Fluorite with Spessartine on Microcline

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With the quality of the Spessartine crystals from Wushan Spessartine mine at Tongbei in Fujian Province, China it is sometimes easy to forget that other species exist, and in the case of this fine miniature specimen it is a cute, 1 cm wide almost colourless, twinned octahedron of Fluorite. Twinned octahedra are extremely rare in Fluorite, making this a really important specimen. The balance and distribution of individual gemmy orange complex 'rounded' crystals of Spessartine nicely spread out upon a pale pink Microcline matrix and with a perfect individual twinned octahedral Fluorite works perfectly. With careful study, the complexity of the Fluorite crystal becomes more apparent, showing small edge modifications too. Ex Arvid Pasto Collection, no. AEP1250. Illustrated and described in Pasto's 2009 book, Collector's Guide to Fluorite, as figure 120.