My favorite piece from the trip, and probably one of the most beautiful examples that I have seen of the species.  Rarely is an example with such large crystals this well balanced, or so clean of damage.  Most pieces one encounters are single crystals (especially in this size range), or if there is a cluster then the crystals will be arranged in a less appealing way—either too densely packed or just having loads of peripheral damage. Now, there are three very small chips on one edge so it is not 100% perfect, but compared to the obvious and unslightly breaks and chips one usually encounters, I would consider this acceptable. 

The cluster even has a piece of matrix clinging to the side, almost perfectly balancing it visually.  The presence of any rock matrix is almost unheard of for pieces from this locality—they are usually just sitting on a mass of dense, ugly stibnite crystals, if on anything at all.  In this case the bit of rock serves less as a matrix than a visual accessory, and interestingly enough it doesn’t show any point of attachment either.

In my opinion, even the large 6 figure pieces with their huge nests of crystals, impressive as they are, lack the balance and beauty of this one.

It really is a spectacular piece-- I saw the thing once and passed because of the price, but I knew I would regret it if I did not bring it back with me.  I will also point out: it is not cheap, but my asking price is about 40% of what a “big dealer” would have marked on an inferior piece of similar size 

A spectacular large cabinet specimen from he Shangbao Mine.  These are among the most collectible of the various Chinese fluorite varieties, and the stepped cubo-octahedral crystals are among the most distinctive. 

An impressive specimen hosting a large cluster of sharp brown genthelvite tetrahedrons.  The bulk of these clusters topped off around 3 cm, this one has considerably more size, and has more presence than the dimensions suggest.

This is the best example of this greenish-purple fluorite habit that I have seen from Huanggang. 

Its size, overall form, and most impressively the number of crystals on the piece make it stand out considerably beyond any of the others I have seen.  Although there are a couple minor chips (the main one to note is on the top-most crystal, this is visible in the pictures), that aside there are no really broken crystals-- quite a feat when you consider the number of crystals, and that they have to be painstakingly etched and then physically uncovered from beneath a quartz coating.

There were a few smaller pieces available in Tucson this year, and I bought the best I saw.  Even among that lot, almost all had significant damage issues.  To find a piece of this size in this condition is truly unusual.

The color is better in sunlight-- there is a deep blue-green underglow.  The crystals seem much paler in the pictures, because the lightly etched surfaces reflect light during the process of photography.

An impressive cabinet sized calcite from the Fuzichon orefield.  Specimens from this locality first made their way to the market around 4 years ago, with most consisting of thinner hexagonal crystals or "poker chip" stacks.

Although less available since the original find, there have been a couple new pockets.  This piece was is among the best I have seen from the location, and was discovered within the last year.  The back is slanted and coated with a layer of dark rock, indicating that it was cleanly removed and not cleaved.  The piece shows good hexagonal phantoms, and areas of geminess as well.  One corner (top left on main crystal) has a minor rub, though it is barely visible in the pictures and it hardly distracts from the overall appearance in person, and even with that I still consider it to be one of the most impressive pieces that I have seen from the mine... 

Obviously, it is best displayed as shown in the image immediately to the right and the one right below it, as this hides the points of attachment. 

A stunning combination of quartz with lollingite, probably one of the most aesthetic and certainly the most dramatic that I have seen.

A spectacular example of green mushistonite coating kesterite, certainly one of the best I have ever seen (I'd probably put it in the top 2-3 that I have personally seen). To begin with, the cluster is huge for the species-- they are typically thumbnails, and individual specimens rarely exceed 1 cm.  Moreover, matrix specimens are extremely scarce--to put things in perspective, just the cluster of kesterite on this piece bigger than most (entire) matrix specimens I have seen.

A large cabinet sized specimen of azurite, from recent finds at the Sepon Mine.  These have been trickling out for the last 3 or so years, and at the 2015 Tucson Show the couple big dealers who had them were offering similar pieces in the 10-20k range.

