Creedite from the Navidad Mine is one of the great “available classics” of modern Mexican mineral collecting: distinctive enough to recognize across a room, abundant enough that serious collectors can still acquire fine examples, and good enough that the best pieces stand comfortably among world-class creedites. The hallmark is the orange to burnt-orange floater cluster—rounded balls and intergrown rosettes bristling with sharp, glassy, radiating blades. Many specimens look less like ordinary matrix pieces than crystallized sea urchins or flower heads, with individual creedite prisms thrusting outward in all directions from a hidden core.
Photo: Wikimedia Commons
The setting is a vuggy, brecciated fluorite vein system in Durango. Massive fluorite was the economic product, but the same open, broken vein architecture that made mining possible also made pockets. In those clay-filled and oxidized voids, low-temperature, fluorine-rich solutions precipitated creedite, Ca3Al2(SO4)(OH)2F8·2H2O, as radiating aggregates, blades, and balls. The mine’s chemistry is written directly into the specimens: fluorite chips may be trapped in or on the creedite; green and purple fluorite can provide dramatic contrast; and white gearksutite, quartz, or chalcedony may form a sparkling or pale matrix beneath the orange spray.
The locality has an unusual collector history because it changed the market for the species. Before the major Mexican finds became widely available, excellent crystallized creedite was a much more elusive prize. Navidad made attractive, three-dimensional, well-crystallized creedite attainable, while still producing a top tier of showy cabinet specimens with size, luster, completeness, and color that remain highly desirable.
Photo: Wikimedia Commons
Collectors look first for the classic complete floater form: a balanced sphere or cluster of interlocking balls, crystallized on all sides, with no obvious attachment scar. The best orange pieces have bright vitreous luster, gemmy to translucent crystals, strong saturated color without excessive brown inclusions, sharp undamaged tips, and enough openness between sprays to reveal individual crystal form. Rarer Navidad material includes pale lavender to pink-lavender creedite, especially when perched on green and purple fluorite; these pieces are visually different from the familiar orange balls and are particularly sought after when the association is strong and the creedite is undamaged.
Search for specimens: View all creedite specimens from Navidad Mine, Mexico
The precise modern locality is Navidad Mine, Indé Municipality, Durango, Mexico. Older labels commonly read “Mina Navidad,” “Abasolo Mine,” “Rodeo Mine,” or simply “Rodeo, Durango.” Those older attributions are understandable but imprecise: Abasolo and Rodeo are settlement or municipality names that became attached to the specimen trade, while the mine itself is in Indé Municipality. For collection labels, “Navidad Mine, Indé Municipality, Durango, Mexico” is the cleanest current form.
Navidad is primarily a fluorite deposit. The ore occurs as massive, banded green and purple fluorspar in a northwest-southeast vein system that has been described as vuggy and brecciated. Fluorite is the economic commodity, while creedite is the collector’s treasure formed in oxidized, fluorine-rich void environments. The vein system also yields octahedral fluorite specimens, many as plates of intergrown octahedra, commonly associated with quartz or chalcedony.
Geologically, the broader setting belongs to the fluorite-rich mineral belts of north-central Mexico, where carbonate rocks, volcanic rocks, hydrothermal fluids, and later oxidation created favorable conditions for fluorite and secondary aluminum-fluorine minerals. In practical specimen terms, the important point is that Navidad creedite formed in open spaces: clay-filled breccia voids, vugs, and cavities where crystals could grow outward without being flattened against a wall. This is why the best pieces are floaters, balls, and rosettes rather than simple crusts.
The mine has been exploited intermittently for decades. Modern accounts record an opening date in the late 1940s, with later production tied to industrial fluorspar demand and access improvements. Specimen production has never been continuous in the way collectors might wish. It has come in pulses: early material that introduced the mine to the collector market, important orange productions through the early 2000s, strong finds around 2005–2011, a memorable August 2009 production of intense orange balls, and a limited late-2019 discovery of pale pink to lavender creedite on fluorite.
