Cinnabar on Dolomite

Unknown Owner

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Classic Cinnabar: twinned, superb metallic luster, and a rich red color that glows under the light, not even backlit. This is a HUGE crystal, and complete all around except where it attaches! The termination is freestanding, complete 360 degrees. The crystal is 3.5 cm in height, and pristine except for a few teeny tiny rubs. At 3.5 cm, this is near as big as they got. The trim job is perfect, to make a balanced full miniature.From the style, my gut feeling is that this piece dates back at least to the very early 1980s and was probably one of the very first cinnabars to come out in a trickle that shocked the mineral world. I could see this being a $10k rock at the time....they were that astonishing and highly valued in the first few batches. Of course, more were mined afterwards and came out in the mid 90s. But now, these large cyclic twins are very rare, and good matrix specimens like this more so. Ex David Michaels collection