This fluorite is not like others we have seen, and it features a stark zoning at the ends of the crystals that give them such a sharp form and separated look, that it simply is more impactful than any medium-colored purple fluorite normally has a right to be. In person, it looks more three-dimensional, and the color contrast really leaps out. Steve Smale was one of the first Western buyers in China, meeting sources at Shenzhen on day trips, while based in and teaching Math at the University of Hong Kong in the early to mid 1990s. It gave him a unique access, most of us would cry for at the time. He bought heavily as the mines produced, in the glory days of polymetallic deposits like this mine, Yaogangxian ("heavenly celestial mountain," filled with cemeteries on the slopes). As the years went by, he reduced the average size of his pieces and his taste to miniatures and small cabinets, mostly, while I started collectinf cabinet sized China specimens in the late 1990s.

A stunning "jewel" of a calcite! Chinese calcites have long since hit the quantity of fish in the ocean, to the point where I am jaded and seldom excited about new calcite finds there. I happened to be in China, not far from the town of Daye, when this new pocket was hit in early May of 2015. I bought as many as I could, of which this is one of the best, from the direct source dealer from that town on the closing day of my travel. The Tonglushan Mine is actually an ancient copper mine worked since 2700 BC for ore, but only in the last 10 years for specimens! Apparently, it has produced on and off pockets of malachite and calcite, but only sparsely and they seldom came to the Western markets.

From the famous 1969 pocket of purple Hydroxylherderites (see Bancroft's famous book Gem & Crystal Treasures)... Herderite from the single amazing find of 1969 set the world standard, and these purple herderites are almost never seen for sale today as they remain in collections and museums which acquired them at the time. This remarkable floater specimen, complete all around, was in the original Ed David collection in the 1980s and 1990s, sold to Houston Museum in the mid 1990s, and then exchanged to collector Irv Brown in the early 2000s. It then resided in another collection until now, the well known gem crystals and aesthetic minerals suite of Dr. Matt Tannenbaum of Idaho Falls. For the first time since it was found, I had it sent to the lab for a proper cleaning, and a very minor bit of restoration in the corner tips (where there was a little bit of hoppering or etching, but no damage per se).

Chinese fluorite has run the range of colors and shapes, and I thought we had seen it all. In mid-2016, a small pocket was hit at this deep commercial tungsten ore mine, with some of the most lustrous, most richly colored, gem fluorite crystals we have yet seen, in beautiful harmony with quartz crystals. I was lucky enough to obtain a small group of stellar specimens at the top of the find, which all came from a single 3 x 3 foot section off one wall of the pocket after a blast. I actually was lucky enough to be in this large ore mine shortly after it was found, and see how far in and how difficult it is to get such things out. Nothing from later pockets approached this quality - believe me, I went to the mine to see myself, and have kept watch ever since. Being in this mine and seeing the conditions worked under to extract specimens is truly humbling!

An important and old 1800's-era Silver, from the King of silver mines. The curator of the Kongsberg Museum identified the mine for me, saying it was immediately obvious to him the mine and the time it came out. Few enough of such size are on the market, and not tied up in museums already after all these years. A piece like this shows exactly why Kongsberg is the supreme ruler when it comes to large, thick, so-called ropes of silver (they are crystalline, by the way, and not amorphous at all). I have known of this fabulous specimen, like an upright snake in form, for over 20 years. Ed David originally owned it, having purchased it from English collector Richard Barstow's private collection before his untimely passing at a young age.

This unique specimen seems to be an aquamarine overgrowing a heliodor core, with interesting green feathery inclusions which I have no clue what we are looking at. Depending on lighting and background, it is either a really blue aqua or a neon blue aqua...in either case, no matter how you look at it, the color is truly phenomenal and special. The color changes a bit in various lights, and so the video here is a more accurate representation of luster and shape, than of color. At the time I first bought and sold it in Tucson 2005 I was told that it was a freak piece, mined alone only several months before the show. I have not seen another like it, since. It is completely crystallized around all sides.

