Tucson '07 day two

Another expensive day; my total coming to about $755. The two big purchases for today are a chinese crocodilian skull and a brazilian geod with a large piece of selenite in it. I understand that some of those who read my blog probably have a problem with me supporting the chinese fossil trade. I justify the purchase because I am not the first person outside china to own it. The person that I bought it from purchased it in San Francisco from a man who was selling off his collection. That and it was a really good price. At least I didn't buy the larger morroccan crocodile that I was offered for less today. Even if it were only $100, I wouldn't pay for that much plaster and miscelaneous bone fragments.
Other purchases include a small eurypterid from Europe, two small Miocene crabs from California, an ediacaran jelly from Morrocco and a piece of triassic petrified wood from Zimbabway that strongly resembles an unusual piece that I found in northern Arizona last year. I also spent a great deal of time browsing the gem and jewlery section of the show today. I try to take orders every year for jewlery when I come here since the show is right before St. Valentine's Day, but was unable to fill even the one request that I was given. Two factors conspired here; one is that the price of gold is very high right now, the other is that since this is esentially a show for jewlers and not for the public, the dealers only bring their finest murchendice and the prices to match. Before coming out here, I went to all the jewlery stores in the mall in El Cajon. I saw lots of fine pendants and ear rings with either low grade stones or no information about the stones that they were set with. For example, at Kay jewler, I saw a 2ct pear cut blue topaz on 14kt gold for less than $200. Here, I saw a flawless, perfectly clear, 2 ct pear cut london blue topaz from a small mine in Pakistan, that had only been heat treated to improve the color, custom set on a 14kt victorian style pendant mount, for over $500. Clearly, information is quite valuable among dealers and of little real interest to the people that ultimately buy it retail. After all, jewlers and gemologists pay alot for the education that enables them to know that one stone is enharently better than another. And to think, I almost signed up to go to the GIA.