Parisite

Unknown Owner

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An exquisite, tabular, lustrous and translucent crystal with an orangey-brown color... notable for any rare species, Parisite or not. This was one of the earliest pieces to come out of this region, in fact even before the locality was understood. There has now been a write-up on it. It was sold by a Pakistani dealer to Dr. William Pinch as a bastnaesite - rare, but much more common than a parisite of this magnitude. It is a shockingly large and transparent gem crystal for this species! The shape is entirely different than any other parisite I have seen, from Colombia or Malawi or even from Zagi Mountain now after another decade of on and off production. Pinch was suspicious, for reasons I would never have understood myself as he actually is a genius of mineralogy, and had the piece x-rayed to confirm his hunch that it was not bastnaesite. To me, by exchange. Ex. Bill Pinch and Ed David collections.