Albite

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This is certainly one of the world's finest albite specimens! Aside from the importance of the US locale, quality like this is totally unprecedented outside of the traditional Alpine cleft occurrences in Switzerland and Pakistan - and even there seldom has such luster, let alone the gemminess we see here. This plate of colorless albite crystals contrasts nicely with the underlying black chlorite schist. The crystals are mostly tabular, glassy and gemmy - and twinned. They exhibit a superb sheen and a pearlescent luster. The numerous fine crystals here are highlighted by a 4.5 cm-across twin crystal on the right side, a slightly smaller on on the left; and a central, robust, upright, GEMMY crystal perched right in the middle. The whole plate is of high quality with no obvious damage, and just sparkles like it is made of jewels. It is hard to believe this stuff is feldspar! I showed this to a number of East Coast museum curators and colectors, prior to this update, and all were simply stunned. Again, aside from the quality, the location of a small quarry in Vermont was a stunner. A few crystals clearly exhibit twinning with obvious re-entrant faces on top of the crystal terminations, but there are several habits on this one specimen. The albites are in great shape overall and when displayed, glow and conduct light throughout the specimen. Truly magnificent - and I will echo what a few more knowledgeable folks than I have said, that this is quite possibly the finest American albite specimen! They do NOT look like feldspar, but more like some freaky-lustrous gem crystals or brilliant topaz.