[meteorite-list] Some Tucson Notes part 1 of 3

From: Adam Hupe <adamhupe_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 10:31:21 2004
Message-ID: <006b01c3f06a$95691f80$7fc21018_at_attbi.com>

Dear List Members,

In case any of you are interested we would like to share some of our Tucson
show experiences. This will be part one of three.

We arrived on the 29th where Steve Drummond met us at the airport, we then
checked in at our hotel and immediately proceeded to the Reed's room where
we ran into a few fellow collectors and dealers. Mike Martinez was on hand
with cases of wine from California. Our first mistake was purchasing one of
these cases and distributing it among those present. Needless to say, the
next day everybody was operating under impulse power only. Also of note,
fellow collector David Gregory made a big score (dare I say planetary) and
shared his extraordinary find with all those present. It is an absolutely
gorgeous find which we will formerly congratulate him on later as more
details come in.

The next day we hooked up with Mike Farmer and Jim Strope, mainly to see the
new Martian Mike has been promoting (trying to rub our nose in). While
visiting Farmer's and Eric Olsen's room I had a chance to look around and
was actually impressed with their layout. I must say they did a great job
of putting material together and displaying it in a very professional
manner.

We then got Jim to defect for awhile and look around the rest of the show.
We spied a new lunar in a mineral dealer's room and could not resist the
temptation. It looked just like Calcalong Creek prompting us to go for it.
It consisted of three individuals, one of which was cut into slices exposing
the white anorthosite clasts. We quickly put some funds together with Jim
and flashed the wad under the dealer's nose who turned it down. The
dealer's girlfriend mentioned wanting a new car and kept giving him the look
to take the cash. We dug a little deeper and Greg laid the cash out in
front of the dealer's girlfriend. They had a heated mini-conference and
then the stones were ours, the girlfriend had won out. We quickly departed
in case the non-meteorite dealer had a change of heart. Satisfied for the
day we called it an early night.

The next day we went to Eric and Silvia's room where we laid eyes again on
Dhofar 378 with a TKW of only 15 grams. We decided it was time to acquire
some of this unique Martian meteorite before there was none to be had.
Three days of grueling negotiations we finally succeeded in making a trade.
That's what happens when you take too long, they were not kidding about
increasing the price a few years back.

That evening we went to the Inn Suites Bar to watch the SuperBowl Game.
Luckily we reserved a corner of the bar because over a dozen meteorite
collectors and dealers showed up. Very little time was spent watching the
game as everybody had meteorites on their minds. Later Robert Haag showed
up and purchased a round of tequila shots for everybody. Not to be outdone
Greg ordered a round of the dreaded "Denver Death Cookies". Their
deceptively tame oatmeal taste and the smoothness in which they go down hid
the sinister amount of alcohol contained in each one. Before long more
Death Cookies were ordered, then everybody began talking louder and the
crowd became quite boisterous. One well known dealer even began to drool,
not a good sign. The next day we noticed everybody was taking it easy.

We are still tired from the pseudo-relaxing environment the Tucson show is
supposed to provide and will follow up with one or two more parts. We will
also post links to images later on.

Wishing everybody well,

Adam and Greg Hupe
The Hupe Collection
IMCA 2185
Received on Wed 11 Feb 2004 01:45:05 AM PST