March 2003 Newsletter
We have just returned from Tucson and have so much to tell. I have written an article where I highlight my thoughts on Tucson 2003 seen through my eyes. Gerdus This month we cover the following The anatomy of a website Tucson 2003 through the eyes of Gerdus Series on minerals. Spodumene, beryl and chrysoberyl Lastly we have our regular Silver Hills Mineral Gallery link to our updates page. Be blessed as you read this newsletter. Gerdus

The Anatomy of a Web Site

A website that wants to sell has five parts to it's anatomy.  1. Content Page -- The Guts Content Page -- delivers content which meets the needs of the visitor and which increases your chances of getting the right response from your visitor. You have an opening page that invites people to dig deeper into your website. This opening page leads to the content page. The content page at www.mineralgallery.co.za has information about specific minerals. The content can be accessed through the link frame on the left hand side. 2. Link Page or link frame The number 1 job of a Link Page is to link to other pages via "collections of links" that are organized into structures called... Table of Contents Think of Link Pages... as central hubs. They direct your visitors down the spokes (pathways) that your visitor wants to take. The main goal of a Link Page or link frame is to provide clean, clear navigation. 3. Opening Page - Grab their Attention The Opening Page is the first page in the pathway towards the MWR. The main job of this page is to stop your visitor in his tracks, dazzle him with benefits, and pull him further down the pathway. The main goals of the Opening Page are... STOP your visitor from clicking elsewhere  interest him in your product, and deliver him to the next Content Pathway Page. 4. Closer Page - This page must get the Order Closer Page - the last page in the pathway towards the sale. This is very simple. The only job of this page is to... get the order . 5. Pathways.. Lead Your Customers A pathway is composed of an Opening Page, one or more Content Pathway Pages, and a Closer Page. These five pages or parts makes up any good web page.

