Fluorite

Unknown Owner

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Found by minor Cliff Wilkie in 1990, this piece is thought to be the finest Frazer's Hush fluorite produced in the modern era (according to folks who know more context than I). It is a whopping 28 cm across, and is as pristine as you can wish for. It has SHARP, penetration twinned fluorites to 2.2 cm in size. The surface is GLASSY...not just lustrous, but really smooth and glassy as you seldom see. Unusually for the mine, the larger and deeper purple twinned crystals sit with some isolation upon a carpet of smaller, paler fluorites - giving more 3-dimensional relief and accent than you normally can expect. Within one week of being found, Patricia Greenbank had rushed to the mine to see it and paid the miner his (high) price to have it for Lindsay's collection. This large specimen is one of the finest fluorites to come out of England, according to many who have seen it, and has a stunning, grape-juice color to it. When I first saw it, on his patio in the sun, I was simply stunned. It is that amazing. Even in daylight, it lights up brilliantly, fluoresceing in even the faintest of natural or halogen lighting. The color is simply shocking. It is deeper yet than even the normal, already fine, Frazers Hush shade of purple. For me, it was one of the great prizes in the collection, and is a fluorite hard to compete with. Photos simply cannot convey the sheer impact of holding this piece in sunlight. The top photo shows a closeup of a region of the piece in daylight, glowing purple. The lower-left photo shows the geometry well, but does not do justice to the color in real light as opposed to studio lighting which actually dims its intensity a bit (Joe Budd photos). The lower-right photo was taken by Lindsay Greenbank in England, before I trimmed and cleaned it, and shows the color a bit more accurately as it appears in normal light. Illustrated in "Classic Minerals of Northern England," as a two-page spread showing the piece at actual size.