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Dark sphalerite and bright pyrite sharing a matrix with colorless quartz and some very pale rhodochrosite. Older material from Huaron-- nothing is coming out these days, due to increased mechanization at the locality.
As with most of these Huaron pieces, it's less jumbled in person.
Botryoidal green mottramite on matrix, from Tsumeb.
A prism of dark tourmaline, with a 2-3 mm dark green band near the termination. The crystal is backed by a feldspar group mineral-- likely adularia.
A prism of green tourmaline on quartz. Complete, though with a rough termination.
A tabular apatite crystal, on a group of ferberite crystals that are partially coated by muscovite. Classic Portuguese material.
A beautiful specimen of lustrous, light greenapophylite on stilbite.
A beautiful group of light green apophyllites and tabular stilbites, from India. The apophyllites have hair-like inclusions of another white zeollite.
A reference sample of valentinite from a find amde about 2 years ago. It's not stellar, but it is a rare opportunity to obtain a an example with macroscopic crystals. |
A green rosette of prehnite aesthetically perched on a bit of quartz. From the Chinese find several years ago.
An etched green fluorite crystal with tabular gray calcite crystals.
This is from a find made a few years back.
A cabinet specimen of tabular gray calcite, on a piece of matrix covered with green fluorites. There is a fairly major cleave on one side of the calcite, (see image below description) but it blends in well, and all in all, the piece is exactly as shown in the pictures.
A partial prism of elbaite touraline on a partial prism of quartz. Not particularly spectacular, but for some reason it looks a lot more impressive than it is....
Scalenohedal calcite crystals-- some curiously darker than others-- on a contrasting white matrix.
A Japan law twin from recent workings at Pasto Bueno. There is a small chip at the top, visible in the pictures.
A nice specimen of rhodinite on a bit of matrix.
A thin layer of purpurite on a brown matrix, from Namibia. Purpuriteis a manganese iron phosphate.
A cluster of hedenbergite included quartz crystals from recent finds in Inner Mongolia.
A damage free pair of colorless fluorite crystals with minor lollingite, from the Huanggang mine. Better in person, the etching on the surfaces makes it difficult to photograph.
A cluster of rather large tetrahedrite crystals, hosting a cluster of colorless quartz crystals, a couple double terminated.
A specimen with several translucent cassiterite crystals on matrix, from Bolivia.
A reference sample of massive molybdenite from Chile-- for some reason the picture at right looks to have a hexagonal outline, but I think that's misleading.
A cluster of beta quartz crystals from recent finds at the Huanggang mine.
An unusual specimen consisting of a plate of quarz epimorphs after anhydrite crystals.
A rare (and old) specimen of Scottish smithsonite, unfortunately I don't have more specific locality information.
$200 $95
A with nice blue zones, on a muscovite matrix. Apart from the Jagdalek rubies, I have not seen much in the way of corundum from Afghanistan, and certainly no sapphire specimens.
There are no images of anything other than Afghan rubies pictured on Mindat, so I take it as a sign (combined with my not having seen anything at shows) that this is something reasonably new.. The termination is missing; even so, it is priced at a fraction of what I have seen similar specimens being offered for in Tucson.
A cluster of sphalerite crystals on matrix, from the Elmwood mine. The cluster is nicely positioned on its matrix.
A cluster of pale green apophyllite on matrix, from India. the green color is a result of vanadium impurities.
A bournonite-coated tetrahedrite crystal nestled between a pair of quartz crystals. The crystal is not a full tetrahedron, but displays well front the front.
Operations at this mine were once much larger in scale, though key parts of the site were blown up by Shining Path guerillas in the early 1990's. The site was then abandoned until the specimen recovery project in 2008.
A novelty from Huanzala mine, best known for its pyrites and pink fluorites. This specimen hosts a few very light green fluorite crystals.
Unlike past fluorites from Huanzala, these are cubooctahedral ("Shangbao-style") as opposed to octahedral. There is damage, though it makes for a decent reference.
Semi-proof that Pakistan has rich ore deposits. I purchased this at a shop in Gilgit in 2006.
The fact is that Pakistan is full of ore, but the dealers in Peshawar only focus on the higher value pegmatite species. Foreign mining companies don't work the metal deposits because of the political climate, and because many of the deposits are located on private land owned by feudal landlords (a holdover from the Mughal and colonial eras) who tend to combat any attempt by the government to survey their land.
