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specimen
Details
ColorsGrey
Origin
Mile 72, Cape Cross area, Arandis Constituency, Erongo Region, Namibia
SizeMiniature
Dimensions2.7 x 0.7 x 0.5 cm
Species
Description

These crystals are a Holy Grail of mineral collecting, but so few came out and nearly all were singles that it is nearly impossible to find one thumbnail specimen that stands above others, in a competitive sense. Specimens like this are what elevates a fine collection from the highly representative to the level of significance of the Schauss collection, overall. These are simply trophies of the mineral world. A single from the 1973 pocket would be a trophy already but this is something special, a cluster! For this species, they ALMOST never form clusters. This is one of the very very few clusters known to exist in any size at all. It was from the great pocket, collected in 1973, in the middle of literally nowhere... a find never repeated. The specimen is made up of a cornflower-blue spray of three crystals. It is complete all around. One of the rarest of gem minerals. Alex purchased this from John Veeveart - one of the original web mineral dealers and our old friend at the start of the internet mineral economy, now deceased. John obtained it from Cal Graeber, who was selling gem crystals from the personal collection of John Saul. Saul owned the Saul Ruby Mine in Kenya and was a huge gem dealer, based in Paris and Africa, with a secret private collection. Exhibited: The 2010 Tucson Gem and Mineral Show’s Paul Desautel Trophy for Best Mineral Display in Competition. These were literally found in a few small pockets at a dig at the mile marker column in the middle of nowhere in Swakopmund, where Charlie Key lived. He stumbled into the pocket on the market locally, and brought it out. Surviving specimens are almost unheard of on the market today. These do have a fundamentally different luster and look, in person, compared to other later finds of the same species in the Erongo mountains of Namibia.