Kansas City
Gem & Mineral Show

Do you dig rocks and fossils? If so, you won’t want to miss the 45th annual Gem and Mineral Show on March 10, 11 and 12. Each year the Association of Earth Science Clubs of Kansas City hosts this fascinating show at the KCI-Expo Center www.kciexpo.com.

This year’s special exhibits include "Amber, the Golden Gem of the Ages," "Holy Smokies" - a display of Colorado quartz specimens, and "Gastropoda-six slimy snails sailed silently." The Metropolitan Community College will display cenozoic fossils, and the University of Kansas (UK) Lawrence will have a marine reptile exhibit. Other displays will include ammonites, as well as the Official Missouri State Fossil.

We are particularly excited with this year’s show as we will have our first booth at the show. We’re a little nervous about what to expect, but are hoping for beautiful weather and a good turnout. We’ll have some terrific new items, such as mineral T-shirts and a wide assortment of brightly colored mineral specimens and fossils. Stop by to see our fossil crocodile head, crinoid and trilobite plates, and mineral artwork. Also be sure to check the show program for a special discount coupon from our store.

The KCI-Expo center is located at 11730 North Ambassador Drive. Show hours are Friday, 9 am-9 pm; Saturday, 9 am-7 pm; and Sunday 10 am-5 pm. General admission is $6 for adults and $2 for children. We hope to see you there!

Azurite - A Blue Treasure

Due to its brilliant blue formations, azurite has been greatly coveted by mineral collectors throughout the ages. During the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, azurite was the most important pigment in European painting.

Azurite forms as a secondary mineral in the oxidizing zone of copper deposits, where it has been precipitated from low-temperature copper and carbonate-rich solutions. It is often associated with malachite and various copper sulphides.

The richest pockets of azurites were found in the 1980s at Tsumeb, Namibia. In the Newmont mining office, the story is told of a miner who had a beautiful specimen with crystals up to 15 cm in length, with some altered to malachite. The miner was drinking beer in a bar and didn’t have money to cover his tab. He ended up leaving the specimen, worth about 1,000 times his bill, in order to pay for his beer.

Some of the finest azurites found originally belonged to the collections of the mine manager, F.W. Kegel and his mine captain, Wilhelm Klein. These specimens are now in the collections of the Smithsonian and Harvard.

Decorate with Music

With spring just around the corner, it’s a great time to come in and pick out a new wind chime to decorate your porch. Choose from a variety of designs with butterflies, hummingbirds, frogs, sun faces and more!

To help celebrate the arrival of this new line, all of our wind chimes will be discounted 15% now through March 24. Come see us soon for the best selection!

We’re All Ears for Easter

Seems like everyone’s crazy about rabbits this time of year, and we are no exception. We’ve brought in lots of fluffy little friends to be on hand for your Easter gift giving. In addition, you’ll find cute rabbit figurines, purses, and writing pens.

For our Ty Beanie Baby collectors, our Sunbonnet or Harrison rabbits would make excellent gifts. Pictured above is Veggies, the bunny who is part of the Beanie Buddies collection. Hop on in and see what’s new!

New Product News

We are pleased to announce a great new line of plush animals that has been doing tremendously well. They are the Mini Flopsies from Aurora.

They come in a variety of animals from foxes to flamingos, monkeys to mooses. The best part is they only cost $5.95 each!

Super cuddly and adorable, you’re sure to find one that wants to follow you home.

Pony Popularity Continues

As many of you are aware, the Trail of Painted Ponies figurines have become tremendously popular to collectors of all ages.

A new series of Painted Ponies was released in February. Several of the new ponies are on backorder, as the first shipment has already sold out. Due to the tremendous popularity of these ponies, the manufacturer (Westland), has found it difficult to keep up with demand.

Painted Ponies have proven to be a sound investment for collectors. Each piece in the series is numbered. Once a pony retires, often within a year or two the pony is worth several times its original value.

If you wish to see which ponies we currently have in stock, please feel free to visit us online at www.wilderness-art.com, or stop by our store in Crown Center.

Annual Tucson Show Report

This was our third year traveling to Tucson to purchase minerals and fossils for Wilderness Reflections. We took a detour through Utah on the way down to visit a dear friend, then spent a day visiting Bryce and Zions National Parks. It was snowing and windy in Bryce, so I was thankful to be wearing a hooded winter coat. Fortunately, the weather in Zions National Park was much more pleasant for hiking.

When we arrived in Tucson, the area was experiencing a record drought. Daytime highs were in the mid to upper 70’s, with sunshine and blue skies (pretty rough).

For two weeks every winter, Tucson becomes a bustling, international marketplace of buyers and sellers doing business at the Tucson Gem, Mineral & Fossil Showcase.

The 'gem show' - as locals call it - is much more than a single event at one location. It’s closer to a 'world’s fair' of gem shows, with thousands of participants and attendees at more than 30 sites around town. Dozens of shows go on at the same time -- in giant white tents, at hotels and resorts, and at exhibit halls marked with huge banners.

The show that started it all - the Tucson Gem & Mineral Show (TGMS)- packs downtown’s Tucson Convention Center over the last weekend of the event. This public show attracts thousands of treasure hunters from every corner of the globe. See < a href=visittucson.org> visittucson.org for more information.

We had never attended the TGMS, so we made it a point to do so this year. We were enthralled with the incredible displays from renowned museums and private collections, as well as with the displays by over 250 mineral, gemstone, jewelry, and fossil retail dealers. More than 25 museums and universities from around the world, including the Smithsonian Institution, the American Museum of Natural History, and the Sorbonne in Paris bring special collections and displays to the show.

There was so much to see that I think the shutter on my camera heated up from the excitement! This is a show we will be sure to include each year that we travel back to Tucson.

Join Our Mailing List

To be added to our mailing list, please send an email to Nature-News-Live@Wilderness-art.com with 'subscribe' in the subject line

To be removed from our mailing list, please send an email to Nature-News-Live@Wilderness-art.com with 'unsubscribe' in the subject line