This is an INCREDIBLE, RARE example of old Japanese material from mines that are completely dead and defunct. I have never seen another for this magnitude. It has cherry red crystals, sharp, and freestanding! I do not know HOW old these are, but I am told some date to the late 1800s. I sold this piece back in 1995, and was happy to get it back recently! I found it in an old collection being dispersed at Tucson of that year, and the label (now lost) indicated it was from the collection of Bill Sanborn. Bill was a well-known San Francisco area mineralogist and curator at the California Academy of Sciences, who specialized in Japanese mineralogy and lived over there for a time.