Calcite

Unknown Owner

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This small cabinet specimen of Calcite from the Pallaflat mine at Bigrigg in west Cumbria features the classic pencil-shaped gemmy, colourless prismatic Calcite crystals for which the mines around Bigrigg are famous. Measuring up to 3.3 cm in length, the crystals form an open cluster over a matrix of brick red to orange brown botryoidal Hematite. All Calcite crystals beautifully exhibit the complex terminations so characteristic of this mining region, which have elevated Cumbria Calcites to some of the best in the world. There is minor abrasion to the tips of a couple of the crystals, but they are still extremely fine for their age. This excellent and showy specimen is accompanied with an unprovenanced handwritten label which appears to date to the early 1900s.