Navidad’s collecting access should be treated as mining access, not as a casual field-collecting locality. It is an industrial mine with underground workings, open cuts, unstable ground, and private mineral rights. Most collector specimens have come through miners, mine-connected buyers, Mexican and international dealers, and later collections. Anyone considering field access would need explicit permission from the land and mineral-rights holders and appropriate mine-safety arrangements.
Notable finds include the classic orange “starburst” balls, large intergrown cabinet pieces, creedite with contrasting purple or green fluorite fragments, and the much scarcer lavender-to-pink creedite on fluorite from late 2019. The latter material is important because it departs from the usual Navidad look: instead of orange hedgehog-like floaters, it appears as paler flower-like groups or drusy fan-shaped sprays on fluorite matrix, sometimes with light violet color.
Navidad creedite is famous for radiating aggregates: balls, rosettes, sprays, and intergrown clusters of bladed to short-prismatic crystals. Many specimens are true or near floaters, crystallized nearly all around, and some show no obvious point of attachment. The crystals are typically sharp, vitreous, and translucent to gemmy. Individual blades are commonly several millimeters long; attractive cabinet examples may carry crystals around 1 cm, while exceptional crystals reach into the 1.5–2 cm range.
The classic color is orange: pale honey-orange, bright mandarin, burnt orange, orange-brown, or orange grading to colorless at the tips. Some pieces show zoning, with more saturated color near crystal bases or included zones and clearer terminations. Brown to black inclusions can darken the tone; in moderation they give Navidad pieces their earthy orange fire, but heavy inclusions reduce transparency and appeal. Colorless to pale pieces occur as well, and violet to pink-lavender examples are much rarer.
The most recognizable form is the complete ball, sometimes a single sphere and sometimes a chain of fused spheres. These are often described as starbursts because the external crystals project outward from a massive or radiating creedite core. Another important habit is the flower-like cluster, especially on the 2019 lavender material, where small sharp crystals form pale pink to lavender sprays on green and purplish fluorite.
Associated minerals are a major part of the locality’s identity. Fluorite is the signature association—massive, cleaved, octahedral, green, purple, or pinkish-purple. Some creedites include small fluorite fragments caught among the blades, creating green or violet accents. Quartz and chalcedony are common in the fluorite specimens and may be present as pale matrix. Gearksutite occurs locally as a sparkly white association, and the locality list also includes calcite, goethite, hematite, jarosite, kaolinite, leucophosphite, lipscombite, dufrénite, cacoxenite, marcasite, strengite, and related secondary species.
Quality is judged by four main factors: completeness, crystal sharpness, color, and condition. A complete floater ball with strong orange color, bright luster, transparent crystals, and minimal broken tips is the classic high-grade Navidad creedite. Large cabinet pieces are impressive, but because the crystals project outward in all directions, size often comes with contact marks or peripheral damage. Rarer lavender pieces are evaluated somewhat differently: the strength of the creedite-on-fluorite composition, color, and association can outweigh sheer size.
The main authenticity issue with Navidad creedite is usually not outright fakery but locality precision. Older labels reading Abasolo, Rodeo, Mina Rodeo, or Navidad/Abasolo commonly refer to the same specimen-producing mine. A modern label should normalize the locality to Navidad Mine, Indé Municipality, Durango, Mexico, while preserving the older label information for provenance.
Condition is the central collecting concern. Creedite is brittle, relatively soft, and built as radiating sprays of exposed tips. Navidad balls can look pristine from the front while hiding broken points around the base or underside. Under magnification, expect some edge wear on many larger pieces; the question is whether damage is confined to inconspicuous contact areas or interrupts the display face. The finest examples have intact terminations across the principal viewing surface and minimal bruising on high points.
The floater habit makes assessment easier in one respect and harder in another. A true all-around floater is very desirable, but it also means nearly every surface is exposed to handling and transport damage. When buying remotely, ask for multiple angles, close-ups of the crystal tips, and a view of any base or attachment area. For orange specimens, also ask whether the piece is stable in its mount or needs a custom base; many spherical pieces are awkward to display safely without one.
