Jump to content

Gem, Mineral, And Fossil Show This Weekend In Sf Bay Area


siteseer

Recommended Posts

Today, I checked out a show in Los Altos, CA (town between Palo Alto and Mountain View, northern California). It's the 5th Annual "Recreation with Rocks" taking place Saturday and Sunday (Oct 20-21) at the Los Altos Civic Center Youth Center at One N. San Antonio Road. It's a couple of miles south of the intersection of San Antonio Road and El Camino Real. There are signs for it around that intersection.

The venue was rather small - basically classroom size - though it was well-attended in the time I was there. The only fossil dealer was the same one who had set up at the Santa Clara Valley Gem and Mineral Society show last spring and had offered specimens from the Lemkau collection. Norm and Betty Lemkau were well-known and well-respected in California (they lived in Castro Valley) and beyond for decades - members of a few clubs including MAPS. They used to set up a display case at the SCVGMS show (and others) with some great and self-collected stuff from California and they would hang out at the shows for a few hours. They collected a little of everything but Betty loved trilobites in particular. I met them in the late 80's when I was starting to collect fossils and would see them every year, trading with them at least once. Norm passed away around 2001 and Betty in 2010.

The dealer still had several of the same specimens on the tables from the spring show, and he had done at least one other show this year, so he was making deals right and left. One of my friends picked up a great mammoth tooth from Texas and a few other things. I bought a 2-tooth beaver (Castor californicus) maxilla section from the Kettleman Hills (Late Pliocene, San Joaquin Formation) and a rather large camel tooth from a site around Ocala, Florida. I had hunted exposures of the San Joaquin Formation in the 90's (Chevron stopped allowing collecting on the property about ten years ago) but never found any beaver teeth or any other vertebrate remains so that was a great purchase for me (only $5 - same price for the camel tooth).

He had a nice gar from Messel, a few ammonites, trilobites, and some shark teeth. He also had some flats full of various fossils and a couple of flats of Mazon Creek ferns. If you're in the area, you should check it out too. The show hours are 10am-5pm. Website: http://www.pggs.org/

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...