An important historic specimen, these intense lavender-colored amethysts with an almost silky texture to them are few and far between. This miniature has great aesthetics, with real rock matrix as a perch for 1 inch amethysts. It has never been cleaned, and so is a bit "dirty"; but I like the antique look of it. Note the handwritten label from William S. Vaux (1811-1882), whose collection formed the core of the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences. This piece, obviously, was traded out long ago befor ethe collections there went into storage and were eventually sold to a consortium of mineral dealers recently.

This is one of my alltime favorite gwindels of any price range because it is so elegant in its composition, with a strongly twisted smoky of total transparency combined with a rich internal brightness, rising vertically from a slim matrix of normal prismatic quartz crystals that contrast the form of the gwindel so starkly. Matrix gwindels are uncommon, especially good ones of this quality - and it is undamaged, pristine, and complete 360 degrees so that it can be viewed from any side. NOTE: Not from the Hauck Collection. This is from the collection of Dr. Eric Asselborn, but it fit well with this update and so here it is.