Thomsonite-Ca on Prehnite

Unknown Owner

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Thomsonite is one of those special, rare mineral species that most of us ignore except for making species or location suites, and only occasionally do you see beautiful specimens that command the eye to look at them. This piece is both important AND aesthetic with sharp, lustrous, radial clusters of thomsonite crystals to 4.7 cm perched on a rolling matrix of apple green prehnite - a fine combination! This comes from one of the most classic of all USA locales, the basalt deposits of West Paterson in New Jersey. Historically, these were heavily collected by both early scientists and early collectors, and have yielded abundant specimens of so many species but not so much of thomsonite. This is, in fact, the only one that has ever really interested me. It is an old specimen, with an early 1900s label. The specimen then went into a sale at Ward's, which specialized in dispersing the huge collections of the early 1900s, and sold to Rock Currier in 1976. He kept it all these years. In his own words, as a New Jersey and USA historic minerals specialist and one of the most knowledgeable people I have ever met in minerals, “One of the best ones I have ever seen.” RHC#2374. A masterpiece of USA mineral collecting in cabinet size.