This year in Tucson we all knew that there was the typical “Tucson Crud” (aka flu) going around but also knew , from the lack of Chinese attending, that there was something new. Many of the Chinese that did attend wore masks, but that is not unusual so we were not too concerned. However, being an avid news fanatic I was reading about the outbreak in Wuhan and there was some discussion at the show about it. We were VERY fortunate to have been unaffected, as we now know it had arrived here in very early February.
Fast forward a few months and lock-downs prevailed while death tolls increased and we learned of Asymptomatic carriers. This resulted in cancellations of all shows in March, April and May. Now that we are in June we have heard that the Denver shows in September are all cancelled, in an abundance of caution. This has left mineral dealers a narrow range of outlets, predominantly in social media and, websites and online auction venues. Needless to say, with so many dealers around the world there are so many places to online shop the competition is fierce.
We are doing our best to keep attractive specimens in our offerings on Instagram, Facebook, our Ebay presence (Minerals and Crystals), our website and the Trinity auction site. Geokrazy has one potential show in late October in Hickory NC prior to Tucson next year.
In the meantime I am working on a presentation for Tsumeb Day at the Elks next year. I was asked to present a talk on my very focused collection of Tsumeb calcites, so photographing and structuring the talk has been eating up a handsome piece of my quarantined time.
We wish everyone continued health and safety during these difficult times.