Aquamarine with Albite and Muscovite (''floater'' specimen)

Item Description

There are a lot of places in the world these days where you can get a good quality specimen of Aquamarine. But if you go back about 40 years, there was very little available on the market in terms of good crystals of Aquamarine for collectors. Prior to Pakistan, most of the Aquamarine crystals in the world from places like Brazil or Russia were loose singles off matrix. This beautiful and showy small cabinet display specimen features a predominant, sharp, lustrous, gemmy, blocky hexagonal crystal group of Aquamarine with a secondary slender crystal flaring off the side. At first you might dismiss the secondary Aqua as being broken, but if you look closely on the underside of the specimen, you'll see that it's completely recrystallized ("re-healed") and is a "floater" with no point of attachment. Originally it was connected to the pocket wall, but was likely shaken loose due to tectonic activity, and the piece finished crystallizing at the spot where it was detached. You can clearly see small crystallized faces on the underside of the piece, whether it be with a loupe or the naked eye. Additionally, small groups of white bladed white Albite (var: Cleavelandite) and silvery-beige Muscovite can be seen for a nice accent. I can't find any major damage anywhere on the piece. No etching, just incredibly smooth, well-formed faces all over the display side of the Aqua crystals. A great example of this classic material from this storied part of Pakistan. Priced in the inventory at $2,000. Specimen weight is 112.88 grams.