A large cabinet specimen of lollingite, examples of the species have been found here for approximately the last year. While the majority are typically plates of smaller crystals (sometimes very large plates), there are some sheaves of larger crystals available as well (see below) This piece is about as good as they get for the location, and it should be noted that this find represents the best-of- species occurrence. Although larger pieces have been found, those are always plates composed of many sub-2 cm crystals-- on this piece the crystal sheaves reach 10 cm. Not only that, but the flower- like arrangement and overgrowth of bright arsenopyrite crystals give it a particularly aesthetic appearance, for a usually dull sulfide. In some areas, there is also a molybdenite coating that gives it a pleasing gun-metal color in some areas. I learned long ago that when it comes to new finds of Chinese minerals, to get the best pieces possible as they are coming out, because they only get harder to find (and more expensive) later on. With that in mind, I jumped on this piece-- even if I end up keeping it for a while, it never hurts to have a top piece from a best-of-species find tucked away. Heck, the way prices are working with minerals from this site, in a year I"d probably have a hard time buying this myself... as an example, the asking prices for many specimens similar to those in my earlier Inner Mongolia updates are now higher than what I posted them for.... AND IT WEIGHS 10 POUNDS! Somehow I am always extra-impressed by rocks that are really, really dense.

A cabinet sized specimen of plumbogummite after pyromorphite.  This piece is an aesthetic cluster, with crystals on both sides (including a number of hoppers) pseudomorphed to a light blue green.  There are a few broken crystals, but as they are pseudomorphed all the way through they don't stand out (i.e., if they were not completely pseudo-ed you would see a contrasting green core.)  Still, by the standards of the find this one is in very good condition

One of the top examples from a recent find, this is a quartz specimen unearthed sometime within the last 2-3 months. A number of pieces were made available by a wholesaler in Denver, but these were cherry picked by a (discerning) friend before the show, upon their arrival at the wholesaler’s warehouse. While the majority of what I saw in Denver were single crystals, many with chips or damaged terminations, the specimens here represent some of the best from the find.

More importantly, the arrangements are quite beautiful—this one is a pair of intersecting crystals forming a perfect X (the crystals are not in the same plane, however).

The crystals themselves are a very interesting color—their cores have segments that are are somewhere between a light smoky and amethystine, with a thick outer rind that is colored faintly green by what I assume are microscopic hedenbergite inclusions. The end result is this very unusual greenish quartz. Unlike many earlier finds, the surfaces on these pieces retain a high luster (not etched, as with most others) but still display the complex faces that care a characteristic of quartzes from this mine.

I got over 70 pieces in this cherry picked lot, this one stood out even among those. 

 

A cabinet aquamarine from Nagar, with a 6.5x 4 cm cluster of gemmy and terminated blue aquamarine crystals nicely centered on an albite matrix.

 

This piece is rather unusual, in that the right-facing sides (and only the right-facing sides) of all the albite crystals are coated with a druze of muscovite.

 

Overall, this specimen differs greatly from the standard opaque-ish blue aquamarines that we have all grown so accustomed to seeing.  This piece was found around 2002, and is from my personal collection.

A large cubooctahedral fluorite crystal on a quartz matrix, displaying the stepped faces that fluorites from this locality are famous for.  Shangbao fluorites are probably some of the most sought after of the various Chinese fluorite "formats," this is a particularly sizable crystal nicely positioned on its matrix.

A cabinet sized fluorite crystal, displaying good clarity, light phantoms, and an interesting stepped cubo-octahedral form. 

A beautiful plate of fluorite from the early 2000's finds at the De'An Mine. At over 30 cm, this piece is quite large and hosts numerous crystals beautifully arranged on quartz matrix, the crystals show the typical purple coloration with light green undertones, and edges with seemingly greater color concentration. 

A very large specimen from the one time Chinese find made a few years ago.

