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ex. A. L. McGuiness ex. Dr. Eugene Meieran
A spectacular large crystal, just HUGE and deeply colored, with multiply-phantomed crystals to a whopping 5 cm (2 inches!). MUCH BETTER IN PERSON...when backlit, this piece GLOWS with colors subtly changing from green to blue throughout. It is, like the above specimen, one of the best from here that I have seen for sale and is representative of older material, as opposed to what is being mined here today.
I have seen a LOT of these over the last few years, trickle out in spurts periodically. However, of them all, this one has the richest raspberry-purple color and deep hue of any I have seen. Some people dismiss these as "deco rocks" because they are more or less common on the market at th emoment. However, this one stands above and is really in the top 1 percentile of all of them for color and visual impact. It is also very aesthetic overall , and undamaged, and fairly large. Do not underestimate them because they are Mexican and not Illinois - someday, they'll be gone too!
This one is hard to convey in pics. It is actally a very displayable calcite specimen, no problem. However, it is ALSO a very neat pseudomorph piece! The large discshaped calcites sit ON a cluster of large scalenoedhral crystals that turn out to be FLUORITE that had encased an original calcite crystal, filling in the space and crystallizing on the inside of the growing internal cavity as the calcite dissolved away over time. It reallly is much better in person and in fact, could be photo'd the other way with the sharp calcite-formed pseudo on top, as well. To me, though, its primarily a calcite with the replacement as an interesting "surprise" bonus.
Unusual pear-green botryoidal fluorite from a special, one-time pocket found about 4 years ago. I bought much of it at the time, and just found these two holdouts as I cleaned out some old flats. Most unusual in both color and form!
Unusual pear-green botryoidal fluorite from a special, one-time pocket found about 4 years ago. I bought much of it at the time, and just found these two holdouts as I cleaned out some old flats. Most unusual in both color and form!
A spectacular large specimen, with HUGE and deeply colored, multiply-phantomed crystals to a whopping 5 cm (2 inches!). MUCH BETTER IN PERSON...when backlit, this piece GLOWS with colors subtly changing from green to blue throughout. It is one of the best from here that I have seen for sale and is representative of older material, as opposed to what is being mined here today. Ex Jeff Starr and Francis Benjamin collections
ex. Dr. Steve Smale
From the noted collection of Chinese minerals assembled by Steve Smale, this is a superb and very unusual fluorite for the location. NO DAMAGE AND COMPLETE ALL AROUND! Seldom do you get crystals so large and gemmy! Also, it has an almost neon, saturated color intensity like you seldom see. The top picture conveys it best, but even that pales in comparison to the real specimen in person. Note also the sharp internal phantoms, again rare in a Chinese fluorite of such size. The piece is a floater! It is symmetric on front and sides, and then roughly complete all around the backside where it has many microfaces formed where the fluorite grew against another mineral. This is NOT your average China fluorite!!! I recently exchanged this from the Smale collection.
ex. Dr. Steve Smale
A truly unusual specimen! This calcite, doubly-terminated and in a cluster of smaller calcites, somehow glommed on to one of those usually floater etched corners, formed from strange chemical processes in which large cubic fluorites from this mine sometimes decay into 4 corners that then come apart and fall gently into the pocket over time. Somehow, the corner must have gently landed on this calcite as it was forming ,as the two are intergrown and totally attached. The fluorite must have formedlong before, thus. This fluorite corner is complete and features the full stalk into what would have been the center of a cube. It has the sharp corner, however, remaining...when I was a kids some people labelled these as "fluorite pseudo after calcite," because they looked so crudely scalenohedral themselves. But, they really are fluorites, just of odd form. Try finding another one in matrix! Let me tell you, they are rare anyways in a cluster or attached to fluorite, but VANISHINGLY rare attached to a calcite like this! And, aesthetically attached, to boot.
