[Rockhounds] Serendipity!

[Lawrence Rush]

The list is slow.....is everyone on vacation? Here is a pleasant little 
tale to pass the time...

A couple of weeks ago, I attended an outdoor mineral show in a big field in 
the mountains of New Hampshire. This is an annual event, having been held 
for over 40 years now. It started as a swapping event, and has evolved 
(devolved??) into dealers only, with a few of them being also swappers.

This year, at the far end, there was a new dealer, who had a lot of 
self-collected and rough material from local sources. This man turned out to 
be kind of a rough-cut, loud, brash kind of person, who shouted out to me as 
I passed by. He pulled me in and verbally accosted me with a barrage of 
incomprehensible gibberish about the fine quality of his material. Before I 
had a chance to escape, he pulled me over to a stack of 5 gallon plastic 
pails full of rocks, and picked one up, turned it upside down, and dumped 
everything out at my feet. Imagine my shock to see all of these "fine 
minerals" being tumbled out and ground together. I knew this was a complete 
waste of time!

But, wait! In amongst all of the "leaverite" being trashed at my feet, I 
spied someting that caught my attention immediately! I casually leaned down, 
picked it up, and asked, "How much for this?". The owner thought and looked 
at me to judge my affluence, and answered coarsely, "fifteen dollars". I 
hesitated just long enough to give him the impression that I wasn't really 
interested, and debated whether I should bargain, but just as quickly 
changed my mind, paid him, and walked away with it, unwrapped.

I had recognized  this chunk of "rock" to be a matrix piece with 3 large 
crystals of well-formed Cordierite from a famous, worked out site in 
Richmond, NH. The crystals found here are the largest of this species found 
in the world. I also knew these pieces, when available, were selling for 
anywhere from $50-100 for any quality at all! I had been looking for a piece 
of this for a very long time, and Lady Fortune smiled on me this day!

If you are not familiar with Cordierite in large crystals, you can see this 
piece at

www.Connroxminerals.com/temp.html

(But don't tell the seller where you saw it!)

Larry Rush