Apophyllite in a quality and style not often seen before, for this combination in this size, with an 8 cm gem point standing straight up from contrasting matrix! A single remarkable pocket produced these sharp, standing gem crystals of exceedingly gemmy mint-green apophyllite perched on clouds of pink stilbite, right before Tucson of 2017. While we have seen similar in the past, in smaller size, I cannot recall seeing such a monster of this quality. I bought all I could, and sent them to the lab for cleaning and preparation. The few I did not get to fast enough, had already sold into major collections before even being cleaned and prepared, just as mine-run. Under a dozen were as remarkable as this piece for aesthetics, still fewer of this size, and all of these stand to me among the best examples we have yet seen of the species from this deposit.

Gold from California is plentiful, but cabinet pieces with exquisite crystallization are not. This mine is perhaps the single most famous source of the finest crystallized golds in modern times, with several different mining operations following the vein across the last 100 years. This piece has superb crystallization and is freestanding and perfect on both sides, typical of what this mine is famous for (example: the Dragon Gold in Houston). This specimen was acquired by well-known collector Richard Kosnar in the 1980s, and stocked away in the family collection until a few years ago, when a private collector bought it. I am told that he was told it came from the early era here, 1920s-1940s, though there is not way to prove it now. In any case, spectacular, large gold specimens like this are uncommonly seen on the public market, and this is the first time it has been for public sale in nearly 40 years.

I think the photos speak for themselves, although this is even better in person. It is an intensely colorful specimen with hot yellow cubes as sharp as you could dream of, and highlighted by purple phantoms around their edges. It looks like cubic mushrooms shooting up - it is very 3-dimensional. The piece is large, as well; a full cabinet size and then some. It is complete all around, and has no repairs. It is nearly undamaged as well, though I made the choice to have a few small dings restored for clean edges, with color-matched restorative epoxy.

The photos say it all, for this massive, important, piece. It has a truly incredible, vibrant, lively color that must be seen to be believed - and is visible from across the room! Photo by Joe Budd. Comes with a custom lucite base. View a rotating video of this specimen at https://goo.gl/XqGSgF

Gwindels, or twisted quartzes, come at their best from a very very few high Alpine deposits, worldwide. The twist in a gwindel is proportional to its drama (and value), and here you see a dramatic and pronounced twisting. For some reason, most tend to be smoky quartz, and the best of the best came from Chamonix in France, a few small clefts in Switzerland, and this one lonely mountain in Russia. This particular piece came out in the 1980s heyday here - when the Wall fell and Russian specimens came out to the Western market in the mid 1990s, we all thought these were contemporary. However, they came out a decade earlier, in most cases, according to Brad Van Scriver (who handled many). This piece, which came to me from an old collection, is remarkable for the quality of the twist, the intensity of the sparkly luster, and the fine smoky color for this locality.

Nagar fluorite twins are unique in all the world, at their best, for the sharpness and gemminess that they can give you. Normally, you see this rare twinning shape in green fluorites, and the result is a crystal that is shaped more like a hexagonal greenish beryl at first glance. Here, we have a spinel-twinned PINK FLUORITE, that at first glance looks like a thin gem morganite! These are 1 in 100 of the fluorite twins, so rare that I have seen only a few per year, if that - and nothing of this quality. The crystal is thin, about 1 cm, and totally transparent and gemmy. It is optical clarity!

Rubies from Mogok are simply the most highly valued in the world, in gems or in minerals. The mining here is insane, with 500,000 workers in the Mogok Valley mining every day and splitting the few things found. We recently watched a video made for TV by Federico Barlocher, that seems to be the first time any Westerner has been allowed to make videos deep in the mines and of the full context of the mining operations. It is, in one word, humbling (the 2017 Dallas Mineral Collecting Symposium - dallassymposium.org - featured his talk and video, included in the Jan-Feb 2018 issue of the Mineralogical Record). Specimens are few, and now I understand why. It is incredibly rare to find an aesthetic ruby, and then to keep it from being cut is as great a challenge.

