Hello, hello everyone… hi… welcome to “Tea and Gemstones,” your podcast home for all things jewelry and gemstones, both contemporary and historical. Sometimes we talk about why diamonds come in every color of the rainbow, analyze red carpet looks, or discuss the very history of gold itself. To take you on these auditory explorations is me, I am your host, Jen. I’m a lifelong sparkle enthusiast with a love for details, because I think that’s where a lot of the joy is. I’m glad you’re here- I hope it’s fun. Okay, let’s get started!
*music*
Sometimes… a lot of times… jewelers, collectors and gemologists are solitary creatures. There are a lot of long days and nights working at the jeweler’s bench or designing, sketching, and researching at the computer or in books… collectors have their pieces in their homes, museums have their splendid galleries… with resources like Instagram and TikTok providing avenues for connection and sharing- but how to bring alllll of this together? Well, there is an event so big, it draws out and together all the gemstone lovers from all over the world to gather in one sunny hot place- Tucson, Arizona, for the annual Tucson Gem & Mineral Show. It’s considered the largest, oldest, most prestigious gem and mineral show in the world… at least, that’s what it says across the top of the gem show’s own website haha. But it’s not really hyperbole. Before I make your head swim with a lot of big numbers, let’s establish the backstory.
The Tucson Gem & Mineral show is hosted by the Tucson Gem & Mineral Society, a group that was founded in Arizona in 1946. The society has a simple mission statement, I’m quoting from their website, quote, “to encourage interest and study in geology, mineralogy, lapidary and allied earth sciences.” End quote. Side note- ‘lapidary’ is a word that means relating to stones and gems and the work of engraving, cutting or polishing them. In modern times we commonly say ‘gem cutter,’ but it is just as correct and a good bit fancier to call someone a lapidarist. So the society has some lofty goals. They host educational classes and lectures and provide supporting grants to museums for mineral collections and fund scholarships to the University of Arizona for geoscience students. But the big kahuna of the society is without a doubt… the gem show.
The first show was in 1955 because of the determination of a man named Dan Caudle. Mr. Caudle worked as an electrician in the 1950s in the copper mines of Arizona and was a member of the Tucson gem and mineral society. As a hobby, Mr. Caudle used to go out to abandoned mines looking for things like turquoise- he was a “rockhound”- which is a term for an amateur geologist or collector of mineral specimens. He thought it would be fun to have a big gathering to, well, do all the things the society talks about in their mission statement. The society paid $65 to rent out the Helen Keeling Elementary School in Tucson- the school is still around today- and members of the society displayed their personal collections and vendors came and set up booths. In 2013, Mr. Caudle gave his only documented interview about the origins of the first gem show and he talks about how some of his fellow society members hadn’t believed in his vision for the show and he really enjoyed saying, “I told you so,” when over 1,500 people attended the show. Pretty impressive when census records tell us the entire city of Tucson only had 55,000 residents in 1950. Mr. Caudle even quoted one his initial naysayer’s by name, he says quote, “Sid Wolfson, one of the Board members came up to me and said, ‘I wish to apologize for my attitude… Tucson can have a mineral show, and considering everything, a pretty good one at that.’” End quote. Uh yeah, you bet Tucson can. Thanks, Dan Caudle. He got to enjoy many, many more shows, he lived until 2018, well into his 90s.
*music*
So, the Tucson Gem and Mineral Show blends together the hobby enthusiast, the public and the professionals together for discovery and discussion. But the show is the center jewel of a larger crown- there’s a larger event taking place around the show called the Tucson Gem, Mineral and Fossil Showcase. The showcase basically absorbs and transforms the entire city of Tucson, with on average 48 different showcase locations hosting events with 4,000 exhibiters all around the city. The showcase is a whopping three weeks long but the Gem and Mineral SHOW is compressed into three days and that’s the undisputed main event. About 65,000 people buy a $13 per day admission ticket- though kids 14 years and under are free with a paying adult- you know how I said Dan Caudle was a rockhound? Well, young kids that are enthusiastic about the gems and minerals, they’re called “pebble pups” which I think is adorable haha- anyway, people buy their tickets and head into the one hundred and eighty-one thousand square feet of the Tucson Convention Center. There they meet thousands of vendors buying and selling anything and everything gem, mineral, crystal or fossil related.
The fact that the show is indeed really going on this year is exciting- it was cancelled in 2021 due to the pandemic. Because the show happens in February, the gem show did get to happen in 2020, squeaking onto the calendar just before, you know, the world shut down in March. But it was cancelled in 2021, for concern of being a super spreader event. But it is back on the calendar this year for 2022 and full of optimism.
Peter Megaw, the co-chair of the show doesn’t seem too fazed about COVID and it’s variants, January 10th he gave an interview to KOLD news, a local Tucson news station about the show moving forward this year. “We encourage people to come out and enjoy our exhibits, have a great time,” Peter said. He also expects this year’s show attendance to be at about 80% of normal levels due to travel restrictions. Peter goes on to say, quote, “Our international guests and visitors can’t come, but we expect to recoup a significant amount of the impact in the course of the show this year,” end quote. And by impact he means- while yes, the face-to-face marketing and connecting is fantastic, you can’t ignore the financials. The show generates about $130 million each year, about $40 million in hotel and lodgings alone. This show isn’t just for one afternoon, it’s three full days, not counting the weeks of the showcase, many vendors, dealers and shoppers come days early and stay days late to do more business, the type of handshake, cash only, wholesale price agreements that are impossible over the internet. And there really is no substitute to getting to put your own hands and eyes on the merchandise before buying. My grandmother would often fondly say the phrase, “make hay while the sun shines.” And Tucson is sunny. Do as much business as possible while everyone is together.
