For the size and overall visual impact, this is a stunning and unusually large rhodo plate with SHARP, and I mean SHARP, GEMMY crystals to 2 cm in size. Most of them average 1 cm. Sprinkled amonst the red, are sharp black clusters of metallic tetrahedrite which make for a really nice contrast. The overall shape of the piece is very sculptural with a slight curvature to it, not "cookiecutter" or blocky as so many large specimens are trimmed out from the plates they are sawed out on. The piece has the TOP CHERRY COLOR. This is not off-color, not strawberry in hue as so many you see on the market today are. This is a piece that has the color and lustre combination (important!) that, even "way back when" only a few years ago when the mine was still open, even in context of the many finds after 2001 or so before it closed, you couldnt get. Most people then and now settle for pieces with lesser color saturation, less lustre, and more damage...its all that is out there. I sold this one back in the late 90s and was happy to get it back recently! You just cannot find large cabinet rhodos of quality around. And this is one I am happy to have owned again and again, and would do so a third time. They appreciate at such a fast clip every year, 20% or so it seems, that I cannot replace my supply except by buying entire collections with specimens in them. So, I rarely sell mine. Or, as with this one, I'll give it a few months on the web and then pull it down and stash it for the future. Just cashflow...this is one rock I am happy to keep as rhodo today is "red gold" in the bank better than the cash is. Comes with custom lucite base for easy display. Recently, I had the chance to trade this older specimen back from a collector and i STILL find it unique, now, 3 years after I first had it.

This attractive plate features the sharp lines of superbly crystallized, large, very lustrous, tetrahedrites, to 3.25 cm in length. These crystals visibly have complicated striations that give them a lot of character and dimensionality, plus they stand out more from the matrix than you normally see in Mexican tetrahedrites. In fact, the quality is so good here, they are of a quality you associate with Peru (but the overall look is distinct). This is certainly one of the best examples we have seen, for quality. . . there are bigger crystals to be sure, but this association on sparkly pyrite, with dramatic individualized crystals, makes the piece.

This specimen has a metallic golden brightness to it that looks manmade, brighter and more metallic even than modern Peruvian material can be. It is an old specimen from the collection of the late Dr. Richard Heck. Displayed one way, there is a large twin to the left, and the piece balances standing up like a triangle. Or on its side, the large , complex chalcopyrite twin graces the bottom, and smaller crystals rise above it to form a pagoda of sharp, golden-brassy color. So bright is it, that it leaps out of a case as the most metallic mineral in the Heck collection, amongst sphalerites, pyrites, and other species. It is just vividly colorful and brilliantly lustrous. One of the highlights of this fine old Mexican mineral collection. Joe Budd photos.