Analcime

Item Description

A lovely small cabinet display specimen of Analcime from the Duingen clay pit in Lower Saxony, which according to mindat.org, dates back to 1862. This specimen features many fine quality, very sharp, well-formed, highly lustrous, white to colorless textbook trapezohedral crystals measuring up to 1.2 cm, on dark contrasting matrix. Nearly all of the crystals are undamaged, and many of the smaller ones are quite gemmy when you look at them closely. I've only seen a few of these over the years, and this one is certainly the best pieces we've had to offer in the auctions, as it's a rich specimen, with more crystals than I can remember on any other piece I've seen in the past.
From the collection of Kurt Hefendehl (#34 D), a well-known German collector all over Europe with worldwide contacts to dealers and collectors. He started collecting seriously at the age of 14 and his great and varied worldwide collection reached over 6000 pieces. He was very active mineralogically until shortly before his passing in 2020 at the age of 82. Considering his collection had a large number of pieces, it still had an unusually high standard of quality from most worldwide localities. He particularly specialized in all classics as well as minerals of the Black Forest, where he spent much time collecting. His Black Forest and German subcollections went to his good friend Wolfgang Wendel. We at The Arkenstone have the privilege of offering the remainder of this great worldwide collection for the foreseeable future through our various platforms.