This piece looks fake, in person. It has the most intense bright turquoise blue color I have ever seen in a specimen. It is a bubbly, 3-dimensional example of a rare SPECIMEN quality "gem silica," that is practically glowing with color. This is old material, and over the years has been treasured as cutting and lapidary material, where it sells by the gram. It is actually chrysocolla, with an overlay of transparent chalcedony (quartz) which gives it strength and sparkle. I have never seen a piece of this magnitude of color and brightness, on the market. Frankly, I ignore the material most of the time as it is usually in the form of flat slabs or little seams/pockets in big matrix. This is a SPECIMEN, though: two sided and nearly complete. It is not entirely complete - there are some gaps in coverage, due to contact or damage around the bottom periphery, but it certainly is complete on the display faces where it matters and all around the top, 360 degrees. I showed it to oldtime Arizona collecting expert Bob Jones, who was as impressed as I was; but comes to the scene with a much greater knowledge of context. He told me it was the best he had seen for sale in 60 years of collecting Arizona material, better than any he had obtained for his own Arizona collection when he was actively collecting; and he thought about buying it, even though he no longer has an Arizona collection. The piece is one of the oldest specimens in Valenzuela, Frank's collection, and the oldest valuable specimen he had kept through years of trading and upgrading. He has been collecting since he was a teenager in the early 1950s (Frank is 73 now). After proving himself a pretty smart guy, he was promoted to a shaft supervisor position at the Inspiration Mine by the late 1950s, in his early 20's. He made friends with an older miner and fellow shaft supervisor, Tex Burlison, at that time. Tex had collected this piece in the late 1940s, and kept it for himself on a mantle at his home. Frank recalls always wanting this piece, the best piece of the whole shelf there, but Tex would never sell it to him. Well, it turns out that Tex's wife collected old antique bottles. Seeing another angle, Frank spent 3-4 years collecting old bottles he would find in the mine shafts here and in other Arizona mines he explored (some dating to the late 1800s). He assembled a whole collection of them which he traded to Tex for this piece in the early 1960s. Is it expensive? Absolutely. It was dear to Frank and it was dearly sold to me. But at the same time, it is a perhaps unique piece of superb quality and unusual aesthetics. Moreover, it is 70 years out of the ground, surviving when most such material was long ago cut for pendants and belt buckles, and they are not exactly making more of this at other mines. Joe Budd Photos.