Albite & Cleavelandite (RARE combo) Bill Larson Coll.

Item Description

A VERY RARE and showy small cabinet combination from the less well-known Esmeralda Mine, near the famed Himalaya Mine. Two sharp, textbook, lustrous, translucent porcelaneous albite crystals, to 2.1 x 1.9 x 1.2 cm, are jauntily perched atop the mounded matrix of clusters of bone-white bladed cleavelandite nicely accented with a cluster of muscovite plates. Mining started in 1899 and apparently ceased around 1909. John Sinkankas and others explored the pegmatite between 1956 and the mid-1960s, when this fine rarity was collected. See MINDAT: https://www.mindat.org/loc-91270.html and the 2002 Mineralogical Record issue, Vol. 33, No. 5 for more information on the mine. Ex Bill Larson San Diego County Pegmatite Collection and long on display at his Pala International shop in Fallbrook. A rare, perhaps unique albite and cleavelandite combination from the mine.