Smithsonite

Unknown Owner

Help improve this recordNo owner is registered for this specimen yet. If it's yours or you know more about it, you can add the owner, provenance, publications and other details.

This specimen of pink smithsonite from one of the world's great smithsonite locations is simply "pretty" no matter which angle you look at it from. It features unusual rounded "ricegrain" crystals which are very atypical of the material here, which is usually just rounded bubbles of growth. The look and texture of this specimen are therefore really unusual compared to the norm, and I personally find it very attractive. It displays vertically like a curving growth, or horizontally shaped somewhat like a heart, to equal effect. Choix has produced some of the world's great smithsonites, though they only came out in a few large finds over the decades, and nothing good has come out since the late 1990s by Benny Fenn (from which this piece surely came). The color variation here is astonishing, and varied.