The great thing about gem and mineral shows is that there are no glass cases or alarm bells separating you from the specimens. If you want to find out what a mammoth’s tusk feels like, most vendors will let you pick it up. Piles of polished gemstones sit in dishes, pirate treasure for you to run your fingers through.
My favorite things at these shows are those loveliest of fossils, ammonites. Close relatives of the modern nautilus, many ammonites have retained their mother-of-pearl luster on the outside, as iridescent today as they were 100 million years ago. But inside, over the eons, each one has fossilized into a beautiful spiral series of geodes, a unique record of the local accidents of geology. Even the two halves of the same shell are often distinct, not quite symmetrical, as salts and chemicals slowly seeped in from one side or the other.