Tucson 2003 through the eyes of Gerdus I read a lot about Tucson but nothing can describe Tucson, you have to experience it. We had to fly into Phoenix and decided to shuttle to Tucson. We were surprised by the American hospitality when one of our friends picked us up at the airport and drove us to Tucson. Tucson has a population of just less than 500 000 people. The city is situated in the Arizona desert in the mid-south of the USA with excellent weather in the winter.  Every year in February the city host a variety of shows aimed at the gem, fossil, jewelry and mineral trade. I discovered that everybody who is anybody in the rock business find their way to Tucson this time of the year. It helps them to see what is current and where they fit into the market. It also draws buyers from around the world. A feast is laid out for all and sunder. I was humbled by the sheer amount of good rocks available. When you see yourself surrounded by so much of your trade you start to get a perspective of where you fit in. I discovered that Brazil has a lot of geodes and that Morocco has a lot of fossils and so on and on. Annalie behind a large geode from Brazil Annalie and myself were in Tucson a week and we discovered that a week was not enough time to see it all. But you can never see it all in just one visit. On our fourth day I walked into the umptieth tent-hall to discover that I am getting an overload of visual input. It can get too much to take in!!!!!! So what did I see? We saw the most wonderful minerals from all over the world. The best place for good minerals was the Best Western Executive Inn. We saw faceted gems in many localities. The Chinese and the Indian exhibitors seem to be the principal cutters in the world with gems at give away prices. I do not always know the authenticity of the raw material they started with or if the quality of the cuts are good. We saw jewelry by the tables full. There was very good cheap silver jewelry with mounted cut stones from India. I bought these by the handful. Then there were some stunners in opal from down under. These were pricier. Then we saw pearls. In all colors and shapes. Red coral seemed to be the rave this year. Everywhere there were red coral. I cringed a bit when I saw this because I felt that some fantastic reef was being smashed up to give us red coral. Your thoughts on this are appreciated. We saw rocks and then some more rocks. Madagascar was well represented as well as Mexico. At one of the stands I was offered Tequila and this I tried. It took my breath away. The gentleman of this stand had good rough from somewhere in the USA. He specialized in rough from the copper seams. It seemed like that there were more buyers for finished products than rough. Maybe the rough is sold at bargain prices later in the show. There were a stands that specialized in just one rock type like the guys from Argentina with their Rhodocrosite or the Kleynhans people with their Pietersite from Namibia and my good friend Ben Mcray from Zimbabwe with petrified wood. One guy had lamps with large crystals. Another specialized in monster spheres and crystals from Brazil. What a feast! Annalie and me behind a 1000 pound sphere from Brazil And then we saw the fossils. A life-sized cave bear fossil and a small dinosaur or a fish with another fish in its belly. Ammonites that measures 600 mm across. I bought a large batch of small fish fossils on small tiles. They are doing very well in my shop. The large colorful petrified wood slices intrigued me. The colors are so vivid. I also liked the detailed trilobites. I ended up buying a few of these. The life sized cave bear fossil It seemed as if all the rock people brought their best rocks to Tucson. You can go nowhere and find such a fine array of rocks in one place. How much gets sold? What I did not see was how much of the good stuff gets sold every year. Because this was my first time there. I believe that some items go into storage and will be showed again next year. Prices. A lot of the top bracket items were priced way over any price that I was comfortable with. Prices such as $ 2900 are common. Some items would have another zero added to the end. I suppose it all depends where you fit into the market. Some of the high-ticket items ended up as expensive décor items in corporate buildings. They will be purchased by an interior decorator. Our itinerary We arrived the first day late in the afternoon and we bedded down in the Lazy8 Motel. The name made me think of a Wild West film with cowboys and all the things that go with it. We did see our first cowboys at the Silver Saddle restaurant. Here I was introduced to Mexican food. I liked the tortillas with the spicy fillings. The next day we started at the Days Inn strip and worked our way towards the Pueblo. I saw a few of my buyers there. Our first impression was that Tucson gem and mineral show is big. The first few days we were with our friends who transported us around. They knew their way around. It was a blessing to have somebody who knew Tucson. A panorama of one of the display strips at the Days Inn. I joined four pictures to give you this panorama After the first three days we wanted to leave the planning open and just wander from one exhibition to the next, kind of get lost between the different shows. This meant getting on a shuttle and then get of anywhere where the shuttle takes us. This was fun. I bought Peruvian rock birds at the Inn suites and fossils at the tents outside the Best Western, Annalie bought pearls at the Howard Johnson. We bought jewelry for the shop at the Holidome and so I can carry on. I include a picture of the holidome. This is one of four tents pitched outside the Holiday Inn hotel. They are huge and you need a day just to do one venue like that. One of the buyers told us that they allocate three days just for the Holidome. The Holidome If you want to sell at Tucson you need to be at the right venue. If you have money to spend you can spend it on so many beautiful things. The competition is high and only the best will do at Tucson. It comes down to the three important rules to making a success of a business, location, location, location..... In Tucson I realized that I am in such a good position to supply the world-wide market because we are close to the source of such good specimens. We had a paradigm shift in our thinking when we experienced the panorama that was before us. What struck me was the difference in prices from one venue to the next. When it says wholesale it does not necessarily mean wholesale. It might just mean that people are exhibiting at a wholesale venue. My philosophy is that a wholesale item must be priced in such a way that you can easily double your price and still sell it quickly. I always say that you make money when you buy and not when you sell. It will be so when you buy at the right price! You can find a tray of vanadinites from Morocco somewhere outside in a tent for $ 50. And then you see one vanadinite for $ 600 displayed elsewhere. This difference made me realize that it is often a perceived value that makes an item sell. As I said earlier it depends where you are situated in the market. I guess the question one can ask yourself is this: "Where do I fit into the market?" Once you can answer this question it becomes easier to find your niche. I realize that qualities differ and that a certain individual might feel that his quality is higher and that his overheads are higher and that he is justified in charging the higher prices. It is just important to see where you fit into the market. We met lots of beautiful people with whom we just clicked. It is valuable to meet people in person. Our meetings have cemented us in a bond of friendship. Tucson is about kindred spirits joining to share a passion they all have in the flowers of the earth. I have already started making plans to return to Tucson in 2004. This time I plan to have a surprise in store, more about that later.

