Vanadinite

Unknown Owner

Help improve this recordNo owner is registered for this specimen yet. If it's yours or you know more about it, you can add the owner, provenance, publications and other details.

The Mibladen Mining District at Midelt, Khénifra Province, Meknès-Tafilalet Region, Morocco has produced the world's best Vanadinite crystals by quite some margin. Prior to their discovery in the 1990s most would cite the Apache mine in Gila County, Arizona as the finest. They certainly had superb colour, but never the size of the Moroccan material. Indeed, the scale of discoveries in Morocco have been quite amazing and remarkably long-lived which has pushed up the standards of what is considered a fine specimen. The very best Moroccan Vanadinites have not only an intense red to orange-red colour, but an insanely 'wet' lustre, but also require crystal perfection. Ideally, they should display an unusual crystallographic form, but in large displayable dimensions. This fine large miniature specimen from the superb systematic collection assembled by the brothers Martin and Michael Günther (1951-2007 & 1956-2021) has the highest quality colour, lustre and displays unusual 'hoppered' hexagonal crystals with peculiar edge modifications. Furthermore, many of the crystals have a remarkable translucency, rarely seen, providing an internal 'fire' to the crystals. A superb Vanadinite miniature, mounted on an acryllic base for display.