Name: Smoky Quartz (Gwindel) with Smoky Quartz
Brand: The Arkenstone
Price: 9500 USD
Availability: InStock

Smoky Quartz (Gwindel) with Smoky Quartz - image 1

Updated 3d ago

Smoky Quartz (Gwindel) with Smoky Quartz

Gwindel quartz growths are strange, twisted quartz crystals that form only in high alpine environments today (well, they formed at depth under the mountain before it became today's alpine heights!); and the best come from Switzerland, Austria, Russia, and a few other localities in usually minor levels of play. However, sometimes the high alpine deposits of France surprise us and produce gwindels just as good as Swiss material! This is one such - unusually large for a French specimen as well, and purchased by Jack in 2007 from a dealer representing it for the well known German collector Wolfgang Henkel. Jack has notes that it was shown in a Lapis issue of April 2002, which we need to verify still. Historically, the smoky quartz from the Swiss localities have been most famous, and most highly valued for their exceptional glassy luster, clarity, and geometry. When a French piece echoes those same characteristics, it should be more highly valued in my opinion - and yet the market has so many "Swiss only" collectors that the great French pieces, such as this, truly seem relatively underpriced just by a quirk of geography rather than geology. The dramatic, isolated gwindel quartz crystal stands at 5.5 cm tall and is 7.0 cm across. Interestingly, the bottom is crystallized, not broken, as a contact with the original matrix.

$9,500.00