For a short time in the mid-2000s, a flood of beautiful, cityscape spessartine garnet crystals came out of this mine. They are all gone now, pretty easily absorbed by the market. In that time, I saw thousands of pieces. I saw only a few dozen larger pieces that ever really caught my eye, and I bought and sold a number of them. Then, recently, I was shown this piece which was held back in the private collection of a gem dealer who imported many of the first garnet specimens (and so this dates from the earlier portion of the finds around 2005). It is very lustrous, very sharp, and complete all around. It is a floater, with some small white quartz crystals attached at the bottom (and they are also complete). At 850 grams, and over 4 inches across, it is quite simply one of the best large pieces to come from this series of pockets which should be rememberd as one of the great surprising Brazilian finds of its time. Although the photos are good, it is hard to convey the sheer dimensionality of the piece. The lighting used shows its color in normal light, but it glows red on the edges when more strongly lit. Overall, an important, large, and someday classic Brazilian gem crystal. Joe Budd photos

Although cavansite is now an all too-common species, with specimens everywhere (even being imported to China and resold as "Chinese cavansite~!), I love the stuff. It is just so uniquely gorgeous. This is an older style, from finds of a type we have not seen since the early 2000's, showing isolated clusters on white stilbite. This piece is particularly good because of the size, rolling 3-dimensionality, and lack of damage. So, despite the "common" nature of the species now, this piece stands out from the crowd to my eye, and always has. Frankly, it looks like it was faked by gluing the balls on - but this is, luckily, not the case. Joe Budd photos

IF the history had been lost here, this would be assumed (fairly safely) to be a remarkably colored Afghani tourmaline of moderate lustre and typical color for the rare blue pockets encountered there over the years. They are not common, but you see them time to time. HOWEVER, we know that this intense blue crystal was mined prior to 1960 because it is illustrated in a black-and-white group photo on page 171 of John Sinkankas seminal book, Gemstones of North America (published 1959). We think he self-collected it. It was in his personal collection until his death (in 2002), when it was sold to a local San Diego collector with whom it remained until I bought it recently (full history will be disclosed to the buyer). Aside from the unbroken chain of ownership, it is shown in one of John's most important mineral books and the shape of the termination is clearly distinguishable. John's typically styled catalogue number "TO85" is still glued to the bottom. The specimen masses 350 grams, and is complete all around except for some minor contact at the base and small tip damages to the tiny sidecar crystals which poke out here and there. The color is impressive for San Diego! The photo sequence shown here illustrates the piece in normal overhead and frontal light; with some backlighting from a few inches behind and above; and lastly with a torch sitting nearly atop the crystal and shining straight down for maximum lumination. The crystal is, truly, a gorgeous and highly unusual San Diego specimen!. Joe Budd photos

This totally gemmy, water-clear crystal is an old piece that was on the market in the late 1990s when it went into the Marc Weill collection. It was later exchanged out and remained in a private collection the last few years. For the locality, this is a significant single crystal of extraordinary thickness and gemminess, combined with sharp form. the top termination is complete and shows nice bevelled edges. The bottom termination is somewhat stepped and intricate, not flat - but is complete and interesting, and shows lustre on the stepped faces that present. So, it is a floater, complete. It is 150 grams. Joe Budd photos

A large, mammilary cluster of two "hills" of rounded smithsonite, showing a really unusual and nice , consistent yellow color atop more typical gray smithsonite from this locale. This is an old piece from the collection of deceased dealers Consie and Dalton Prince, of Houston. I have seen smaller examples, but none with such neat form and size in good condition. It is an older specimen, though we cannot say how old exactly. comes with custom base for display. Joe Budd photos

This large piece is really interesting and different from the norm for this material. All are older, generally 1970s or prior. This is a style I have seen sometimes in little pieces, but not on something the size of a volleyball. The barite matrix looks like the windswept desert rocks in Utah, elegant and swirling as if in motion. The butterscotch to orange-colored wulfenites sprinkled atop seem as if they are just barely holding on, but they are solidly embedded into the matrix. This is an old piece from the dealer stock of deceased dealers Consie and Dalton Prince, of Houston (though it had never been cleaned and trimmed til recently). Joe Budd photos above. The shot in hand is shown in fluorescent light instead of halogens, and shows a little more red tone.

I acquired this specimen around 2007 from the mine owner (now deceased), Bob Hopper. At the time it was in his office, it was a pocket enclosed in a big ugly rock, quite literally - but he'd kept it just because it was such a beautiful pocket. He collected it in the great finds here of the mid-1990s. Trimmed out, it makes a small cabinet sized piece that just bursts with the most intense flame-orange color you can ask for in a Bunker Hill pyro (or any pyro, come to think of it). The lustre is wet-looking and the sparkly brilliance of light reflecting off all the subterminations make the piece look almost gemmy. The unusual wraithlike shape ringing one side of the clusters is a remnant of a thin pyromorphite "curtain" that attached to the pocket wall above, when it was removed. All in all, a really unique specimen even from this productive mine, with intense color that takes it up a notch compared to many pieces . Joe Budd photos

