Amethyst (ex Willard Wulff Collection)

Item Description

Brazilian Amethysts are among the most impressive, large, richly colored display specimens of the material in the world. Pieces from Rio Grande do Sul and various other Brazilian localities are beloved not only by collectors, but can be found in museums, galleries and even on the sets of Hollywood shows and movies. The beautiful color along with impressive crystallization makes for a great combo, especially considering that if you take away Amethyst, there are very few purple minerals in the world that occur in good sized display specimens. Fine sharp, very lustrous, well-formed, blocky, hexagonal crystals of beautiful purple Amethyst cover the display side of this wonderful cabinet specimen. There might be a few tiny nicks here and there, but it's in good shape for the material. The luster really makes the piece stand out in my mind. The hues range from a soft lilac "Rose de France" tone to a darker purple color in areas, and I can see inclusions of some kind of iron oxide (Hematite, Goethite, Lepidocrocite ?). The largest crystal measures 2.2 cm across. This specimen comes from the collection of Willard W. Wulff (1904-1998) of Colorado Springs, Colorado, a prominent figure and collector of Colorado minerals. Wulff was one of the founding members of the Colorado Springs Mineralogical Society in 1936. You can read Willard's bio on the Mineralogical Record website here ( http://www.minrec.org/labels.asp?colid=1528 ). The piece comes with a typed label from Wulff on one of his famous 3x5 index cards. Fine quality, better in person and just beautiful. This particular piece was simply labeled as coming from "Brazil", so we're leaving it at that.