Do You Come to the USA or Stay Where You Are?
A while back, I had a side hustle of selling mineral specimens to collectors on the Internet. I was one of the first people to launch a website to do that. It worked great for a few years, until there were too many people doing it, but that's another story. That's how I got the screen name of MineralMan.
Every year, at the end of January, there is an international gem and mineral show held in Tucson, AZ. It's actually several shows, some of which take place in various motels and other places there. Wholesale mineral dealers from all over the world come to that event and mineral retail dealers come there to buy stock for their businesses. I did that for several years, as well. My strategy was to show up near the end of the show and buy up specimens from wholesalers who didn't want to pack them back up and take them away. I specialized in lower priced specimens, so that worked out well for me.
Well the Tucson show is underway right now, and so is the push by ICE. ICE is in Tucson. How will that impact all of those wholesale mineral dealers and buyers? Hard to say. There is no country that mines gemstones and mineral specimens that is not represented in Tucson by dealers selling those items. It's a strange place sometimes, with Hundred Dollar bills as the currency of choice. You have to be there to understand how it all works.
Anyhow, I don't go there any longer. I shut my side hustle down years ago. I still watch the business, though. Right now, there is a lot of nervous chatter going on. People are not sure how safe it will be in Tucson. Many foreign dealers simply didn't come. Between ICE and a very complex tariff system, it's just too iffy.
I wish I were there this week. I'd love to see some old friends and talk about both the business of rocks and the state of things in the USA. But, I'm not there. Neither are many others who usually are.
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