Beryl Var. Emerald

Unknown Owner

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This emerald is one of the finest single crystals I know of for the locale, on a gram per gram size and quality basis. It is gemmy, transparent, bright, with excellent color and the rarest type of termination for the locality (or for emeralds, in general). The termination is sharp and prismatic instead of flat and hexagonal, with brilliantly glassy, lustrous faces. It was exchanged out of the American Museum of Natural History in the early 1980s to dealer/collector Larry Conklin. He kept it for years, and then took an offer and let it go. Recently, he was able to get it back, after (re) -purchasing the collection it went into. The AMNH records disclosed to Larry at the time of its deaccession indicated that the famous gemologist and mineral dealer George Kunz had sold the piece to William Boyce Thompson (1869-1930). Thompson was a major mining investor by 1900, with operations in Arizona and Montana in addition to his financial influence as director for a time of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. His collection was bequeathed to the American Museum on his death. The crystal was once on display in the Museum's mineral hall, although it was wrongly labeled as "Brazil" in origin at the time despite its obvious and easily identifiable North Carolina nature: At the turn of the 1900s there was a premium attached to emeralds from foreign countries, as North Carolina was producing domestically; and it is quite possible that the specimen was intentionally mislabeled for that reason in the chain of ownership. Note that the piece has not, in 100 years, been cleaned fully - it still retains pocket clay attached and shows an "antique " look. Joe Budd Photos