My 2017 Tucson trip yielded some of the best finds in several years!
We have just added about 250 stones from the show, which is really only a small portion of the material that came home to Boulder.
I had two items at the top of my wish list, and was thrilled to come home with both.
Number 1 was Pietersite Palm Stones
Many years ago we were able to acquire Pietersite Palm Stones, but have not seen any available for at least 5 years. We have since come to learn that the rough material for these stones most likely came from a mine in the Hunan province of China…. a mine which apparently stopped producing years ago.
I looked all over Tucson for Pietersite with no luck. I had just about given up hope, and then we ran into the owners of the only producing mine in the world. The mine is in Namibia, Africa, and the material is just incredible.
The dealer did not have Pam Stones, per se, but did have bags of the most gorgeous tumbled Pietersite that I have ever seen. He had it in sizes from small to extra-large.
I spent a couple of hours looking through the kilo bags of extra-large tumbled, and realized that many of the stones could easily serve as Palm Stones for the store.
I bought three kilograms of the beauties, and already wish that I had purchased much more seeing how these have sold like crazy here at the shop.
We have listed 35 of the very best out of the over 300+ stones in the pile, and suggest that those interested take a look sooner rather than later. We expect that these rare and exquisite specimens will move rather quickly.
Many of the ones listed would make gorgeous pendants, and we have sold many already to buyers with just that purpose in mind.
Number 2 on the list was Blue Lace Agate Palm Stones
Almost 10 years ago we picked up a few kilos of the most gorgeous Blue Lace Agate Palm Stones imaginable, expecting that they would last us for a very long time.
Well, I guess that they did, but not long enough. We ran out of these in the last year or two, and had not seen any similar pieces available since our original purchase.
Amazingly, when I walked into the tent of the same dealer from whom we got the stones almost a decade ago, there she had a few bags of AA grade stones that had just been put out for sale.
I gobbled up 5 kilograms of the stones, and I think that they might be even nicer than the original ones, and those were drop dead gorgeous.
I came home with about 320 of them, and picked out 32 of the very best to put on the website. I cannot adequately communicate how wonderful these stones are. These Palm Stones certainly are no less than jewelry grade, and would make beautiful pendants for those of you who are into wrapping stones.
Other great Palm Stone finds include:
We have added 42 gorgeous Green Turquoise flat Palm Stones from Mexico.
These have very nice patterns and polish, and would also make great jewelry pieces.
For the first time ever we have Zebra Jasper Palm Stones.
These hard to find black and white soap-shaped stones have a great polish and feel great in the hand. They were fairly pricey, but well with it.
After being out of these for years, we finally found some very nice soap-shaped Palm Stones.
From Madagascar, these pebble-type Palm Stones are just filled with dendrites; one of my most favorite mineral formations. Two of these listed have gorgeous crystals pockets.
These soap-shaped fossilized coral Palms are just gorgeous with all of the little circles where the Coral polyps lived. They have a geat polish.
For the first time we got some large soap-shaped Palm Stones of this very popular mineral.
These stones show really fascinating crystalization under a magnifying glass or jeweler’s loupe.
These smaller Palms are really pretty and contain real Ruby which glows bright red under long-wave UV light. Lots of them show traces of blue Kyanite as well.
A few of the above stones were really Ruby in mostly or only Kyanite, so we have listed them separately. It is not unusual to find Kyanite (blue) in Ruby in Fuchsite stones
One of our most popular items, we had been out of these for quite some time. Silver Sheen looks like black glass until held under a light. Then it looks like the most beautiful starry night that one has ever seen.
We get all of our large soap-shaped Obsidian Palm Stones from one dealer. He has the highest and most reliable quality specimens, and Derek and I went to his booth six times to make sure that we got there when he was first ready to sell. I bought 50 of his 60 stones in different varieties.
From the same dealer, and for the first time, we now have awesome soap-shaped Spider obsidian Palm Stones.
Spider Obsidian is a mixture of very dark blue and light blue glass, with the lighter blue color often running around in the stone in a spiderweb type pattern.
A main difference in this form of fancy obsidian is that the pattern, as with Mahogany Obsidian, is plainly visible in just ambient light.
Again from the same dealer, these amazing stones display gorgeous colors and movement when the stone is shifted around under a bright light source. I photographed them under 2 100 watt equivalent daylight spectrum bulbs.
The dealer had only 4 of these worth buying, and we have added all of them to the Velvet page.
We have never had these before. As with the Palm Stones, the real Ruby glows like crazy under long-wave UV light.
What’s next?
Now, onto a massive reload and addition of Tumbled Stones. I expect that this project will take us to close into the fall.