Prehnite (Orange)

$1,800.00

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The ArkenstoneFeatured

3,403 for sale·Member since 2026

Often confused with the Wessels Mine "Inesite" that people normally associate with the Kalahari from a mid-1980s find, this is, instead, a very rare variety of color and shape of Prehnite from a small find at N'Chwaning II many years later, found about 2000-2002. The deep-orange (from manganese) Prehnite crystals grow in a rich, radial coating about 5 mm thick that cover the rounded white substrate below. This is quite rare for the species in both color and habit. In fact, there is a whole scientific paper on them written by Bruce Cairncross, as Prehnite seems to be significant in its near-absence and rarity in the Kalahari fields for some bizarre reason of geology they go into in depth. This was a small and remarkable find at N'Chwaning II, and it is out of the extensive and renowned African collection of Charlie Key (he recognized them and had essentially all of the pocket, at the time). We bought Charlie's main collection in 2010 or so; and his treasured prehnite sub-collection in later years - he had kept this all that time. He was definitely the biggest locality collector of Prehnite!