From anywhere else, this specimen would be quite common. But from Madagascar (or anywhere in Africa for that matter) pyrite is not something often seen.
This interesting locality piece consists of thousands of mall pyrite crystals arranged into an elongated nodule.
A hard to find piece for a pyrite collector or collector of Malagasy minerals.
An old vivianite nodule from Virginia. These were found in clay decades ago, during construction near the state capital. Classic old material.
A prism of scapolite from Canada. The painted catalogue number is from the Robert Nowakowski collection.
Several tabular hemitite crystals on matrix, from northern Pakistan.
A single, nearly colorless apophylite crystal on a nicely contrasting, dark matrix.
A very nice (and very old) specimen of ilvaite from a classic American locality. Especially with the finds in Inner Mongolia (adding to those from Greece and Dal'Negorsk), Ilvaite is more abundant than ever.
These old American pieces are exceedingly rare however, and while not possessing the best luster (few examples form this location do) it has a particularly nice arrangement and overall form. Cheap for what it is.
A brownish yellow sphalerite crystal on a quartz matrix. Sphalerite has been one of the rarities at the mine-- the brighter yellow crystals typically sell for a lot more, but since this one lacks quite that color, it will make a nice reference example.
Admittedly not the flashiest specimens, but certainly interesting. The Malagasy chrysoberyls you have seen in the past, whether small V-twins or large sixlings, probably came from the Lac Alaotra locality. These come from further south atTsitondroina, near Fianarantsoa.
I saw some of these in Tucson, many of those were damaged too. Those were all marked "50% off" from prices that had to be 220% of retail...
A specimen of dark blue clinoclase crystals on matrix.
A cluster of calcite crystals from Dal'Negorsk. |
A thumbnail specimen of the rare copiapite group member, magnesiocopiapite.
An old vesuvianite prism from a New England locality. Not at all perfect and with some damage, but I had never seen one before and I figured it might be of interest to someone who collects minerals from that part of the country.
A terminated prism of the black variety of tourmaline. There is some damage, but the price takes this into account.
A hard to find, colorless and terminated crystal of Topaz from Nigeria. Nigeria's pegmatites produce a wide variety of gem minerals, yet the market is tightly controlled by local gem cartels.
Mining is conducted exclusively for gem rough, and Nigerian dealers almost never sell on a piece-by-piece basis, meaning that if you want to buy the one complete crystal in a 1 kg lot, you would usually have to purchase the entire lot by the gram...
Obviously this makes no sense for a specimen dealer, so specimens are rarely seen, despite the relative abundance of Nigerian material and gem shows.
Epidote is one of those minerals that turns up in many places, in many varied habits. Here is an unusual example from Madagascar.
This is probably a new find, unfortunately most were either pretty ugly or single crystals. This was the best one I saw....
An interesting locality piece.... the only others I have seen were very old.
From anywhere else, this specimen would be quite common. But from Madagascar (or anywhere in Africa for that matter) pyrite is not something often seen.
An interesting locality piece.
A specimen of galena on quartz, from Bulgaria.
A large cabinet specimen of seligmannite on galena. This this in admittedly ugly, but the point here is the seligmannite: the display face is totally sprinkled with microcrystals of the rare lead, copper, arsenic sulfide.
A rare specimen of Tunisian fluorite. These were brought out years ago by Dan Weinirch, and this piece is accompanied by his label. A good reference specimen from this unusual locality.
A specimen of melted looking galena from Bulgaria. It is a lot better than the pictures show; in person the pieces is rather bright and you can see individual faces. The many projections and monochrome nature of the specimen made ti difficult to focus the camera and to take a photograph.
A crystal of this rare lead silver antimony sulfide, from Bolivia.
A decently sized scepter crystal of quartz from Madagascar. There is a contact on the back (see bottom right image) but it displays well from the front. It has some small red inclusions near the termination.
A cabinet specimen with a druze of green pyromorphites set against a nicely contrasting matrix.
A nice "toenail" specimen consisting of a stacked (and some would say sceptered) beta quartz cluster from new finds at the Huanggang Mine in Inner Mongolia.
A group of colorless fluorite crystals on matrix; some damage but still about 1/3 what you would expect to pay in Tucson.
