Why Fine Jewelers Shouldn’t Miss Tucson’s 22nd Street Show

By Victoria Gomelsky | January 22, 2025

It all started with a dinosaur egg. In 2008, Russell Carhart, a managing partner of the 22nd Street Mineral, Fossil, Gem & Jewelry Show, was a credit risk analyst, with zero connection to the jewelry industry.

“My brother was sent to Hong Kong to go to a meeting and he was walking around a bazaar, trying to kill time waiting for his flight home, when he stepped into a stall and found a dinosaur egg,” Carhart tells JCK on a recent video call from his storage facility in New Jersey. “And he bought a couple of those for around five bucks apiece, brought them back to Japan, and sold them for $150 apiece on eBay. A few years later, after going back and forth to Hong Kong, he quit his job and went into importing fossils and antiquities primarily from Hong Kong, but some other countries as well.”

Missy and Russell Carhart — *Russell Carhart and his wife, Missy, a co-owner and producer of the show*

The business grew to the point that both Carhart and his sister joined the team. They founded the show in 2011, and in 2014 bought the land that it sits on—walking distance from the Tucson Convention Center, where the AGTA GemFair takes place—to “control our own destiny,” he says. “We’ve done a couple million dollars’ worth of site improvements. The long-term plan is to put up a convention center of our own, use it for our events, and then either sublet it to some kind of event management company or something else in the future.”

As Carhart prepares for the 2025 edition, which runs from Jan. 30 through Feb. 16 and spans nearly 130,000 square feet, he spoke to JCK about the show’s evolution.

What was the show like when it opened in 2011? Much smaller, I presume?

I like to say that it started in a scrappy little top tent. It was soft-sided. We had to put gravel down. It was horrible. It was one of the coldest winters on record at the time. All the pipes of Tucson froze. So everyone was having frozen pipe issues. And there we are in this tent with no heat trying to run a show. And I’ll tell you, when you walk on gravel for weeks back and forth, it really cuts into your body.

So we made it through the first show and, surprisingly, people were interested in coming back. The following year—at that point, we were renting the land from the city—we had put asphalt down so that we could have a better show. The tent got a little bit bigger. I think it was probably the third year we started doing the hard walls and heat. And eventually, we got to the point where we now have three groups of tents.

We have the Showcase tent, which is about 22,000 square feet. And then we have the Main tent, which is something like 120,000-125,000 square feet. It’s 100 feet wide by 1,200 and some odd long. So just doing one circuit takes a little over a third of a mile. But that’s how it came to be.

You started with fossils. Tell us about how the selection of goods has evolved.

The initial focus was heavily on fossils. And we quickly branched that out. We didn’t want to be just a fossil show because we wanted you to come. And so we quickly branched out into other genres that I like to call science-based: minerals, fossils, gems, jewelry. We will expand it a little bit if it makes sense, like if someone is selling leather purses that they hand-make and they use gemstones or something.

22nd St crystal display — *Crystal on display at the 22nd Street Show*

Now we view it as a mall. And when you go to a mall, you might be going to Nordstrom’s. But when you get there, you’re looking at that little index and you might go, ‘Oh, you know what? Spencer’s is here. Let’s stop at Spencer’s.’ We thought that the mix was good.

But we will not take any additional Moroccan dealers. We don’t want to be a Moroccan show, but people buy Moroccan materials, so we have a handful. And we have everything from Moroccan fossils to Green River fossils, random Siberian, Russian, Uzbekistan fossils right over to beads and fine gems. The Showcase is where a lot of our fine jewelry folks are. And the idea is we want to have a little bit for everyone.

How many exhibitors will you have this year?

I want to say we’re somewhere around 420, 450. The pandemic year, we were less than 50% of our previous total. The following year, we quickly shot back up. Three years ago, in 2022, we added what we call the North tent, which became just an extension of the Main tent. And this year, we’re completely sold out.

What does 22nd Street offer fine jewelers who might otherwise go to the nearby Pueblo Show?

They would have more options. We do have fine jewelers, wholesale, and retail all the way through the Main tent, but we have a good concentration there at the Showcase. And I think that’s where they would want to go. But I think there are enough fine products in the Showcase and spread throughout that a fine jewelry store would find things of jewelry style, gem style, but then other supportive products that they could sell in their place. Even online. I mean, the key is just to get people interested and inside your space and be comfortable with what you’re doing. Then you can kind of sell them anything.

Top: The 22nd Street Show (all photos courtesy of Hart Events)