Thought you guys might enjoy looking at these.
captbob especially, since he was asking for pics of rocks.
Found some pretty cool rocks this year! And it was super fun seeing so many RTH members at Q!
1. New Mexico Picasso. This is a type of stone similar to Picasso marble, but it comes from New Mexico. The seller (Al, or maybe it was Dave, of Dave and Al at DG), said his friend mines it and won't tell him where the mine is, except that it's in NM. It's not as contrasty, but more colorful, than the Utah Picasso. Oranges and bluegreens and maroons. Al (or Dave) had a bunch of really shiny cabs of it.
2. Cool little death plate. Love the little round things with the flower in the middle!
3. Garnet in somethingorother. I forgot what she said. I've gotten used to seeing "Ruby in ___", but now we have "Garnet in ___" also. It looks a bit darker in person.
4. My second favorite find from the show: Chatoyant dino bone! Like
Tommy showed a video of awhile back. The little white part on the upper right of the slab. I had to buy this big ole slab to get it, but I'm so excited! Luckily it's a nice slab. I learned that the chatoyance is becuase the cells are filled with calcite rather than agate. I asked a whole bunch of dealers if they had any and they said "I usually throw that part away . . . people want agate." SIGH. This one's really shimmery. Somehow the calcite crytals are lined up just right. I saw a whole bunch where one cell would flash at one angle and the next cell would flash at another angle, but this was the only one I found where all the cells flashed at the same angle.
5. Petrified Caddis Fly Larvae (or Palm Wood, depending on who you ask).
This seller was selling it in huge bags, but their example slab is better than the one I got from another dealer. (The other slabs the dealer had clearly had the same shape of rocket-like thingies in the matrix. The slab I got was cut across them though, so it looks a little different.
Here's my slab:
It looks like clearly the same stuff to me, but I could be wrong about that.
DO NOT google this if, like me, you hate pictures of gross bugs.
6. Can't wait to cab this little montana:
7. And this eyeball (from a T-egg)
8. Neat end cut of crazy lace, skinned (cut across the bumps) like if someone with acne shaved too close (sorry for that image):
9. Cool unknown agate:
10. Something I've been looking for for a loooong time: Graveyard point with a milky, rather than clear, background. A couple years ago at Q, I lost out in a grab-a-thon with some other lady who snatched a slab like this when we both spotted it at the same time. This one is better anyway, and was cheaper:
11. Sweet little one-cab wonder of willow creek (top left is the cab):
That was not the price.
12. These are in my rock ID thread, but I love them - some little rhyolite or something. Seems quite solid and fine grained.
13. Jackson Agate from . . . Wyo? Colorado? Montana? somewhere up there. Not Wyoming I don't think - I remember thinking "huh? Jackson is in Wyoming."
This comes up from time to time on ebay but not much.
14. Cotton Candy Stone (the miner says), from very near the Jasperelle claim. Did you guys @shotgunner
jeannie melhill1659 Peruano zarguy Tommy end up going out there?
and Jasperella proper (hard hard hard, takes a great shine):
Odd Jasperella with blue matrix:
15. Garden of California Poppies Agate - don't know what this is really called (got it from Kris), but loooove it. Going to face polish one of these two slabs and set it in a frame and hang it on the wall, or mosaic it into my house somewhere. I have a bunch of California Poppies (the flower, not the rock) pictures on my walls and my garden is full of them.
The one I'm probably going to polish:
The one I'm probably going to cut up:
16. Tuxedo Agates from the Gem Shop. These are Moroccan grey/white or white/white agates that look like nothing at first. They cook them with sugar and heat and pressure and time, and they end up looking black and white. They cooked up a new batch this year, after a few years of selling from the same old picked-over box. The one on the left is overexposed in the picture but the final fortification line goes all the way around. I only buy the one-cab wonders, since I don't collect display pieces, but there are some doozies in their buckets. Forgot to take pictures of those, of course.
And my number one favorite rock of Quartsite 2018. Wish the corner wasn't chipped but I love it anyway.
17. Rose Bud Jasper from Kris (had to get some after our thread(s) recently. Based on our conversations here, I was able to educate at least 3 different sellers about where this stuff came from.
18. Bahia agate splits - this one seller had split about 500 of these things, and thrown them all in a bucket for people to pick through.
Y'all tumblers, CUT YOUR BAHIAS in half! Some of them are amazing!
Yes, I did look at every rock in this bucket.
19. The extremely rare and elusive Peanut Obsidian. Finally nailed a slabette.
20.
Indonesian Grape Agate. Funny story. I was talking to a dealer and he had a little box of these on the counter, but kind of in the place that most people would put the cheapie rocks. The label said $1 each. Cool! I thought I'd get some for a few people I knew. So after I chatted with him for a while and chose 4, I looked at the box closer and it actually said "$1.00 per gram". Ha! Only bought one. It was only a few grams so not too much damage, but that's when I realized I was too tired and should go home!