Arsenopyrite is a common mineral in the polymetallic deposits of Panasquiera, though it seldom occurs in rich and large plates. This particular pocket, featuring a natural and frankly startling iridescence to the crystals, came out in 2015 and only a few specimens were available at the time (luckily, I was travelling through Europe at the time and bought several). Why have we not seen these rich colors before or since, in all the history of the mine? I cannot say, why this piece is so intensely colored, and others from other pockets are not. I have seen the same effect in China, rarely, at a similar mine. The conditions just have to be right, once, and in all the pockets of this mine, each is subtly different.

This crystal is a stunning historic piece from one of the most famous gem mines of the time, the "Mutuca/Mutuba" indicolite mine, which is still infamous today in gemstone and jewelry circles in Idar-Oberstein and in Brazil for the cut gems of the era. This is a terminated, unrepaired, deep blue indicolite from the old days of Brazilian gem crystal mining, when very little went to collectors and nearly all of it was cut It has no damage, nor any repairs or restorations. It is an unexpected survivor from a time when nearly everything like this was cut into pieces. People in the gem trade that I showed this to, to verify, confirmed the location and suggested a date of mining prior to 1960. This was brought up by Peter Bancroft on one of his trips in 1971, and kept by him for some years in his own collection before selling it to Jack Halpern (along with another tourmaline we're deaccessioning for him). What is amazing about this tourmaline is not only the uniformity of color and the saturation, but that it backlights so easily.

Santa Rosa has produced some of the finest tourmaline crystal specimens in the world, though most of them were destroyed in collecting or cut for gemstones in the heyday of Brazilian gem mining. This large, heavy, multicolored crystal is a rare survivor of those times - probably found in the 1940's according to former owner Dr. Peter Bancroft (see attached letter, written to John Attard when John tried to get the information on behalf of Jack back in 1999 and while Peter was still alive). Despite being huge and thick, it backlights very well, very dramatically, and looks awesome in a showcase. This was brought up by Peter Bancroft on one of his trips in 1971, and kept by him for some years in his own collection before selling it to Jack Halpern (along with another tourmaline in this update). It masses 570 grams!

This specimen is a nearly pristine, robust King Mine Elbaite Tourmaline crystal that was mined around the turn of the 1900s in the era when the jewelry dealer Tiffany's out of NYC was competing with the last Empress Dowager of China for the world's best supply of pink tourmaline rough material for carving and jewelry. Needless to say, little survived that competition, in the way of specimens. It's the exact top level of carving material once sent to the Empress dowager of China when San Diego was a gem export center for the US in the pre-WWI era, and when the Chinese carving market drove gem mining efforts in San Diego (the legacy is still seen today in the street names as you go down from the mountains along Garnet avenue past Beryl and Quartz and Feldspar etc, to get to the beach). This dignified Elbaite crystal is an intense, translucent pink and doubly terminated! It has a flat (pinacoid) termination on one end and a complex (pyramidal) termination on the other, and is pristine except only for a very minor bit of restoration on the flat termination side. This gorgeous crystal is distinctly striated and tapers slightly inward towards the complex pyramidal end.

Himalaya tourmalines are known for being broken in situ, and repaired. It just goes with the territory, as the pegmatite was severely disrupted and shocked over the tens of millions of years since it formed. There are few large tourmalines from this mine and district which do not contain repairs. However, this is one of the best we have seen, as it has intense red-pink color and beautiful tapering form, with both terminations. Also, the particular style of the larger tourmalines tends to show zoning, usually with a pale green or pale pink zone mixed in. This crystal is a solid, saturated color throughout.

