Afghanite, Pyrite and Calcite

Item Description

This is an important specimen for the size and shape of the afghanite crystal, nicely contrasted on matrix. The large crystal is 5.5 cm tall, and perched in its natural marble matrix. It is a monster for the species, and confirmed by xray analysis. Note the price Dr. Woodside paid, in the mid-2010s when these came out. He needed these for his study suite to try to understand the series of related minerals from this deposit (hauyne, sodalite, afghanite, nosean, etc). A fine display piece worthy of a museum. Fluorescent in SW and LW. Dr. Rob Woodside is a lifelong collector residing in Vancouver, who has built and sold several important systematic and silver collections to the Royal Ontario Museum. He kept for himself in retirement a worldwide collection of mixed minerals and a collection of Afghani minerals from the historic Lapis deposit in Sar E Sang. Rob literally wrote the article on Sar E Sang and the weird and complicated group of sodalite-hauyne-related minerals from there, analysing all; and any such samples here are from his study collection put together during decades of this material coming out at its peak diversity in the mid 2000s. His article is the subject of the 2014 special issue of Mineralogical Record - Famous mineral localities: The Sar-e-Sang lapis mines, Kuran Wa Munjan district, Badakhshan Province, Afghanistan. (note the attached label - Mountain Minerals supplied most of Woodside's study collection of Afghani material; and this was $6500)