I am way overdue on this second post about my trip to Minas Gerais. I guess I was less motivated about writing this because I was less enthused about my visit to Governador Valadares (GV) and Teófilo Otoni (TO) than Ouro Preto. While Ouro Preto was not a nice place to buy minerals, it was a fantastic place to visit. GV and TO don't offer much for the tourist and the mineral shopping there was underwhelming.
Unlike Soledade and Ametista do Sul in southern Brazil, these two cities in Minas Gerais do not revolve around the gem and mineral business. If fact, if you were unaware that they were gem and mineral towns you might visit there and not even realize it. In GV we visited several dealers, all of whom received us well. I found that the prices were very similar to what you find in Tucson (probably because it was many of the same companies) and the selection was a little inferior. (They claimed it was because they had just sent their best material to Denver.) I love beautiful rocks and am not that impressed by rarity for rarity sake. In general I find you can get more aesthetic value for your dollar from the minerals in the south. I am sure many will disagree with me.
We were originally only planning to visit GV, but we found out there was a gem show going on in TO. We drove to TO and went to the show. It was a major disapointment. Most of the material was junk. If you hung around a table or booth for a while looking at their junk they would then pull out some awesome piece they keep hidden under the table in a separate box. For this they always asked for some absurd amount. Way more than it was worth and way, way more than you could resell it for at a profit. To add to the disappointment of the whole experience, remember that Minas Gerais is a Texas-style huge state and the drives between these places are long and often on bad roads. It is important to make an observation to be totally fair. Many of the mines are in small towns surrounding GV and TO. If you took a month or so to hang out and drive to the mines themselves, getting a new tip at each mine and driving there next, then you could probably make contacts that do not go to Tucson and are more "hungry" to sell. I didn't have the time so I didn't experience it. That adventure will have to wait for another day and another blog post.