One of my favorite miniature-sized specimens from hundreds I had seen, from this large find a few years ago, we put this away for the future at the time. It is a spreading, volumetric cluster of incredibly sharp gold crystals, with mesmerizing detail throughout. it is complete 360 and simply amazing to look at up close. The photos say it all. At 49.2 grams, it has more volume for display for the collector, than the mass would otherwise indicate, as it spreads out nicely. One of our favorites of the entire lot, from the several kilos of material we had seen when these came out (around 2015).

A stunning, 3-dimensional cluster of sky-blue Aquamarine crystals that represents one of the top-tier pieces in its size class, this was a signature exhibition specimen for decades in the Obodda collection as shown at the Tucson, Springfield, and Munich shows (and in a special 2011 museum exhibition in Tucson). This stately Aqua consists of two main crystal columns each at three and a half inches in length and an inch or more across! The bottom half of each crystal is interestingly cloudy resembling an internal "fog" that is sharply demarcated by a horizontal zone above which the crystals are completely gem for the remainder all the way to their perfect terminations! All of the crystals of this sumptuous piece have a luster like glass with exceptionally well-formed crystal faces and sharp edges. The terminations are dominated by the pinacoid with slight pyramidal modifications around the top. A two and a half inch Aqua spans the two diagonally across the base for added effect.

Superb and substantial, doubly-terminated, hexagonal, prismatic Sapphire crystal from Sri Lanka. This classic, NATURAL (unheated) Sapphire crystal exhibits its characteristic steely-blue color. This 24g Sapphire crystal is an amazing two and one-quarter inches long and five-eighths of an inch at its widest. Although specimens of this size tend to show rounding of the edges from rolling around in the gem gravels of their host rivers in Sri Lanka, this specimen is very sharp and it has well-defined crystal faces and edges. It's gemmy through much of its length with translucent areas and displays a sublime medium blue color to most of the body, graduating to whitish at the terminations. 24 grams is large for such material.

A stately and commanding Tourmaline crystal adorned with contrasting bluish Albite and Laumontite from the Malkhan Pegmatite Field, and one of the special crystals to be noted and recovered in early efforts at the Sosedka pegmatite here (2012). This gorgeous deep cranberry colored Tourmaline is over four inches in length and more than an inch across and is translucent with local gemmy areas, especially at the termination. Its prism faces are distinctly striated and the crystal is doubly terminated on one end by a complex and lustrous modified pyramid and the opposite end by an etched pinacoid. The crystal is graced on one side by pale blue, platy Albite crystals to 1 cm in length as individual crystals and open rosettes. For added interest, Laumontite is also associated with the Albite on this side as a late-stage crystallization product...and yes, Zeolites are found in pegmatites! The Laumontite occurs as densely aggregated, ivory colored bladed crystals to a few millimeters.

A large, and significant crystal for this very rare gemstone species, a neon pink-red Pezzottaite from the type locality in Madagascar. This is a superb, complete, tabular hexagonal Pezzottaite crystal with well-developed, broad, flat terminations modified around the edges by complex modifications (pyramidal faces). It has robust, raspberry-red color and is gemmy throughout. The broad faces have a satin luster. One side displays stepped growth with progressively smaller hexagonal growth forms - mesmerizing detail! It is pristine save for a few tiny contact notches at the bottom where it grew from matrix (most of the pocket of 2003 was found, collapsed, and few matrix pieces exist; the majority being floaters such as this).

Colombian emeralds are the apex predator of emeralds and beryls... they just have a magical appeal perhaps due to the fact that everybody knows what emerald is, and recognizes it on a shelf. Despite being worked for 400 years (and more), the mines of Colombia are still going. However, truly great specimens are few and far between, and only a handful come out each year - a fact. There simply are not enough specimens of a level beyond "average" to satisfy the collector market. While most emerald crystals average 1-2 cm and tend to be rather slender, this specimen hosts a very large, undamaged and unrepaired emerald crystal measuring 3.4 cm tall, 1.7 cm width, and 1.4 cm to 1.8 cm thick (the top is slanted to the back, hence the narrowing).