Smithsonite

Unknown Owner

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Just say the word "Kelly" and visions of superb blue Smithsonites pop into the mind. And here is one of them! You can see just by looking at it that it is a really old piece of style quite different than the more contemporary botryoidal growths we see on the market. These crystals, affectionately called "rice-grains," are often mentioned in old accounts of the Kelly but in practice are exceedingly hard to find for sale or in collections in the modern day. This one has superb LARGE "rice-grain" crystals with wonderful blue color and a lustrous velvety texture. It has a long history and is just waiting for its next lucky home: It originated in the collection of noted dealer WC Hart (see MR vol. 12 pages 135-136 from 1981 for notes on his career) who was an avid collector and dealer in the 1920s and 1930s. It passed from his daughter to collector John Almquist, in 1981. Then, it went to dealer Dave Crawford through a trade, and he eventually sold it to John Barlow in whose collection it resided til 1998 when I obtained it and sold the piece to the previous owner - it hasn't been on the public market, to my knowledge, since the time of Hart himself.