A Sunday lay-in follows the early Saturday start at Bakewell. The show does not open until 9am. This allows the dealers to get back or recover from various excesses of the previous night.
Last night in addition to the Dealers' dinner there were at least 3 other venues with dinners/sessions going on in town. We had a quiet curry with Mike Brooke, in a restaurant with two other groups from the show.
Back to the show and as said yesterday George and I went to settle up and collect specimens from under various tables.
Early Doors Day 2
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One of the big problems with the Sunday morning checkout is that you can never track anyone down! Dealers are either busy talking or away from their tables talking to other people. It really is case of "pinning the tail on the donkey" but fortunately with two of us we were able to get round in reasonable time.
Nic at Taranis Minerals Deep In Conversation with Alan Barnes
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As we went round we tried to see if there was anything we didn't see yesterday or of interest for our blog.
Something we spotted that I have not seen before was an exceptionally long contiguous sapphire crystal from Badakshan, Afghanistan. These sapphires encased in a greasy compressed mica schist started to appear in 2009 at around the same time as the bluish dravite crystals in similar matrix.
The crystals are a mottled blue white colour with the odd gemmy margin. Usually seen as crystals to around 5-6cm in poorly prepared specimens, the piece on display here was fully 12cm tip to tip.
Very Large Sapphire - Badakshan
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On Saturday we heard tell of a new find of wavellite from Ballybunkin, County Kerry, Ireland, so we went to find out.
The Lawsons had collected this during the summer, and the specimens were typically bluish broken radially crystalline forms with yellow green edges.
Certainly interesting to see, different but slightly reminiscent of the specimens from Arkansas, USA
Wavellite - Ireland
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Also on proud display with Richard Tayler were some unusual specimens of globular talc crystals on dolomite from Pentreath Beach, Lizard, Cornwall.
The discovery was made in a beach boulder in April 2017. Richard was particularly pleased because his find had been picked up and publicised in the Mineralogical Record write up for the Ste Marie Show.
Talc On Dolomite Cornwall
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By mid morning we were ready to raid the Tea bar for one last time before we left.
Despite the slower start the place was nicely buzzing with a good crowd of attendees.
George reminded me to seek out a specimen for our Christmas Auction from what was left of Paul Lowe's stock, still under steady siege.
George made the selection, a well crystallised vesuvianite from Asbestos, Canada.
Busy In The Second Hall
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Just as we thought it was time up, we spotted some old stock Kazakhstan (etc) specimens with Don Edwards.
Back in the 1990s Don was a very active traveller to Kazakhstan, Russia, Ukraine etc, where he was one of the first people to bring minerals over from these parts.
Don has also more recently been active as the creator/organiser of the Leyburn Show; we will publish details of the 2018 event shortly.
George Packing Pieces With Don Edwards
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Our very last stop on the way out the door was to say "Hi" to Ralph Sutcliffe.
Ralph always has some very good stock and I wanted to include a photograph of a liroconite specimen of his for this blog.
As it happened Ralph also produced a a very old phosgenite crystal from Bage Mine, Derbyshire, UK and an aquamarine from the Mourne Mountain, County Down.
The liroconite (as the do the other pieces) has a fantastic early provenance, as well as being from the Sykes collection. We have been featuring specimens from Sykes on e-Rocks over the last few years, sourced from Ralph.
These pieces are all available, and if you are interested it is best to contact Ralph direct via email.
Ralp Sutcliffe's UK Classics L-R Liroconite (Wh Gorland), Phosgenite (Bage Mine), Aquamarine (Mourne Mountains, County Down)
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There you have it, sadly another Bakewell show has closed and we can look forward to the next, October 13-14 2018.
Meanwhile we are looking forward to going to Munich in a few weeks.
Word at Bakewell is that new Weardale fluorite discoveries are going to be well represented at Munich in the "Mine to Mine" exhibition.
I believe that Greenlaws, Rogerley and Boltsburn will be on display, should be worth checking out.
And so to driving!
Hitting the M1 For The Long Drive Back To TV Towers
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Our next UK show to visit is the annual event run by the Sussex Club on November 18th.
Our Next UK Show - Hayward's Heath
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