This is old classic material, mined several decades ago. VERY FEW old stibnites from this famous and now defunct district have any kind of modern, world-level aesthetics to them. This one, however, can hold its own against contemporary chinese material collected under better conditions. It is nearly pristine, and has a very aesthetic arrangement of radiating crystals from a common center. The crystals reach 3 cm. Small, sharp, gem-clear barites to 4 mm abound in the crevasses between the crystals. I have also chosen not to overclean this to make it bright and shiny - it retains its original patina.

This is one of only two such examples of gem, twinned , jewel-like calcite on stibnite that attained this level of perfection, from a small find of late 1999/early 2000 (in fact, the piece is shown in the What's New from Tucson column of May 2000, used to illustrate the find at the time it came to market). The crystal is absolutely pristine and features the richest color saturation and lustre for which this pocket was known. The stibnite is ALSO pristine and complete, all around! The calcite, nearly 2 inches, is perched upon it like a boat on a mountain. The pocket has left an impression , and was never repeated in this quality, though a trickle of further specimens came out. The later specimens were scalenohedral. The twinned habit, such as you see here, was unique to just a few pieces. There was so much mystery and competition surrounding these spectacular combo pieces that THREE TIMES , I was given erroneous information by Chinese and American dealers who were trying to keep it a secret until more mining could be done. Only years later did we learn the true locale. I remember falling in love with this piece (at the time, I was a devoted calcite collector myself, and had been so for 20 years since childhood) , but it was already sold to collector Steve Smale. I pried it out of him in an exchange within a year, and then kept it myself for half a dozen years until Wally repeated the armtwisting trick with me on another specimen i "had to have," as I switched to keeping only larger Chinese cabinet sized pieces for myself. Wally works here at our office helping me with sorting and research, a few days a week; and after two years of him fondling it in my collection, I had given in to the temptation of trading it out. This was, and remains, a favorite of my older collection, however. Now available from the Wally Mann collection, it is up for sale briefly as he wants to use the funds towards another piece. If it doesn't go, he'll keep it. Joe Budd Photos