While the color on this piece is not the brightest red from the find, it more than compensates with its size, lack of damage, and the size of the crystals. Virtually all of these specimens have significant damage, but this one is surprisingly clean, probably because the crystals seem to be somewhat thicker. Also unlike many other pieces, this one has a hard rock matrix, not the gossan usually encountered

This find represents what is probably the most significant find of wulfenite since Wayne Thompson"s San Francisco Mine find in the mid-90"s.

A beautiful example of hedenbergite included quartz, crowning a pair of calcite aggregates composed of hundreds of tabular calcite crystals, also colored light green by hedenbergite inclusions.

The quartz crystals are entirely damage free.  As you can see in the image where I am holding the specimen, a part of the matrix is broken off on the side, but this is not noticeable when positioned for display, (for example, as shown to the right of this description)

A very unusual and aesthetic piece from a recent find, the only one that really caught my eye.

 

A large and very rare sceptered amethyst from Korea, with a custom wooden base. Amethyst mining in this area goes back over a thousand years to (at least) the Silla period, and has continued intermittently since, with work being carried out by locals, by the Japanese during the occupation, and most recently by a Korean mining company in the 1980"s. Today, the excavated caves are home to a sort of amusement park. These specimens are undoubtedly old, and represent particularly fine examples of this rare material. More recently, sceptered amethysts have been found in Namibia and Madagascar. Prior to those African finds, Korean amethysts scepters were among the most sought after. These days, given the rarity of Korean pieces, and the abundance of pieces from Africa, these remain largely forgotten. This is the largest single crystal I purchased, it displays well from the front or slightly angled, though as shown in the bottom left photograph, it is not complete all around. Regardless, this is a huge amethyst point, and exceptionally large for a scepter from any locality

Now here is a very nice combination piece. Four main aquamarines to 3.5 cm with schorl inclusions on a bed of muscovite balls. Also on the specimen are several quartz crystals. It has a natural "pedestal" on the back that holds it up at a nice angle.

A large terminated aquamarine rises from an albite matrix that is studded with garnets and small quartz crystals. The color is about as good as it gets for Pakistan, much better than the Chumar Bakhoor pieces (the ones with the muscovite matrixes) from farther south. There is a chunk of albite that has partially interrupted the growth of the back side of crystal (you can sort of see this in the image below and to the right). The crystal is absolutely undamaged, moreover it is terminated and it displays perfectly from the front. There is also a double terminated quartz crystal on the lower front of the matrix, that is included by several garnet crystals.

A beautiful, damage free specimen of light green cubo-octahedral crystals forming a diagonal belt across a matrix composed of colorless quartz crystals.  

The fluorite crystals show the stepped faces typical of Shangbao Mine specimens, and are very gemmy.

 

I very rarely purchase such large specimens, but occasionally I find one that interests me. More often than not, the disqualifying factor is simply damage-- the larger a piece is, the more chances that somewhere on the surface area of its display face, something will go wrong-- either naturally or during extraction.   On this piece however, I only find a couple missing crystals near the edges-- it is as close to perfect as something this size can be, which is remarkable considering how many hundreds of crystals are on it. 

An excellent stibnite specimen that is well over 100 years old, from *the* locality for the species. This piece is in excellent condition, both given its age, and compared to others I have seen.  Ichinokawa stibnites remain elusive classics, though are mentioned in practically all the texts where stibnite is discussed, and given their near mythic reputation, I would even say that a collection of worldwide minerals is not entirely complete without some representation from this mine. 

A top combination specimen from Huanggang, consisting of a cluster of large (and very sharp) brown genthelvite crystals, perched on the end of a lolligite spray.  There is also minor scheelite and some quartz, meaning that all the major Huanggang species (except fluorite) are included on this piece.

A very large spray-like cluster of  biclored elbaite crystals.  The crystals have pink bases, light green upper sections, and maroon caps. 

This is probably my second favorite specimen from the trip.  The surface of the purplish blue fluorite is a bit altered, such that it has a whitish coating, though the overall form makes for a beautiful combination.  The large octahedron sits on a plate of muscovite and very lustrous cassiterite.  There were hardly any fluorite examples available from this location, most were beaten beyond recognition (except for the color) or present as minute crystals somewhere on a matrix. This was the best fluorite example I came across, and it is certainly an interesting combination.

