Quartz

Unknown Owner

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Home to an iconic white marble, Carrara in Tuscany, Italy has seen quarrying for over two millennia. Less well-known is the occasional presence of wonderful crystal-clear terminated Quartz crystals within cavities in the marble. This beautiful small cabinet-sized specimen is a wedge-shaped piece of marble host rock, upon which two individual colourless doubly-terminated Rock Crystal Quartz crystals sit. One, reaching 2.9 cm in length, the other, lying alongside it, at about 1.9 cm long. The larger crystal points upwards with an absolutely perfect termination and with its lower point just embedded with the marble matrix. Like a 'Herkimer diamond' but from Italy, this specimen is a magnificent display specimen of this classic type of Quartz crystal found within the famous marble and is an old-timer. It is from the superb systematic collection assembled by the brothers Martin and Michael Günther (1951-2007 & 1956-2021) and is accompanied by a slightly damaged old card display label, printed and in German, and probably dating to the very latest years of the 19th century to earliest 20th century.