Anhydrite

Unknown Owner

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This specimen was one I acquired from an engineer at the Munich show who said he worked on this project. It was removed during the famous construction of the NEAT tunnel in St. Gotthard pass (May 2nd, 2005), and is a beautiful, totally gemmy and transparent, floater crystal cluster of anhydrite. This is similar to classic material first known in the 1800s from the region, but seldom seen on the market today. This tunnelling project hit a few pockets of large crystals, now highly treasured, of this rare Alpine classic. This particular crystal is large and robust, complete all around, and attractive due to its gemminess. The crystal is a complete, total floater with crystal faces on all sides, even if it is asymettric on the bottom (you know it is fully terminated because of some minor matrix attachment on bottom). The white crystals on the side and part of the back face, seem to be stilbite. In person, it has a pale lavender color, typical of the locality. In person it is totally gemmy and you can look through it! but this is hard to convey in photos