What's New in Minerals: Denver Show 2008

摘要

Customarily, calmly, inevitably as the change of seasons and yet with all due excitement, the Denver Show spread itself out again this year at the Holiday Inn Denver Central and at the Denver Merchandise Mart. The skies were intermittently rainy, but Hurricane Ike was far away and the presidential campaigns at least could seem so (the visitor needed only observe the No Watching TV News In The Hotel Room self-discipline). In the show's routines and rhythms there was just one really salient change: hotel-show manager Marty Zinn had at last found a way to make parking easy around the Holiday Inn. I'm not sure how he did this, but the important thing was that in 2008, unlike in earlier years, parking spaces seemed always available, and the foot-traffickers plying into and out of the big wholesale tents were not in the least imperiled by cars circling in the old angry, skittish hunts. Could this change be part of the reason why hotel-showgoers and even visitors to the "Main Show" at the Merchandise Mart seemed more than usually cheerful and eager this year? Or was it that a good number of what's-new mineral discoveries were on hand, despite everyone's (including my) initial impressions to the contrary? Somehow, a rote "there's nothing new this time" feeling seems to have become a part of the routine for many showgoers in Denver, as at other big shows ... but keep hanging out, look more closely, and you will find new items. How could you not, at such a huge, generous, truly international show? What's more, you will find significant bargains in beautiful and desirable minerals-a theme that will be addressed in an addendum to this report. Now let's run down the what's-new roster for Denver 2008, without further palavering.