Treatments are more relevant to associated fluorite and matrix than to creedite itself. Navidad fluorite specimens are known in the trade for acid cleaning of silica coatings, sun-bleaching of dark purple fluorite toward pink, and occasional artificial luster enhancement. On creedite specimens with fluorite or quartz matrix, inspect matrix surfaces for chalky, pitted, unnaturally white, or resinous-looking areas. Creedite itself is too delicate for aggressive cleaning, and any attempt to improve a rough specimen can easily round or break terminations.
Rarity is tiered. Small orange clusters and partial balls remain available on the market because the mine produced them in quantity. Fine small-cabinet and cabinet floaters with strong color and excellent condition are scarcer. Large complete orange balls, especially those above 10 cm with intact crystals, are much scarcer still. Lavender or pink-lavender creedite from the 2019-style finds, particularly on green and purple fluorite, is a specialty item and should not be priced like ordinary orange material.
As of the current market, Navidad creedite remains obtainable through specialist dealers, auctions, collection dispersals, and online mineral marketplaces. The affordable end includes small orange clusters with some damage or partial crystallization. Better small-cabinet pieces with strong form and color occupy the serious collector range. The premium pieces are complete floaters, large balls, unusual lavender examples, and attractive creedite-on-fluorite combinations with documented provenance.
Navidad’s name sounds simple—“Christmas”—but the fuller name recorded for the mine, Clarines de Navidad, is richer: “Christmas Trumpets.” It is an oddly musical name for a fluorspar mine in the dry country northwest of Rodeo, and it suits the specimens better than expected. The best balls really do look as if they are sounding in all directions, each blade a small orange horn projecting from the core.
The mine’s first fame among collectors was not creedite at all. It was fluorite: pink to purple octahedra on white chalcedony plates, often from smaller cross-veins cutting the main fluorspar ore. One account records miners using lunch breaks to cleave fluorite octahedra for sale to buyers in El Rodeo and Durango. That little detail captures the way many Mexican specimen localities entered the collector world—not by formal specimen mining at first, but by working miners recognizing that the pretty things in the ore had a second life outside the mill.
The creedite story took longer. Mexican creedite did not become widely important until the late 1970s finds at Aquiles Serdán in Chihuahua drew collector attention to the species. At Navidad, miners were later alerted by dealers and began preserving creedite in the mid-1980s. The early pieces were transparent, pale reddish-orange, and roughly an inch long—modest compared with later productions, but interesting enough to be noticed at the 1988 Nürnberg show and to receive mention in the collector literature the following year.
By the late 1990s the mine was producing a livelier range of specimens. A 1999 report described Stan Esbenshade of Midwestern Minerals collecting plates of pink to purple octahedral fluorite near Rodeo, with individual crystals averaging about 2 cm and some prominent singles reaching 5 cm. In the same period he also obtained lustrous creedite balls ranging from about 1 cm to 15 cm across. Some were effectively creedite-cemented plates and fragments of chalcedonic quartz casts after octahedral fluorite; others included chunks of purple fluorite, giving a sharp contrast against the white to orange creedite.
The August 2009 find became one of the locality’s defining moments. A deeper exploration tunnel reportedly encountered two pockets of unusually intense orange creedite. One documented specimen from that production measured 13.9 x 10.9 x 9.0 cm and weighed 1,235 grams—a small melon-sized creedite egg, complete nearly all around, covered with sharp pointy crystals over 1 cm long. That same account notes that the entry later collapsed, making redevelopment unlikely. Whether every part of that story can be generalized to the mine as a whole is less important than what it tells us about Navidad collecting: the best material came from brief windows, fragile pockets, and workings that could vanish as quickly as they appeared.
A decade later, the mine surprised collectors again. In late 2019, pale violet to lavender creedite appeared on green and purple fluorite, very different from the orange balls that had defined the locality. Fabre Minerals described some of the Tucson 2020 material as coming from old galleries, which would explain why it resembled a few older collection pieces while still looking new to many collectors. Those specimens rewrote the visual range of Navidad: not merely orange floaters, but also delicate lavender sprays on fluorite matrix.
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