It has been a strange year for sure with all of our shows cancelled, but an intrepid small group of mineral dealers came together, under the guidance of Leonard Himes, to do our ‘own’ show.
The Denver Fine Mineral Show done by Dave Waisman and the Denver Gem and Mineral Show hosted by the local mineral and gem societies were cancelled, leaving us mineral dealers with no place to go! Sandra Gonzales decided to go forward with her show at the Crowne Plaza out near the airport but on a much smaller scale due to the restrictions imposed by the city. There were no foreign dealers that could make the trip so the ballrooms were definitely set up for the social distancing and there were no individual selling rooms for dealers.
Leonard coordinated with Sandra to allow our group to set up a showing in one of the smaller ballrooms at the hotel. I’m sure all of us had some trepidation about how this would turn out. Surprise! We were all pleased with the number of collectors who showed up from the east coast, Texas and surrounding areas of Denver. The mood was so congenial and we all enjoyed just seeing each other again. Some other well known dealers were scattered among the other ballrooms for Sandra’s show, including Pinnacle 5 Minerals, Rockaholics, Benny Fenn, Collectors Edge and more.
In the “Just Minerals” room dealers included Unique Minerals, Cal Graeber, Leonard Himes, IC Minerals, Geokrazy, Arkfeld Minerals, Mountain Minerals, Mintang and Kristalle. All of us had successful sales and it was great fun and relaxed. It seemed that everyone checked their ‘egos’ at the door and to use the famous phrase “we are all in this together”.
A few of my favorites in our cases- pay particular attention to that Daly Judge tetrahedrite – a classic and hard to find- theVesper Peak garnet as well.
While we have redesigned our website and created an Ebay account to step up our online sales presence, we have always loved going to shows and interacting with customers in person.
Here is a link so you can ‘attend’ the show with us (find us at the 39 minute mark).
The future? Well…..I think most of us will not be making the flight to Munich due to travel restrictions, shipping problems and general nuisances. So.o.o Tucson??? No definitive answer yet about the “main’ show or Westward Look but we will certainly be hanging out at our Lester Street location. Lester Street area has become the mineral center and every fine dealer you can think of is set up in the various units. It’s party time on Lester Street!!! Hope to see many of you there!
