Babingtonite on Prehnite

Unknown Owner

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These extremely stark and dramatic crystals, the best one freestanding and upright, sit on a beautiful floater matrix piece with gemmy, colorless, quartz crystals measuring .8 cm across, upon botryoidal, green prehnite. The sharp, tabular, lustrous, black babingtonite crystals, to 2.0 cm in length, cover one side and overhang the edge so the piece can be displayed from any number of angles. The color contrast between the prehnite and the babingtonite is outstanding on this well-balanced specimen. The matrix seems to be a floater shard of crystallized prehnite, and is entirely translucent when backlit. This is a fantastic small cab sized specimen which any advanced collector would have happily paid thousands of dollars to own were it from the old US locales where a very similar association has formed - and it would be highly coveted for aesthetics, based on any previous standard. luster on these crystals is high, and the faces are all sharp and un-etched or discolored as with some babingtonite from this locality. These remarkable specimens, where even the mid-range material is better than the best of species EVER seen from anywhere else, come out of a very small, previously insignificant quarry that, according to Mindat.org, is simply worked by the local farmers.