SM22-27
Calcite
Jinhua, Zhejiang Province, China
Small Cabinet, 6.7 x 2.0 x 1.1 cm
Ex. Dr. Robert Lavinsky
$2,450.00 Payment Plan Available
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This sculptural and perfect, elongated GEM crystal is from famous finds around the year 2001-2002 that stunned the mineral community at the time. When the first came out in a trickle, I thought they were English calcites from the 1800s, somehow miraculously preserved and with unusually good luster. Instead, it was one of the first finds from China that simply stomped on all similar previous finds of a species/style, and blew China open for the source of world class calcite. At the time, we did not know quite where they were from, and you will have seen these over the years with labels denoting at least 4 different locations in Hunan, but they did actually come from the Zhejiang province and were sold by Hunan mineral dealers out of Changsha and Chenzhou back in the day, with the true locality kept secret (similar but generally smaller crystals have since come out in Zhejiang and been labeled properly, by the way). I purchased this in March 2003 from a crazy sale of one of the better collections (of a dealer) of Chinese minerals assembled up til that time, and have had it since (in my own personal calcite collection, started when I was a teenager in the 1980s and mostly kept until now). It is a true gem.