This display-quality perovskite specimen (an oxymoron to say that?!) is dominated by a lustrous, shoe-polish-black crystal measuring 3.6 x 3.1 x 2 cm in size. The crystal is superb, and displays well. It is completely terminated atop (although not doubly-terminated). A classic odl Russian find, until recently in the noted collection of Lawrence Conklin. Joe Budd photos

I purchased this piece in 1992 from an intinerant mineral dealer from Guanajuato, a really nice guy who split his time between running minerals up to the States, and US citizens down to his ranch in Gjto to meditate and explore nature. He sold me part of his own personal collection of Gjto minerals at the time, to help fund the development of the "meditation retreat" they were building. Since I collected calcite , I jumped all over this specimen and owned it for nearly 10 years before somebody pointed out that it my hopeful wishes occluded my judgement in specimen identification: it is quartz, not calcite! The quartz replaced the original calcite, somehow creating this sandwich effect of colored layers. To this day, I have not seen another such piece except for those in that original flat of material he showed me, which I was told came from a single pocket in the late 1980s. (I did buy the rest, for resale, and sold them cheaply as calcites at the time!) Joe Budd photos

There was a now-famous pocket of what most people I know who saw them consider the best hematites found to date, hit sometime in 2006-2007 and "buried" until 2009 when they came to market. The hematite is razor sharp and has a finish like a jet-black mirror, if you can imagine that effect. It is so reflective, you can use it as a mirror in a literal sense; and it is admittedly "black" in color but yet not black in a way that eats up the light going into it. They just, crystal for crystal, outshine other hematites with but a few exceptions. So far as I knew, they had all been dispersed at and after Tucson of 2009. I believe I have seen most of the lot, and it contained pieces that reached larger size but not with such aesthetics. This particular piece was a hold-back, kept in a private collection by one of the sources. It is one of only a handful of specimens we know of which combined the lustrous, mirror-finish hematite with yellow ettringite association. A coating of small jet-black crystals of hausmannite adds contrast, and texture, to the piece overall. The central hematite crystal measures nearly 2 inches across and sits accented by a bowtie of chalk-yellow ettringites. I think over the long run, given how much hematite is out there on the market from other locales and how stunning these few pieces are, they will command a lot more respect in the fullness of time. So far as I know, all the previous major pieces are now sold and dispersed too.Joe Budd photos

These new fancy-tipped tourmalines , very reminiscent for their lustrous terminations of Pech (Afghanistan) material, are in fact from Coronel Murta in Brazil. A small pocket yielded perhaps a few dozen crystals of such quality, with lustrous terminations and superb lustre and transparency as you see here. This is a sharp, very beautiful example of the rare habit found in this single pocket here around 2005. These had been hoarded and slowly released to the market, but that stash is done now. Few remain to be had; and for the size range , this is an excellent small cabinet sized piece with top quality that wsa long held back by the owners of the pocket in their own personal collection (I am the one who first purchased this in 2006, for a customer, and just got it back recently by exchange). The color is , as it looks, YELLOW on the termination atop a pinkish-red body. The bottom two photos show this phenomenal color - one in normal light and the rightmost with a strong light from beneath, which intensifies the yellow tones. The termination is ultra-glassy, frankly the glassiest you can ever see in a tourmaline! These things look Afghani in form and termination, in fact...rarely would you see such from Brazil. But the color is unique, not found anywhere else quite like this. And in combination with the crazy lustre and sharp terminations, these will be remembered as one of the best tourmaline finds of the era I am sure. Major pieces from this pocket are now in the most elite private collections, and very few of any note have been for sale recently or can be expected to be. This is truly a stunning crystal! It is pristine and complete save one small contact in the back. Joe Budd photos

Uvarovite from this highly unusual ore locality set the standard for the species for hundreds of years. Large crystals from here, and this is one such at 1.7 cm, are highly desired by collectors of the classics. This is an aesthetic matrix piece featuring a large, complete crystal in copper-rich ore matrix. Recently in the Steve Smale collection, and previously from the Delerme collection (Paris). Joe Budd photos

This is a stunning, seemingly carved, cuprite specimen with sharp faces and brilliant lustre. When backlit strongly, a gemmy red color permeates the outside few millimeters of the piece. This style (the thin red zone, and the bevelled edges) was rare from the mine's 2009-2010 production, amidst many more commonly found with no hint of red and sharper corners to the octohedra. The piece is complete all around, even crystallized on the bottom except for a very few trivial/minor dings or contact points. This locality has produced what are arguably the world's best cuprite crystals in modern times. The combination here of lustre, sharpness, and beauty of the crystals is together more desirable to my eye than all but a very few cuprites known from past major locales. This mine is actually being mined now, as we speak, through its oxidation zone. The mining is actually coming up into the zone from underneath, and when it is done - no more cuprites, no more coppers. So, as a bet, I think this will someday be known as one of the major important specimen localities in Russia for the 2000's, and these cuprites should go up quite a bit in price and desirability over time. Joe Budd photos

At nearly an inch wide and 3 inches tall, this is a dramatic aquamarine "single", flanked by two sharp black schorls that make the piece much more aesthetic and interesting than your normal aqua alone might be. The crystal is super gemmy, and it is like a window to look through and see schorls on either side. A fine, complete-all-around small cabinet specimen from recent finds - but unique amongst them. Joe Budd photos