Calcite - image 1

Calcite

C

Carolyn Manchester
0 for sale
Calcite (“poker chip” habit), 5.4 cm, from Charcas, San Luis Potosi, Mexico. Acquired from Kristalle at the 2008 Denver Show. Photo: Larry Low.

Product details

Species
CalciteAbout Calcite →
SizeSmall Cabinet
Dimensions5.4 cm
Added on02/13/2026
Locality
Mexico, San Luis Potosí, CharcasRegional guide →
Publications
  • Mineralogical Record Mineral Collections In American Midwest page 137

Learn more

Calcite
Mineral guide
Learn about Calcite
diverse shapes, colors, and optical quirks; widely available yet scarce elite pieces from Elmwood and Charcas drive collecting value and display.
Calcite
Regional guide
Calcite from Charcas, Mexico
Charcas calcite is one of the great immediately recognizable Mexican calcite styles: flattened, sharply hexagonal rhombohedra stacked like a pile of white-to-gray poker chips, often with satiny or pearly broad faces and glassier edge faces. Good examples have a sculptural, almost architectural quality — single fat disks, stepped stacks, V-shaped clusters, columnar growths, or matrix-free “floaters” that seem too deliberate to be accidental. The classic palette is colorless, white, cream, gray, slightly smoky, and occasionally pinkish; many specimens show a pink to red fluorescence that is part of the locality’s appeal for UV collectors.