The Messegelaende, Munich hosted Europe’s largest mineral exhibition at the end of October. Dealers and exhibitors from around the world gathered in the massive exhibition halls, covering minerals, fossils and gems.
The Special Exhibit theme in the mineral section this year was European Classics and the specimens representing the Williams Caerhays Mineral Collection in the ‘sammlervitrinen’ (collector’s cases) drew widespread acclaim from the mineral cognoscenti throughout the three days, matching the quality of the exhibits from a number of Europe’s national collections.
The Caerhays specimens of Liroconite, Clinoclase, Chalcophyllite, Pharmacosiderite, Cornwallite, Opal, and Pyrargyrite were considered by many to be superior to any other examples of those species on display.
The showcase was manned by Courtenay Smale, the Caerhays Mineral Collection curator, who favourably compared the event with the Tucson Gem & Mineral Show at which the Caerhays minerals were displayed in February of this year. Whereas the Tucson Show is spread throughout the city, with numerous satellite shows, peaking with the four days at the Convention Centre, the Munich Show is covered solely in the exhibition halls and is regarded as the largest event on a single site. The attendance over the three days was believed to be well in excess of last year’s figure of 40,000.
Typical of the comments made was that in the FMF – Mineral Forum website.
In the collector’s exhibits two cases catch my eye, the fine case of the
Munich collector Walter Weber and the case of the Williams Caerhays Collection, the unbelievable hidden collection recently “coming to light” in the Caerhays Castle where this exceptional Clinoclase highlighted. See image below
The show was extremely well set up and run, with a powerful emphasis on encouraging children to participate in a number of hands-on activities, including gold panning, fossil preparation, rock carving, and gem hunting – a wonderful way of sowing the seeds of interest for future mineralogists, geologists, and palaeontologists.