Minerals from this relatively deposit were one of the interesting surprises on this trip.  This area is located in Inner Mongolia, near the more prolific Huanggang Mine.  

A beautiful cabinet specimen with two terminated, gemmy aquamarine crystals on matrix. Both crystals have lightly etched surfaces, and a light blue color. The main crystal stands straight out of its matrix, finding a specimen where the crystals are positioned like this is not as easy as you might think: mining involves lots of dynamite, so more often than not the crystals wind up separated from their matrix... This is the best piece from the pocket.

I had posted these briefly ( a couple hours) before, then took them down to collect more information and to confirm that they were in fact Chinese. After speaking with a few people, the locality has been narrowed to somewhere around Anhui Province, in eastern China. These pieces come from a small find that was debuted at the Changsha Show in May, and I have only seen a few pieces floating around since. This is one of the best (and certainly largest) examples I have seen, and is composed of a carpet of bright blue, acicular crystals. I should also point out that it is not nearly as delicate as it looks.

An interesting specimen for a collector of Chinese minerals, and certainly something new and unusual from that country.

A large specimen of old-style cavansite on matrix, hosting several deep blue orbs of this mineral. 

A beautiful plate of fluorite from the early 2000's finds at the De'An Mine. This piece has numerous crystals beautifully arranged on quartz matrix, the crystals show the typical purple coloration with light green undertones, and edges with seemingly greater color concentration. 

A beautiful and complete ilvaite crystal, with a terminated quartz crystal backing up to, and passing through part of it.

The ilvaites from this location rank among the largest and most well-formed from anywhere.  They were also among the first mineral specimens to be collected at the site.

The vast majority are just single crystals, and this piece is a pretty decent size.  What most sets it apart from the thousands of others however, is the beautiful quartz combination that imparts a much more sculptural and balanced appearance.

As is typical of most of the larger pieces, the surfaces are not smooth and glassy (for example, like obsidian.)  The piece has a decent luster, but the faces are a bit etched. 

A spectacular cabinet sized example of rhodochrosite from Japan. This piece has particularly vibrant color, and interestingly combines a botryoidal habit with underlying crystals. Oppu rhodochrosite usually has a more pastel color (you can compare to the other offerings on this page)-- pieces like this have never been common

This is one of my 2 favorite pieces that I purchased at this year’s show. This specimen consists of multiple green fluorite cubes showing clear phantoms, perched on matrix. The whole specimen has a very sculptural appearance; the positioning of the fluorites on the almost coral-like matrix makes it seem almost organic. I can find only one crystal with a single corner cleaved, with that minor (and difficult to spot) exception, the piece is perfect. 

A spray-like cluster of large, biclored elbaite crystals.  The crystals have pink bases, light green upper sections, and very thin maroon caps.  

A cabinet specimen featuring a very lustrous, colorless fluorite crystal on matrix.  The piece is not perfectly transparent, though it is clearer than the pictures show.

The position, size and luster of the fluorite give the specimen a particularly strong visual impact, compared to others from the mine. On a lighter note, the two crystals on the upper right and left almost give it the appearance of having cat-like ears.

This specimen is best displayed as shown in the images to the right and below.  It needs to be angled back a bit, as the top of the crystal has bits of matrix sticking to it, where the was probably once another crystal (see bottom right image).  There is no damage to the piece, however.

A beautiful plate of fluorite from the early 2000's finds at the De'An Mine. This piece has numerous crystals beautifully arranged on quartz matrix, the crystals show the typical purple coloration with light green undertones, and edges with seemingly greater color concentration. 

A spectacular hemispherical cluster of radial quartz crystals colored green by hedenbergite inclusions, some capped by greenish-white calcite.

There is not a single broken crystal anywhere on the display face, which I credit to the thicker-than-usual crystals-- the examples I have seen in the past are typically composed of much narrower crystals, meaning that there is almost always damage.  

