TUC14-100
Phenakite
Casper Mtn. pegmatite, near Casper, Natrona Co., Wyoming, USA
Thumbnail, 3.1 x 1.1 x 0.9 cm
Ex. Kevin Brown; Michael Schmidt
SOLD

Phenakite from the Colorado Rocky Mountains has always been coveted, and this crystal from a little known Wyoming locality should be even more so. This crystal, with minor bits of matrix attached, is well formed with good luster and gemminess, and is unusually colorless (not even the usual straw color found in many locales). This piece is from a small pocket, which I was able to obtain most of back in the late 1990s. There might have been under a dozen good crystals! I have not had another one since, and this is one of those I sold back then, the first I could obtain back in over a decade. When they were collected, the miner had thought he found achroite tourmaline! The habit is wrong, in hindsight, but nobody could possibly have expected to find phenakite in Wyoming at the time. I ended up with 4 specimens at the time, and this is one of those, long ago sold to a friend, that has come back to me now. It is a true USA rarity, and nothing like it has been found since. What I like is that the style and form of the crystal are unique for phenakite from ANY locale, not just the USA. This is a large thumbnail or small miniature. Ex. Michael Schmidt and Kevin Brown collections