*music*
But it isn’t just all in-person business transactions. A big feature of the show is the wow factor. Traveling museum quality exhibits for everyone to gaze at. Treats for the gem and mineral lovers and trying to get new people hooked on the beauty of geology. In 1957, the centerpiece of the third annual gem show was from a Mrs. Emma Clark from Redlands, California. She brought an entire dinner… a full meal, where each item was a rock or mineral she had carved and polished into masquerading as a pot roast, mashed potatoes, slices of ham, peas, loaves of bread and a dessert of apple pie and chocolate cake. 1960 is when the Smithsonian started getting involved, thanks to society members sending a written invitation to the assistant curator of the Smithsonian Institution’s mineral collection. The curator did come to the show, and he crashed in the guest room of a society member to avoid the packed hotels.
With the prestige and resources of the Smithsonian, the gem show has been treated to visiting exhibits of priceless treasures like the Logan sapphire, a 423 carat purest, darkest blue sapphire brooch framed by 20 round cut white diamonds. Also, Faberge eggs from the Russian empire have made appearances and the Star of Asia, a 330-carat cabochon cut star sapphire, one of the largest of its kind ever found graced the show. One of my favorite displays is from a half a million-dollar necklace called the “Great Chrysanthemum Brown” which is a 104-carat light brown diamond surrounded by 410 other stones making an organic, leaflike chain of sparkle, all set in platinum. In recent years, the show has featured massive, beautiful specimens of huge geodes of amethyst, so large a full-grown man could climb inside and have room to spare. A three-foot tower of pinky raspberry rubellite that looks like dripping celestial frosting is on display back lit, so it seems to glow from within. A set of miniature musical horns, trombones, French horns, tubas, all carved from materials like tiger’s eye and rose quartz, suspended on delicate gold frame stands, each just a few inches in size. Bins and bins and bins of stunning gemstone beads, carved in every shape and texture you can imagine. On the opposite side of tiny… you can be confronted with a fully assembled fossil skeleton of a triceratops posed in a defensive crouch; frilled head lowered.
As much as I would love to be a big-time buyer strolling each aisle, stocking up my wares, the fact is I am not the person who walks into the gem show with wads of cash. I would be there to ooo and ahh and admire and learn. It is a dream of mine to go to the show. Unfortunately for me, my life just now isn’t set up so that I can jet off to Tucson for three days in a fantasy gem land, though oh how I wish it was. As it stands, I am going to be glued to my phone February 10 through the 13, following all the hashtags on Instagram and living vicariously through everyone there. That is one of the blessings of social media, I can go sit in on a live stream of someone walking the booths or looking at an exhibit from my couch in my living room while my four-year-old takes a nap.
This year’s show has the theme “The Show that Glows,” boasting there will be over 80 exhibits in the Fluorescent Mineral Pavilion, featuring the apatite supergroup. Apatite is a quirky little mineral that looks as if it has been magically watercolor ty-dyed with blues, purples and greens. I love the harkening to history for this year’s theme, the gem show’s founded, Dan Caudle, fluorescent minerals were known to be his very favorite rocks.
*music*
Guys, if you’re going to Tucson this year- please send me all your pictures, tag me in every Instagram Story- all the images and videos from this show are going to mentally and emotionally sustain me for weeks, probably months to come. I cannot wait to see what everyone is bringing- especially since the show was cancelled last year… it’s been a drought, two years have gone bye since the gem and mineral world got to gather and socialize, buy, sell and yeah- show off. A lot of pent-up sparkle, haha
That's all for this episode of Tea and Gemstones. Follow me on Instagram, at Tea & Gemstones, I’ll be reposting and sharing all the amazing stuff going on at the show. Please check out our show notes for a link to Tea and Gemstone’s website, which has complete transcript of every episode, along with the bibliography. Music has been by Joseph McDade and Audionautix. As always, I have been your host, Jen. It has been a pleasure hanging out with you. Until next time, Stay Sparkly.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Ramirez, Jasmine. “Tucson Gem and Mineral Show Back on for 2022.” Https://Www.Kold.Com, 10 Jan. 2022, www.kold.com/2022/01/10/tucson-gem-mineral-show-back-2022.
Schannep, Dwight. “Tucson Gem Show Story.” Tucson Turquoise | Bisbee Turquoise, 23 Nov. 2019, tucsonturquoise.com/tucson-gem-show-story/#:%7E:text=Tucson%20Gem%20and%20Mineral%20Show%20founder%20Dan%20Caudle%20%7C%20Tucson%20Turquoise.
“Show.” Tucson Gem & Mineral Society, www.tgms.org/show. Accessed 20 Jan. 2022.
Tammy-Honaman. “How the Tucson Shows Got Their Start.” Interweave, 13 Jan. 2022, www.interweave.com/article/jewelry/tucson-shows-got-start-history.
Tucson Convention Center. “Tucson Gem and Mineral Show®.” Tucson Convention Center, tucsonconventioncenter.com/events/tgms-2022. Accessed 20 Jan. 2022.