Denver Gem and Mineral Show - 2024

[Brett Breakin' Rocks]

Well, Christmas has arrived early again in Denver !!  A fossil hunt of a different sort. 10 days of fossils and minerals spread about town at various shows. The show at the Western Complex forum being the largest.

 

Yes, we had the usual Moroccan deals and fossil dealers on site. A few good finds this weekend for myself. Some amazing looking trilobites. I really love these examples that haven't been dolled up or 'enhanced' in some way.  The trilobite photo dump. 

 

Ok, not a trilobite. The name escapes me. 

 

And some amazing wind scoured ammonites from the Saharan Desert. One that has a really amazing beekite coating. Alot of these ammonites specimens ring like a dinner plate and are agatized, not unlike a great deal of the new  gastrpopods we are now seeing at the show. You can hold some of them up to the light and see through the impression. Very cool. 

 

The flats of bones/teeth/spines/scales/theropod teeth/ etc pulled from the small fossil mines, and human created warrens in Morocco are sometimes hard to find. I could pour over these for more time than I had today. 

Some of the casted fossils are pure fabrication. But this one caught my eye and looks authentic. The tooth files on the surface don't seem like something they normally toss into the mix. Unless the moroccans have gotten really adept and interested at including broken and less than perfect teeth in their art, I think it is safe to say there is some truth to this one.

 

Again, great examples of authentic invertebrates. 

 

Oligocene and Plio/Pleistocene material from one of my favorite sellers. 

 

Some horse material, and an Astragalus from a bovid/bison

 

Travertine crabs are amazing to look at.

 

Some art ! - fossils

 

And excited kids ! .. well, at least they kinda-look excited. The deadpan look was an act. Yeah DAD, this is SUPER COOL DUDE.

 

 

 

Cheers,

Brett

 

PS. More coming next week when we hit show #2 !

 

Edited September 9 by Brett Breakin' Rocks

[Moth.11]

Cool pleistocene fossils! I like pleistocene.

[Brett Breakin' Rocks]

13 minutes ago, Moth.11 said:

Cool pleistocene fossils! I like pleistocene.

Yeah, we don't get much of them out here from the East Coast, so their arrival in town brings back some good memories. They mostly deal in dark-water megalodon teeth sales. These fossils are the by-catch. But very cool for me.

Though their are plio/pleistocene locations here in Colorado, they are not accessible to the public.

Cheers,

Brett

[Kohler Palaeontology]

Never heard of those crabs before, it is beautiful! Where was it found?

[Brett Breakin' Rocks]

8 minutes ago, Kohler Palaeontology said:

Never heard of those crabs before, it is beautiful! Where was it found?

I 'believe' these might be freshwater crabs from Turkey (or North Africa ?) . I'll snap an image of the tag whe I go back next weekend. They are pricy but the detail that is preserved is insane. I believe they are discovered during the mining process. Travertine being formed by mineral hot springs and Calcium Carbonate precipitation if I remember correctly.  

 

Cheers,

Brett

[Coco]

Hi,

 

1 hour ago, Brett Breakin' Rocks said:

The tooth files on the surface don't seem like something they normally toss into the mix. Unless the moroccans have gotten really adept and interested at including broken and less than perfect teeth in their art, I think it is safe to say there is some truth to this one.

About the teeth visible in the photo on the right, I am not sure that they are broken in the sense we usually understand. They give me the impression of being teeth that have not finished their manufacture. Roots are the last part of a shark tooth to be made. Here there are no roots, but they are also hollow, they have thin and flaky walls, signs of a tooth not "mature".

 

Coco

[Brett Breakin' Rocks]

19 minutes ago, Coco said:

, I am not sure that they are broken in the sense we usually understand.

Oh indeed. These are unerupted tooth 'files' and are still developing. Not something you will normally see in 'fabricated' Moroccan plaster jackets. This example being surrounded by many poor examples of such fabricated fossils. 

 

The unerupted teeth and cracked and damaged whole teeth (with no evidence of glued or inserted teeth ?) Makes me think this is the real deal. An associated set of teeth and verts. A rare occurrence. 

 

The vertebrae were almost a palm-width. They were HUGE. This was a big shark. 

Edited September 9 by Brett Breakin' Rocks

[Brett Breakin' Rocks]

Finger for scale. Haha. 

 

[Kohler Palaeontology]

Where there any Canadian dinosaur fossils at the show?

[Brett Breakin' Rocks]

Just now, Kohler Palaeontology said:

Where there any Canadian dinosaur fossils at the show?

I'll have to look again. Though, as far as I understand it ? Aren't all Canadian vertebrate fossils. Dinosaur fossils in particular, owned by the state/government and can't be exported or sold. You might be able to posess them as a private citizen, but they can't leave the country. Or am I far off on that ?

 

They do have quite a decent collection of cretaceous fossils/Dino material in one section of the show. I'll have to snap a few photos. 

 

Cheers,

Brett

[Kohler Palaeontology]

I had a chat to Dan Spivak at the Royall Tyrrell Museum a while ago, he said that as long as it was found before July 5th 1978 it can get a disposition and be exported, I have a Canadian dinosaur tooth myself, I have heard the Arizona gem and mineral show have had Canadian dinosaur material before, but that is the largest gem and mineral show, so it's not too surprising.

[rocket]

3 hours ago, Kohler Palaeontology said:

Never heard of those crabs before, it is beautiful! Where was it found?

Turkey, very unusual material, came up on the market some years ago. I love them, very cool

[rocket]

Love to see more pics from the Denver show. There are some at facebook from different dealers, but all show their own material (what I can understand :-))

 

[Kohler Palaeontology]

Very interesting.

[Brett Breakin' Rocks]

12 hours ago, rocket said:

Love to see more pics from the Denver show. There are some at facebook from different dealers, but all show their own material (what I can understand :-))

 

Yeah, I'm returning this week () and to the show out near the airport this weekend. I'll grab some more images. 

Cheers,

Brett

[Isotelus2883]

That blobby Trilobite lookalike is a Duslia. If it was cheap you should consider getting it.

[Brett Breakin' Rocks]

4 hours ago, Isotelus2883 said:

That blobby Trilobite lookalike is a Duslia. If it was cheap you should consider getting it.

I'll ask if it remains this week. Most of the plates were positive/negative and were reasonably priced. There were several great trilobite examples in that tent. Very interesting read on that creature. 

Edited September 10 by Brett Breakin' Rocks

[Top Trilo]

I went on Friday, It's always fun to go see the wide variety of fossils! Its like going to the museum (albeit with a curator who doesn't know a thing) but if you had the money, you could purchase any specimen.