Not sure why but this year has been a little trickier than in the past dealing with the cold Canadian winter - but we are so spoiled being in the mineral business because once we hit the end of January - ARIZONA HERE WE COME!

Tucson gem show and the 3 weeks in Jan/Feb is our favorite time of the year, being around cacti, amazing food, and ROCKS ROCKS ROCKS. We had a great second half of 2024, our store continued to get higher foot traffic and our online stores kept us busy, so we came to Tucson with a lot of hunger and excitement to see what treasures we could find. The show had a better attitude then the prior 2 years, not quite as good as 21-22 but you can see that the market stabilized and dealers were in a better mood throughout the show, showing that the mineral industry is as healthy as ever. As always, enjoy our picture show below :)

First thing that jumped at us (I am sure at everone as well) were these insane Amethyst geodes from Brazil. They were asking $1.5M for them!

Valeri and myself digging through boxes of African minerals

Elena admiring some American specimens

Stunning Lemurian Quartz crystals, ice clean!

Who's a good boy - a pure bred wolf :)

Getting interviewed for a youtube show

Picked up a beautiful parcel of Hematites with Rutiles

Admiring - every crystal is so special

Elena and Valeri, becoming an annual tradition to have lunch at least a couple times at Crystal Classics wonderful gallery, their grilled salmon salads are incredible

Wink wink - crystal hunter!!

Veronikas first trip to Tucson, the first impression of the variety of Cacti in the area is very special

Some beautiful Arizona Chrysocola slabs

The gang is all smiles - can you blame us?

Some eye candy

These ruby in gold carvings were something else - Arkenstone always has some incredible displays

How is nature so creative

Our friend Peter Mueller - the master of bird carvings, the Parrots are made from Ruby/Zoisite and sitting on a beautiful Vietnamese Spinel with some green Pargasite

Another annual tradition - to climb the A mountain to watch the sunset

Beauty!

And yet another tradition - our favorite steakhouse - Daisy Maes, Veronika putting up a $1 bill for good luck - and yes those staplers are very tricky

Picked up a wonderful pink Apophyllite parcel, here are some of the pieces

Ammonites on Pyrite from Russia

And with the end coming near, the weather was absolutely wonderful, sun shining every day, warm weather - and in a day we would be back to Canadian winter, but that's all good - because we will be back next year!!!

A good hunt indeed, look out for our new postings coming soon

Thank you Tucson, we love you!! And see you next year