This is admittedly not cheap, but it is exquisite.    If you are a collector of Chinese minerals or are putting together a suite of Inner Mongolian specimens, This would be a good one to consider.  I have seen thousands of quartz specimens from this mine, and hundreds of hedenbergite included pieces, and this one stands out in both categories.

A cabinet sized fluorite crystal, displaying decent clarity and light phantoms. 

A beautiful plate of fluorite from the early 2000's finds at the De'An Mine. This piece has numerous crystals beautifully arranged on quartz matrix, the crystals show the typical purple coloration with light green undertones, and edges with seemingly greater color concentration. 

An excellent, damage free combination specimen of the highly desirable and very rare yellow sphalerite on a lollingite book. The sphalerite is lustrous and gemmy, the same quality as the original pieces that were found-- later pieces tend to be less transparent. This is also the only sphalerite/ lollingite combo that I have seen, it is a very beautiful and well balanced piece.

One of the top examples from a recent find, this is a quartz specimen unearthed sometime within the last 2-3 months. A number of pieces were made available by a wholesaler in Denver, but these were cherry picked by a (discerning) friend before the show, upon their arrival at the wholesaler’s warehouse. While the majority of what I saw in Denver were single crystals, many with chips or damaged terminations, the specimens here represent some of the best from the find.

More importantly, the arrangements are quite beautiful—this one combines a pair of terminated crystals, with quartz plates at their intersection.

The crystals themselves are a very interesting color—their cores have segments that are are somewhere between a light smoky and amethystine, with a thick outer rind that is colored faintly green by what I assume are microscopic hedenbergite inclusions. The end result is this very unusual greenish quartz. Unlike many earlier finds, the surfaces on these pieces retain a high luster (not etched, as with most others) but still display the complex faces that care a characteristic of quartzes from this mine.

It is interesting to note that what appears to be calcite on this specimen, is actually quartz that has pseudomorphed calcite.

There are a couple minute dings, though the luster and complex faces tend to hide this.

I got over 70 pieces in this cherry picked lot, this is one of the nicest.

A very impressive large cabinet specimen, consisting of several terminated rubellites perched on two large (also terminated) smoky quartz crystals.  Almost all of the tourmalines have light green caps.  Due to its size, it is difficult to photograph well--it is better in person.

There is a small amount of damage, which is to be expected from a specimen of this size, especially given the blasting methods used by the miners.  Still, this remains a very impressive large cabinet specimen. 

A cluster of large, biclored elbaite crystals.  The crystals have pink bases, green upper sections, and maroon caps.   Larger crystals such as this one are considerably more difficult to find than their smaller counterparts.

A beautiful plate of fluorite from the early 2000's finds at the De'An Mine. This piece has numerous crystals beautifully arranged on quartz matrix, the crystals show the typical purple coloration with light green undertones, and edges with seemingly greater color concentration. 

A bright red specimen from the one time Chinese find made a few years ago.  The color on this piece is comparable to Red Cloud, and this find represents what is probably the most significant find of wulfenite in the last since Wayne Thompson's San Francisco Mine find in the mid-90's.

There is damage to the peripheral crystals, which is pretty much standard for these wulfenites, but is otherwise exactly as it appears in the photographs (actually, the color is somewhat better)

As a side note, Urumqi has recently been the site of tensions between ethnic Uighurs and the Han Chinese that the have moved into the region.

One of the surprises at Huanggang was the presence of aquamarine crystals.  Although the mine cluster is exploiting a skarn, there is a pegmatite intrusion present.  It is from that pegmatite that these aquamarines have been coming.

 

This is the largest single crystal of aquamarine that I have seen from the location.  About a year and a half ago there were a few clusters available, but no more were found.  Along with those clusters, I would consider this to be one of the more notable aquamarine examples from the location, typically the crystals stayed under 5 cm, with 6.5 cm being considered very large.

