Fluorite

Unknown Owner

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This is a sophisticated piece from the mid-1800s era; that looks damned good even by modern standards of persnickety aesthetics. It has both significance of history and pedigree, AND it is a fine piece - and those features are not often present in the same old classics specimen no matter how historic or pricey it may be. I believe a piece like this adds a level of historic context and sophistication to any fine collection, even one that has far more obviously valuable golds and gemstone crystals in it. The piece features a sharp penetration twin showing gemmy, phantomed crystals of a saturated purple color atop a pedestal of smaller crystals. It is nice and purpley in the case, but when hit with daylight it goes grape-juice purple. This is a link to photos of another piece on my site which shows the effect in full fluorescent light (similar to this piece): http://www.irocks.com/s_present.php?sid=LGC-66+&; go=Go. But even in normal daylight and case lighting (if halogen, sunlight balanced), you can see the hints of intense purple fluorescence as it glows purple. After all, this is fluorite from the district from which the very word "fluorescence" was coined in the mid-1800s, based on this "day-glow effect" in this species. Lastly, I like that we know its whole history: mined in mid-1800s and then a long chain of collectors til now. It was first in the CARL BOSCH (1874-1940) COLLECTION (link at http://www.minrec.org/labels.asp?colid=205 which was sold to the Smithsonian in its entirety. Bosch was known as the consummate collector of his day, widely regarded as having persnickety and frankly insanely picky taste for his time in that he wanted "best specimens possible" in terms of visual quality at a time when many collectors were happy with reference samples. It resided there until 1980 or so when it was exchanged out to the owner of the Himalaya Mine, well known collector Bill Larson, in an exchange deal. He has a fine worldwide collection emphasizing just such classics, in fine aesthetic quality. During his ownership, it was ILLUSTRATED in the FLUORITE book/issue of the German magazine LAPIS: see ExtraLapis, 1993, page 39. And he kept it until about 2005 when he put it up for sale at Tucson. He sold to Dallas collector Wally Mann in 2005 or 2006 (and it was displayed in Tucson 2008), and it was in his choice collection of English classics until recently passed on to me. Joe Budd photos