Victoria Lapidary Society Rock & Gem Show

Well, I went to the show on Saturday afternoon...

This year it was a buck more to get in and it was even more packed and chaotic than before.

I don't want to say it was disappointing because I still had a good time but most of the vendors there were just hocking commercial goods. There was not a whole lot of rough material to choose from and most of what was being sold was overpriced.

In total, I bough one small slab of a material that nobody could even identify but I found interesting because it had a really neat chatoyancy simillar to that fancy liquid hand soap, not sure what the proper term is for it, not irridescence, not really pearlessence either, but the lights & darks play at different angles creating a pseudoreflection on the surface of 3D detail that isn't really there.
My guess is it's probably some type of volcanic obsidian mixture.
I would post a pic but a photograph simply can not capture the dynamic effect, it would just look like plain light brown rock with some darker specs & streaks in it.

I entered the two draws and tried for a door prize but no luck.
I also got filmed by the local cable access media manipulating rock crystals under the lights to cause the facets to reflect.

I think the highlight of the show was a booth where this lady paints scenes on rock slabs depending on the patterns in them. I forgot my camera again (sorry guys) or I would have taken pics of some of her work for sure. I had trouble telling where the painting started and the rock pattern ended on a few since they were so well done. There were so many different slab paintings, most featuring different animals from tree frogs to brown bears & wild cats. I wanted to buy one but even the smallest ones were going for $35/ea up to $165 for something the size of a dinner plate.

I also ran into a couple of local lapidaryists that I may buy some equipment off of, which is a big plus. I'm looking at picking up a larger capacity (12lb-ish?) tumbler from one guy who's just looking to get rid of it so I should be able to get it up for a song and he will throw in all the fixin's. That would definately catalyze some plans i've had for a while to do a commercial run of Muggle Stone medalions that are quickly becoming a very hot item for geocaching. Also, it would just be nice to be able to tumble larger stones and preforms that would just choke the 3lb'er.

This other guy restores, rebuilds & designs custom lapidary equipment. One of his best sellers is a compact pixie style cabbing machine that I watched him grind some plume agate on while I was standing there.
I have his card now so as soon as I get some money and can find a place to put the thing, I think I'll buy it!
I can pick up a used one for a fraction of what an actual DP Pixie is worth and he says that his machines will often outlast the brand name models selling for 3-4 times the price.

All-in-all, it was a good day.