Analcime (excellent locality specimen) (collected: 1989)

Item Description

North Table Mountain is a prominent mesa, located northeast of downtown Golden, Colorado. The top of the mountain is capped by an ancient lava flow dating 62 to 64 million years old (Paleocene epoch). It's a famous historic locality dating back to the 1870s, and has produced iconic specimens of various zeolite specimens, i.e., Analcime, Thomsonite, Mesolite, Natrolite. etc. It should be noted that the area was open to collecting for decades, but it now part of Jefferson County Open Space, and collecting specimens is forbidden. This piece was personally collected by George Loud on September 27, 1989, and is one of the best Analcimes we've ever seen from the locality. Not only is it an impressive large cabinet, but the crystals are big for the locality and fine quality to boot! Dozens of excellent, sharp, textbook trapezohedral crystals of white Analcime measuring up to 2.0 cm across can be seen covering the front/display side of the underlying basalt matrix. Nearly every crystal is undamaged, outside of the periphery where it piece was separated from the pocket wall. Sometimes the Analcimes from this locality can be weathered and dull, but these crystals are well-formed and show good luster on certain faces. A truly impressive display specimen of this now very difficult to obtain material from one of the best-known "old" localities in Colorado.
Valued $3,000-$3,500
Ex George Loud Collection No. 450 CO.2; 0039. George (born August 16, 1942) is a well-known mineral collector from Washington, DC and South Carolina respectively, and was a patent lawyer by trade for over 50 years. He assembled one of the great mineral collections in the U.S., comprising worldwide specimens, and in later years he sold the worldwide specimens to focus on minerals of the United States, specifically locality suites with an emphasis on amazing representation of species while still maintaining fine quality. The specimens remarkably range from micros to all the way up to large cabinets in size. We recently acquired most of his impressive 9000+ piece collection, and the VAST majority of these pieces will be offered here in the auctions, as we feel that everyone deserves and equal opportunity at acquiring these important, well-documented and fine quality specimens for their collections.
See: https://mineralogicalrecord.com/biographies_labels/george-loud for more information