and update from sunny Tucson. BTW, I know you got snowed on so stay safe, warm and off of the roads if at all possible.

Now the latest news from down here but first of all I want to give a big thanks to Paul Corbett, our new trustee and webmaster. I picked up a new computer and wasn't able to get in sync with windows 11 and have been work out the bugs before leaving, so I've been writing this as a letter to him so he can publish the to the blog on the website, under the Tucson Trip, in the Events section. Thanks Paul.

Today, Leslie and I met up with board members, Susan Perrault, Stacey Sedlacek along with Kelly who was charged by Tom to keep us out of trouble and failing that, post bail. Today's big adventure was to work the frontage road south, from the Ramada Inn and to look for items to be used in the club raffle and member awards. Bet you think I'm going to give away the booty we took in. Ain't happening! If you want to see our swag, you'll have to come to the Feb. Members meeting where we'll have a mondo-super-humongous show and tell.

Staring at the Ramada, we spent a goodly amount of time outside the hotel and prowling the guest parking quite successfully. Besides the raffle and awards stuff, we spent time gawking at some of the show displays, like the world's largest big blue eye and Amethyst geode (See above). Inside we found some Cobalt-Calcite and Malachite from Namibia. Since neither Leslie or I have enough of either, we just had to buy some. Of course you all realize that we really didn't want it, but we NEEDED it. Pics above. Other things in this tent were some terrific gemstone carvings (pic above) of birds. A Marble and Malachite Chess set, some nicely cut and cheap sard and carnelian cabs (above again) And other neat things. 

Just to keep things in perspective, everything is NOT bigger in Texas. Here's a Tucson Gem tree (Above)

Some things keep on going. The only guy that I will buy Mexican Opal from; I found had passed away during the covid epidemic yet his son remembered me and hins OM and is carrying on the biz with the same high standards that his dad applied. (pic above). On another somber note, I learned of the passing of our own Joyce Evans today. Joyce was the first to welcome both Leslie and I to the club, after Tom and we'll miss her welcoming and friendly openness.

On to other things. I got one of the exhibitors to let me take a pic of this room. For 2-3 weeks, a lot of the dealer's entire world is in their little hotel rooms. The live on pizza or other food that's deliver to their rooms, sleep on the floor in the middle of their showroom and rarely leave except to check on the display immediately outside of their front door (Pic above)

Here's a pic of a cabbing and trim saw unit from Beacon Star. I was told that it has 2 new motors and just needs some work to the irrigation system to make it fully operational. Leslie can supply details if anyone's interested.

I'll close today with some pics from the bird carver for y'all to look at. Tomorrow the GJX show opens and we'll be hitting that and possibly the other half of the 22nd St. Show but now, my feet are sore and my back's threatening to leave me if I keep letting Leslie fill my backpack with boulders to carry around Tucson.

Oh! One last thing. Last pic, I was able to score a half kilo of medium Amethyst Facet rough from one of the outside dealers.

Stay safe and more good stuff coming from Tucson tomorrow.

Pete

​Good Morning all. I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings but it's about 70 here in Tucson  Blue skies and we're getting ready to hit the JOGS show (Don't know what it stands for but I know there's a lot of rock stuff there.

The local Post office ran out of flat-rate boxes so we'll got a little further afield to hopefully get more. So that's a minor bump in the road but we'll get around it one way or another. Haven't any idea how many square feet the Jogs show covers but it's a lot. On todays list I'm looking for some Swiss blue Topaz facet rough that I got a couple/few years back. But even with that being the object of my search, I'll be keeping an eye out for anything that catches my or Leslie's eye. And guess what? First stall after we entered had something I'd never seen before. A stone the owner merely called "Lavender".

​The color is a light but definite lavender and the one cut piece he had left had a great polish to it so out came the high-grading wand and PRESTO! Money and stones magically changed places.

Jogs isn't just a rough show though, there were glass filled Rubies, along with the real things

And for the seeker of the path less traveled, a padded back wooden Hippo that of course, Leslie refused to let me take it home with us (She can be so unreasonable at times).

Pic at top of page.

Picking through the findings was next to impossible, there were so many of them and so much show to cover. So, we went exploring and found some super Turquoise at the SunWest findings booth, What was some high grade like this doing in a findings booth? Beats me, but we watched as a guy made a deal for 5- five gallon buckets of the material so with a little (Lot) whining and persuasion, I got the boss to let me pick some of it up 

Pic at top of page.

Leslie spotted a couple of neat items. She's into sphere's and there was a booth with some Purperite one that she had to have so out of the backpack went some money and into it went a 4 or 5" Purperite sphere along with 10kg of rough just in case my back was feeling too good. Give you one guess who had the backpack on......and it wasn't Leslie. Also came back with a killer specimen of Uvarite

Now I'm sure you're wondering by now, how much Blue Topaz was I able to score. Wellllll, zip, nada, zilch comes to mind. We never did find the guy who I got it from last time so. I drowned my sorrows with a few Peridots and Iolites. 

So, sore feet and all, I'm going to rack out and get ready for tomorrow. Frontage road and possibly the 22nd St. Show. GJX on Monday and some of the carvings of Peter Mueller  It just keeps getting better and better.

Pete

​First day in Tucson. Up at 6 and headed for the Mineral City show after a quick breakfast. Side stop at the post office to get boxes for mailing back stuff in. Thank God for priority flat rate mail  Ok, Mineral City is some self storage units that are close to each other. All follow pretty much the same stocking items, mineral specimens and bulk rocks for cabbing. Barlow's is where we made our first stop and we loaded up on things like gold sheen obsidian,  African Blue lace agate, blue tiger eye, Amethyst lace agate, Botswana agate, chrome mtorolite, Dumerite, blue goldstone, green fluorite, chrysocolla and a Malachite sphere, and a chrysocolla/quartz specimen and that was just at Barlows! 

Leaving Barlows, we headed to the self storage warehouses where Lelsie decided to wreck havoc on some of the dealer's inventory's along with my wallet.

​By this time, it was getting toward late afternoon and I wanted to hook up with a friend of mine at the 22nd Ave show. Finding he was stuck in his booth (selling both Fac-ette and Facetron Faceting machines along with several other products that will be unveiled in the future so we wandered through the show, and picked up some really nice garnets and wandering further, we came upon some real, out of this world, rhodonite, both specimen and faceted stones. If you know rhodonite, you'll know that it's VERY rarely found as a facet-able stone. Be sure and come to the Feb. Meeting and goggle at some of these juicies! 

Until tomorrow,

Pete and Leslie. 

The cabs are a new hit of Hauyne out of Afghanistan

​Hi all,

After a lot of consternation and normal confusion we're in Tucson. The day started at 2:30 AM with a leisurely drive to SeaTac to catch an 8AM outbound flight to Phoeniz. We fly into Phoenix and pick up a rental car there as they have more flights out of Seattle and a better selection of rental cars. Once we picked it up (2025 Rav 4) it was time for a two-hour drive to Tucson. Making good time, we checked into our motel and got back on the road for dinner and a stop at Walmart to pick up some supplies like water and sunblock and other stuff.  Came back, unpacked and racked out.