Butte rhodochrosites are certainly important US classics, but we can admit that, much as they may be important they seldom hold their own on a worldwide scale. However, this superb miniature from an old collection is highly lustrous and sharper, more strawberry-red in color, than other Butte pieces I have seen. The piece is very aesthetic, and is an interlocking cluster of large crystals. On the back, it has traces of the sulfides characteristic of the locality. An old piece, probably from the mid-1900s, I am told, this is for my taste the best Butte rhodo I have seen in this size range.