Fluorite with Quartz

$3,000.00

$40.00 shipping
Seller offers an extended return window of up to 30 days
Ships from USA

Crystal ClassicsFeatured

Tucson, Arizona, USA

7,543 for sale·132 sold

The Le Burg mine (Le Burc mine), is one of the most famous Fluorite mines in France, and indeed the world. Started in antiquity as a copper mine it was reopened for fluorspar in 1954 and operated until 2006, eventually having produced 650,000 tons of fluorspar. This single cubic crystal of Fluorite from Le Burg mine might only be miniature in size, but is certainly large in character. At up to 27 mm on edge this small miniature specimen is best displayed with back lighting. At first glance it might look to be a brownish, or yellow-brown colour, but with back lighting the main body colour becomes pale cream to straw-yellow and stunning electric-blue parallel bands following the internal cubic form appear. These blue zones, of which there are three, can be viewed in several directions and are very crisply defined, several being very thin lines to about 1.5 mm in thickness. A cluster of small bipyramidal colourless to white Quartz crystals to about 6 mm in length are attached to one crystal surface of the Fluorite, adding to its character. There is some minor chipping seen on the lower edges of the Fluorite, and of course the rear is missing where it was detached from matrix, but these colour-zoned crystals are now rarely available and optically beautiful. A quite lovely specimen of this classic zoned Fluorite from this world-famous mine.