TIMA Tokyo Show Report Part 2
By: Dona
Ammonite from Canada exhibiting wonderful iridescence
Day 1(Thursday) started officially at 1:00 pm with ONLY museum and university people. For the most part this is ‘fossil day’. Fossils are of major interest for the museums in Japan.
Teeth!
Day 2, the day of collectors and the public, was interesting in several ways - the crowds were big and sales were brisk, but silence came over the hall when the 5.2 earthquake occurred (the third one since we arrived.) The cases were rattling for a few minutes, thankfully no damage but the Japanese are super sensitive about these tremors now.
Fossils in the booth of Zoic Srl from Italy
Wayne looked into every booth to report on anything new but there isn’t unfortunately.
There are some good lookin’ rocks however.
Native Gold Nuggets from Kalgoorlie, Western Australia, in the booth of Ausrox
Wonderful Tanzanites from Tanzania
A wonderful crystallised Gold from Leonora, Australia in the booth of Ausrox
Days 3 and 4 (Saturday and Sunday) are public days and they do line up to get into the show. Our ‘profit center’ on these days you would not normally associate with Kristalle - we are the king of ‘bin’ - small items that are priced from ¥100 (~$1.25) to ¥1500 (~$20) lined up ever so neatly. Some people will spend 45 minutes or more poking through every piece. Funny as it is, this is where we generate the funds to pay for the plane ticket and hotel bill!
The queue of people waiting to get into the show
View of the atrium filled with visitors
Bins of Spodumene, Fluorite octahedrons, Garnets, Forsterite and Quartz hearts
Bins of Quartz needles, Rose Quartz chunks, Apatites and small geodes.
Days 5 and 6 (Monday and Tuesday) - yes, I did say Monday and Tuesday. I’ve never been quite sure of the reasoning behind this schedule but I can’t complain because we are equally busy. My favorite time is after 4pm when school is over and all of the students come by - my collectors of tomorrow! I usually give them more than I sell to them. We are next to the Tokyo government towers and many, many high rise offices so we get alot of office workers as well.
Thank you TIMA for all your hard work and yet another great show. Congratulations for your 25 successful years, and here's to another 25!
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