A new mineralogy post! On 9th March I attended this year's 2024 Madrid Expominerales mineral show, held annually at the Escuela Técnica Superior de Ingenieros (E.T.S.I.) de Minas y Energía in Madrid. This was the first time that I attended such a big mineral show, with so many stalls and such great quality overall, and I had a blast looking at everything and deciding which pieces to get for my collection (and a new haul that will be coming in a separate post). Apart from mineral shops, I typically get new pieces from mineral stalls at Medieval/Renfaires, holiday/seasonal fairs and the like, and these stalls usually (but not always) sell their pieces with a marked pseudoscientific 'crystal healing' framing (something that I very much disagree with). So it was also very refreshing to wander around a big mineral show that had pretty much no pseudocience to be seen anywhere at all. Yay!
Like I said, i thoroughly enjoyed the Expominerales show, with its large layout of different stalls, surrounded by the beautiful arched architecture of the Escuela de Minas y Energía where the show was held 🤩.
Most of the stalls were to be found in the lower level, with a couple
more in the upper level as well. Some of these vendors showcased beautiful specimens in large display cases,
in a way that was to me more akin to museum displays than anything
else. Seeing as these displays included the most expensive pieces of the
whole show by far (some of them I would easily label as stratospheric
prices - thousands of euros - that only the most dedicated - and well,
wealthy - of collectors would go for 😅), I personally definitely treated them as museum displays to be admired and photographed, which I did thoroughly, as will be fully documented below xD.
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| Expominerales Madrid 2024 - Featuring me in the foreground, in a long grey coat with a totebag 😄 |
The show included quite a wide variety of price ranges with consistent high quality, however, and I was able to acquire several new pieces for my collection which were both very good quality and affordable (I personally favour smaller pieces, and all the specimens in this haul ranged from 5-24€). And speaking of museums, the Escuela de Minas y Energía further surprised me with a beautiful museum in the upper level, full of rocks, minerals and gems in a couple of rooms (which will feature in another separate post).
The haul from this show will have its separate post, but here's a preview of the beautiful pieces that I managed to find, most of them local specimens from Spain: From left to right, background to foreground, I got: Gypsum (selenite); barite; purple cubic fluorite; epidote, garnet and quartz; dioptase (from Congo); cubic pyrite and barite; yellow cubi fluorite with pyrite; and rock crystal on matrix.
And, without further ado, the rest of this post is going to be a shameless picture spam of several of the mineral stalls and displays. Hope you enjoy!
Firstly, here's a general video of the show, also here on my mineral TikTok:
Picture spam incoming! I also made a couple of slideshows with most of these pictures on TikTok.
And now for the large display cases where the most expensive pieces of the show were to be found. Some of these are definitely very beautiful, albeit pricey (up to 5000-5500€ for a large kunzite or an elbaite 😱😬). Videos are available on my mineral TikTok here: 1, 2.
And that's it for today's mineralogy post!