Spodumene, beryl and chrysoberyl

The lithium pegmatites may contain a score of minerals in which lithium is either a major or minor constituent. Of these, spodumene is most frequently found, usually as chalky white crystals but occasionally as gem material of rare beauty. At Pala, California, Minas Gerais, Brazil, and Madagascar, gem spod-umene of a delicate lilac-rose to amethystine-pink has been found. These transparent crystals of great beauty and value display to a marked degree the property of dichroism; that is, the intensity and quality of the color depends on the direction in which light passes through the crystal. This lovely gem has been given the name kunzite, for G. F. Kunz, a noted American gemmologist. As the variety hiddenite, spodumene has a striking emerald-green color. Hiddenite was discovered as a result of the overturning of a tree on a farm near Stony Point, North Carolina, by W. E. Hidden, for whom the gem variety was later named. The spodumene gems are rare and of exceptionally lovely color, but the pronounced prismatic cleavage makes them difficult to cut and polish, and the relatively low hardness makes them impractical in a ring mount. Beryl, found in giant crystals firmly embedded in pegmatites, is usually a yellow-green to blue-green color, but the smaller flawless gem crystals are found in several colors to which variety names are given. They characteristically occur in well-formed hexagonal prisms commonly with brilliant crystal faces, but sometimes are etched and corroded by natural solutions, giving the crystals a fluted appearance. The best-known variety is aquamarine, the transparent blue to sea-green gem. The name heliodor is given to lovely golden-yellow beryl from Southwest Africa, but similar-colored stones from elsewhere are called golden beryl. Morganite is a pale pink to rose-red variety occurring in tabular crystals. It is believed that small amounts of cesium are responsible for the tabular habit and small amounts of manganese produce the pink color. Although some gem beryls from pegmatites are green, they never have the deep green color of emerald. Emerald is the chrome green variety Although chrysoberyl is found in several types of deposits, some of the finest examples of this gem material have come from pegmatites. The name comes from the Greek chrysos, meaning golden, but this is misleading, for chrysoberyl is most commonly a yellowish green and frequently other shades from nearly white to deep emerald-green. Alexandrite is the name given to a variety of chrysoberyl that has the remarkable property of appearing emerald-green by daylight and red by artificial light. This stone was discovered in Takovaya, in the Ural Mountains in 1833 and was named alexandrite after the Czarevitch, later Czar Alexander II. Some chrysoberyl, because of the presence of parallel needle-like inclusions, shows, when polished as a cabochon, a band of light that moves as the stone is turned. This property led to the popular name of "cat's eye" for such gems, and the term chatoyancy for the effect. "Cat's eye" chrysoberyl is not to be confused with "tiger's eye," a variety of quartz with a golden brown color and a fibrous structure that produces a very prominent moving band of light on a properly polished surface. Cat's eye is actually a more valuable and less common stone than tiger's eye. Chrysoberyl is also called cymophane, from Greek kyma, meaning a wave, in allusion to the pale opalescence that forms the cat's-eye effect. Alexandrite, with its dramatic color change, described as "an emerald by day and a ruby by night" is a valuable gem, but the color change has been successfully imitated in synthetic spinel so the would-be buyer of such stones should beware. Not a year passes that mineralogists do not discover several hitherto unknown mineral species. But as the science moves forward, discovery shifts from the obvious to the more obscure minerals. Today, it is not unusual for the description of a new mincral to be based on such a small amount of material that practically all of it is consumed in making the chemical analysis. It is thus remarkable when a new mineral is found in large quantity, and even more remarkable when it is found in large crystals of gem quality.
UPDATES	Visit our updates page to see what we have been up to, we do a daily update when we are not out hunting down rocks. www.mineralgallery.co.za/updates.htm or write to me at gerdus@mineralgallery.co.za Gerdus Brönn