This is one of the nicer matrix fluorite specimens from the famous Sweet Home mine. Many of these gemmy, lustrous, crystals are bi-colored, with deep purple cores and white edges. The largest of these measures 1.25 cm across. For color contrast, there is even a cleaved rhodochrosite rhomb and colorless quartz crystals to 1.0 cm across. Quite rich and unusual for the locality!
ex. Lindsay Greenbank
I am really fond of this old fluorite from the venerated Heights Mine even though the crystals do not appear to be twinned in the "classic" manner you expect. The crystal is also rather large. That makes it all the more unusual! The combination of drusy, white, quartz surrounding the green, gemmy, well formed, 3.5 cm fluorite crystals, is as good as it gets for these great pieces. They fluoresce somewhat, even in just daylight...in fact there is a hint of purpley-blue when viewing the fluorite through the side faces just in normal lighting. There is also a second generation of fluorite which has grown on the drusy quartz. Formerly in the noted collection of Lindsay Greenbank. Overall, both aesthetic and significant as a classic!
ex. Marilyn Dodge
This is a terrific combination piece consisting of gemmy clear-to-purple Fluorite cubes (partially coated with drusy Quartz for accent) arranged en echelon along a pair of gemmy and highly lustrous Scheelite crystals. Very distinctive, not only for the aesthetics but for the location, as well.
ex. Marilyn Dodge
This is such a good combination piece. The Fluorite is a partial and very sharp octahedron with flashes of green and pink, which bears an uncanny resemblance to the famous Peruvian Fluorites. Place this on two sharp cream colored Baveno Twin Feldpars, and you have an amazing thumbnail.
To me the most exciting new find at the show was this trickle of fluorite specimens brought back from the UK in Cal Graeber's hand luggage, from their summer mining project. They were about to give it the last season here, and lo and behold on the last bit of summer they hit what is now called "The Jewel Box Pocket," with some of the finest green penetration twins ever found in England. These are HUGE crystals for the locality, to 3 cm on edge, and GEMMY! The color saturation is INTENSE. These fluoresce a DEEP vivid purple even in sunlight...you don't even need a UV light to get the effect. A window, a door even, lets in enough natural UV to make them bicolor green and purple as you twist the specimen in the light rays. This was, so far as I saw, the best miniature for sale. It is nearly pristine, with just a few very tiny dings (that I do think are natural, not man-made). As you can see, it displays dramatically, but the intense color saturation makes it hard to photograph with depth and color both. BETTER IN PERSON, I assure you.
This larger specimen features a 2.4 x 1.5 x 1.2 cm GEMMY crystal, twinned into a slightly smaller cubic fluorite; as well as another 2.4-cm twin in the middle of the specimen starkly standing out from the simple cubes around it. To me the most exciting new find at the show was this trickle of fluorite specimens brought back from the UK in Cal Graeber's hand luggage, from their summer mining project. They were about to give it the last season here, and lo and behold on the last bit of summer they hit what is now called "The Jewel Box Pocket," with some of the finest green penetration twins ever found in England. The color saturation is INTENSE. These fluoresce a DEEP vivid purple even in sunglihg...you don't even need a UV light to get the effect. A window, a door even, lets in enough natural UV to make them bicolor green and purple as you twist the specimen in the light rays (see lower photo for an attempt at shooting this). This was, so far as I saw, the best piece for sale at the show for my taste anyhow. It is pristine on the display face, with contacts around the periphery only. As you can see, it displays dramatically, but the intense color saturation makes it hard to photograph with depth and color both. BETTER IN PERSON, I assure you.
ex. Cliff Krueger ex. Jack Halpern
A stunning and very unusual "windowpane" fluorite from Elmwood, from a weird pocket where the solution etching effects common at the mine have worked only around the edges, leaving a bright and gemmy core with SHARP faces that is also window-clear, so you can look right through the crystal. The combinaiton of sharp , hard lines on the top half of the crystal fading subtely to etched edges and softer edges on the other sides, is very aesthetic. The color also subtely changes from yellowish to lavender throughout. It is a really complex specimen, though at first glance it look slike just a simple single crystal. It is a floater, technically complete (due to microcrystallization on the back) all around. In person it is VERY transparent, and gemmy! One of the most unique single fluorites from here, overall, that I have seen. I was happy to exchange this from Jack Halpern's collection recently. He got it about a decade ago from the Cliff Krueger collection.
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