Calcite (Heart Twinned)

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Very few smaller "heart twins are available in the marketplace, compared to those that are small cabinet or larger in size and high in $$$ - we think simply fewer little guys were saved by miners back in the day, since they got more money for bigger twins. That makes it quite difficult to find a fine miniature or thumbnail example. I have seen in fact just a few thumbnails in all my years. This is a floater with most of the upper calcite faces exhibiting wonderfully visible growth striations; and it is fat and transparent as well. The luster is glassy and gemmy. It is shockingly colorless, without distracting iron inclusions as they often have. The old german labels describe the twinning habit. ex Irv Brown thumbnail collection. Per Paul Pohwat of the Smithsonian (with thanks): the label is giving the crystal notation in the Miller and Naumann or Weiss notation, in other words the indices of the faces and the twin axis. The notation with the four numbers is the Miller notation. So while technically correct that the symbols are mathematical descriptions of the crystal the easier route would be to say that they are the crystallographic notations for the faces.