Fabiano Vasconcelos came to Arizona from Brazil with a 2-pound (0.9-kilogram), $35,000 emerald cluster and thousands of other pieces, including quartz and crystals.
Vasconcelos is taking part in a gem and mineral show that draws people from around the world and transforms Tucson for three weeks.
Vendors, importers and collectors set up shop in hotel rooms and parking lots across the city. They convert their hotel beds into displays of rare geological finds as shoppers and visitors weave in and out of rooms and walk past of rows of products that line hallways.
Larger vendors set up white tents in parking lots with countless tables displaying everything from fossils worth thousands to small rocks that cost $20. More than 40 shows comprise the event that is anchored by one main gathering that takes place this weekend.
"It's the biggest, and I think the most popular, show for minerals and fossils," said Vasconcelos, who travels to similar shows across the globe but favours the Tucson event.
Deidra Wilson, a sales woman for New Era Gems, from Grass Valley, California, said the company has been selling at the show for nearly four decades.
New Era Gems specializes in tanzanite, a blue and violet gem that is extremely rare and only is found in one mine in the world, in Tanzania. Ranging in sizes and colour, the tanzanite pieces were under a glass display at the store's hotel room, surrounded by mineral specimens, crystals, carvings and precious and semi-precious stones.
The event started in a garage 61 years ago as an event for local mineral, gem and fossil enthusiasts and has since grown into the world's largest show. The event at the Tucson Convention Center each February usually has one lavish and alluring attraction.
One year, it was a large, multi-million-dollar, uncut diamond that drew spectators and security galore. Other events featured the Hope Diamond and rocks collected from the surface of the moon. Last year, the Post Diamond Tiara, made of more than 1,000 diamonds in the 19th century, was on display.
This year, the mainstay will be an art deco bracelet on loan from the Smithsonian Institute. The bracelet has 626 diamonds, 73 emeralds, 48 sapphires, 20 rubies and four citrines and is embellished with figures of a hunter on horseback and another hunting a lion.
This content appears as provided to The Globe by the originating wire service. It has not been edited by Globe staff.