 

The termination is deep blue, the rest (as with all of these) has a whitish rind-- probably due to etching that is causing the light to diffuse

A killer molybdenite from my collection (not from Tucson).  This piece features a complete, thick book standing nicely on a quartz matrix.

 

It's obviously not as hefty as some of the Australian pieces, but for Korea it is spectacular.  Actually, to find a crystal as sharp and well positioned from anywhere is quite unusual. 

 

This piece dates to sometime between the 1960's and early 1980's.

A cabinet specimen hosting hundreds of light sky-blue pseudomorphs of plumbogummite after pyromorphite on a limonite matrix.  An unusually large and rich example of this habit, one of several to come from the find.   The color is particularly good too.

A beautiful plate of fluorite from the early 2000's finds at the De'An Mine. This piece has numerous crystals beautifully arranged on quartz matrix, seemingly cascading across it.  The crystals show the typical purple coloration with light green undertones, and edges with seemingly greater color concentration. 

One of the main new finds I encountered on this trip were cassiterite specimens from the Weila Situo Silver deposit.  They varied in quality: some were densely packed, others interspersed on plates of muscovite, or light purple topaz.  The best, in my opinion, had well formed crystals with good spacing and aesthetic associations.  I purchased a large lot of this material, but this was one of my 2 favorites, for its association with muscovite, and a bluish-green fluorite crystal (the back half is cleaved).  Contact on the top, but displays perfectly from the front. 

Finding examples that didn't have a banged up display face was extremely hard—This was one of the best I saw, period.

Perhaps one of the most abundant minerals to come from Pakistan is schorl.  But this pieces is exceptional among the literally thousands that I have seen. 

This specimen has a huge schorl crystal , 12 cm in length and almost 4 cm in diameter that is resting on a large albite crystal, fully terminated, just like the schorl itself.  There are a couple small topazes to 1.5 cm around the base, as well as numerous little albite rosettes.

  This is about as good as schorl gets, and a bargain at this price.

A beautiful cabinet sized specimen of fluorite cubes scattered on matrix, these have deep purple cores and ultra-transparent, light green outer layer.  This comes from a pocket discovered with the last month.

An excellent cabinet sized sample of Japan law twinned quartz from the Fengjiashan Mine.  Although operated since the 1950's, the mine's heyday as far as specimens are concerned was in the early 2000's, when it became famous for its inesites.  These Japan law twins were another item of particular note, though I don't see good ones too often.

A very rare cabinet sized example of *crystalized* rhodochrosite from Japan.   To begin with, there has been almost no new Japanese rhodochrosite collected in approximately 35 years, so the material has never been particularly abundant-- but almost all of the rhodochrosite seen on the market comes from Oppu.  The Oppu pieces and to be botryoidal, and almost never exhibit crystals.  Pieces from Osarizawa are considerably rarer-- in fact, the mine was only operational from 1936 to 1965.  Pieces from this locality are notable for usually being crystalline-- and this is a particularly rich example, with the display face entirely covered with small rhombs. 

Another strange fluorite from the Yindu Mine, this one is an elongated crystal with very strange inclusions. There is a small galena crystal clinging to the side. 

Another specimen from the same pocket featured in my previous update, I bought this one a little later so it missed the main update.  This one has 6 crystals, scattered about and isolated in a way that I thought was quite pretty. As with others from this find, there is a deep purple core surrounded by a very transparent outer layer.  A couple of them have white calcite rhombs semi-embedded as well.

A large cabinet specimen of Ilvaite. Ilvaite was the first mineral from Huanggang to hit the market, first appearing at Munich 2010. This specimen, though not the most lustrous, is particularly impressive, consisting of two very large crystals with a bit of matrix. Less than a year ago, specimens like this would have cost over $6,000 (and still do in most cases) but I was able to get this piece as part of a larger group of specimens, and can pass it on at a good price. The size and arrangement of the damage-free ilvaite crystals, together with the sheet-like bits of greenish-brown quartz matrix make this specimen quite appealing, particularly when compared to the masses of lone or damaged crystals.