Fluorite on Quartz

Unknown Owner

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Sharp crystals to 3.5 cm on edge, with even sharper phantoms inside make this a stunning fluorite specimen. In person, the phantoms have a more red-violet hue that is hard to capture on camera without also causing a loss of focus in the photo (because the crystals are SO gemmy, that the camera looks right through the cores!). It has some of the sharpest and prettiest phantoms I have seen in a fluorite, and it is mesmerizing in person. It is complete all around 360 degrees and pristine save for a very small chip on one left crystal edge, which has been carefully restored (and invisibly so, I might add). This old specimen was from the first collection of Dr. Ed David (well known collector and scientist, and in fact the science advisor to the White House under President Nixon). He then bought it back after selling his first collection in 1993, and sold it to me in his second collection when that sold in 2003. I radically trimmed this down from a much larger specimen to accentuate the sharp crystals which were in the middle of a big matrix. This balanced piece now is much finer and in fact, in its size class, is one of my favorites I have seen from here. Joe Budd photos. Ex Dr. Ed David collection.