Recent Updates - Winter 2019/2020

Greetings museum friends and Happy 2020! We ended 2019 by closing a chapter of our history with the UA Gem and Mineral Museum on a very positive note. After eight years on loan to the UAGMM, which is located in the Flandrau Science Center on UA Campus, we retrieved the final specimens that remained on loan and returned them to our building. This included over two dozen high-quality display pieces, several hundred micromounts, and a few large freestanding specimens. As some of you may know, the UA Gem and Mineral Museum is relocating to the Pima County Courthouse and in the process of building out a fantastic world-class mineral museum. They offered to give us their old display cases, so we excitedly accepted six large cases, which we have moved up to Phoenix and placed in the Copper Gallery. Our plan is to use these cases for temporary exhibits during museum buildout. Hopefully, we will hold one more public event this spring where visitors can enjoy minerals in the cases and see the rest of our progress inside the museum. 

A big thank you to all those who helped us with the loan and the move, including Neil McSweeney, Bill Plant, Eric Fritz, Bill Yedowitz, Les Presmyk, Chris Whitney-Smith and Gary Carter. Also thank you to Tucson-based moving company Delivery Doctors for assisting us with the 'big' move of cases and large specimens. Check out photos of the day below.